Double Coverage

[Hammer]

I'm finding that double coverage doesn't seem to have a whole lot of effect on quality WRs. I wonder if the modifier put in to represent this isn't strong enough. A quality WR seems to make the catch in double coverage more often than not from my experience.

In real football you do have the option to commit to shuting a stud WR out of the game. You might not see it often, I guess when you have 1 great WR and the rest are useless. I just can't find a way to do that in FOF. I'm still getting 10 catches for 170 yards type figures despite very high (even tried 100%) double coverage.

The defense in question is not at fault in particular. I just seem to struggle when faced with top tier WRs regardless of the coverage employed.

It makes me wonder if read defense on a QB is as important as I thought. If he can complete to the no.1 WR in double coverage is it that important to find the lesser receiver in single coverage?

[Noop]

Play M2M and BnR with a cover 2 over the top with your LB's blitz'n not for sacks but for pressure. Because how I see it if your double covering someone then that means you are only pressuring with four give the QB ample time to deliver the ball.

[Hammer]

Tried that :) I have got 8 even 10 sacks in a game on occaision, but it never quite seems to transfer to stopping the superstar WR. If the QB remains upright the WR can beat the coverage more often than not. What I haven't tried is matching him up on an equally good CB. Still, double coverage from 2 average starters ought to be better than the coverage an all star CB can provide...

[jzicc]

Tried that :) I have got 8 even 10 sacks in a game on occaision, but it never quite seems to transfer to stopping the superstar WR. If the QB remains upright the WR can beat the coverage more often than not. What I haven't tried is matching him up on an equally good CB. Still, double coverage from 2 average starters ought to be better than the coverage an all star CB can provide...

Just a real swag at the formula but my guess is that in a double coverage situation the predictive value for the defender's defense is = to 2/3 the corner's rating + 1/2 the FS' rating (usually the double cover-er) --- therefore you can see that it's hard to overcome a poor corner against a great WR ---

[MrBigglesworth]

Just a real swag at the formula but my guess is that in a double coverage situation the predictive value for the defender's defense is = to 2/3 the corner's rating + 1/2 the FS' rating (usually the double cover-er) --- therefore you can see that it's hard to overcome a poor corner against a great WR ---
Using that formula, it's possible that double teaming someone would actually be worse than giving them single coverage. I find that counter-intuitive.

[jzicc]

Using that formula, it's possible that double teaming someone would actually be worse than giving them single coverage. I find that counter-intuitive.

1st off I said it was a swag --- Secondly -- not real sure of your math but intuitively it's pretty close

CB 50 and FS =76 result = 71;
CB 75 and FS = 50 result = 75 an average FS isn't going to help much more than a very good corner going at it alone
CB 75 and FS = 76 result = 88
CB 50 and FS 50 = 58

Lastly, this formula would help to explain why double coverage isn't as effective as one would hope

AGAIN THIS IS A SWAG

[MrBigglesworth]

1st off I said it was a swag --- Secondly -- not real sure of your math but intuitively it's pretty close

CB 50 and FS =76 result = 71;
CB 75 and FS = 50 result = 75 an average FS isn't going to help much more than a very good corner going at it alone
CB 75 and FS = 76 result = 88
CB 50 and FS 50 = 58

CB 99 and FS 50 = 91
CB 60 and FS 30 = 55

[jzicc]

See -- in both cases the FS gets in the way of your CB lol

first case (not much diff between 99 and 91 -- do you really think that if you double someone with a 99 CB that you should get a value higher than 100 ??? --- I'm sure Jim has a limiting function that always ensures that the result is at the minimum CB value + 5)
and the 30 FS (are you really playing with a 30 FS????????) trips into your CB (again not much difference between 60 and 55)

AND FOR THE LAST TIME, lol, I said it was a SWAG -- come up with something yourself rather than just trying to poke hole in my statement....


Okay my new iteration : 2/3 CB + 1/2 FS unless result is less than CB then result = CB + 5 (with a 100 max) --------



have fun with that one for a while...

[Warhammer]

I'm finding that double coverage doesn't seem to have a whole lot of effect on quality WRs. I wonder if the modifier put in to represent this isn't strong enough. A quality WR seems to make the catch in double coverage more often than not from my experience.

In real football you do have the option to commit to shuting a stud WR out of the game. You might not see it often, I guess when you have 1 great WR and the rest are useless. I just can't find a way to do that in FOF. I'm still getting 10 catches for 170 yards type figures despite very high (even tried 100%) double coverage.

The defense in question is not at fault in particular. I just seem to struggle when faced with top tier WRs regardless of the coverage employed.

It makes me wonder if read defense on a QB is as important as I thought. If he can complete to the no.1 WR in double coverage is it that important to find the lesser receiver in single coverage?

Don't forget, he might be making many of those catches against something other than CBs. I found that out recently, sometimes it is against LBs or the safeties to begin with.

[MrBigglesworth]

do you really think that if you double someone with a 99 CB that you should get a value higher than 100 ??? --- I'm sure Jim has a limiting function that always ensures that the result is at the minimum CB value + 5)
The values aren't 0-100, but actually are something like 375-625. And there is no reason why they can't be higher when a combination is used. If I had Lito Sheppard (say he is a 99) double TO with Brian Dawkins (let's say another 99), I would expect the coverage to be better than just Sheppard alone, and thus over '100'.

(are you really playing with a 30 FS????????)
Every player that I draft does not come into the league with 99 ratings.

Okay my new iteration : 2/3 CB + 1/2 FS unless result is less than CB then result = CB + 5 (with a 100 max) --------
Wouldn't it be a lot simpler if it were just CB + X FS, where X is some value between 0 and 1? Your original thing could be right, I have no data, but it just seems counter-intuitive.

[jzicc]

The values aren't 0-100, but actually are something like 375-625.

since the player scale is 0 to 100 it was easiest to reference the double team being on that scale also...and to what are you referring with this 375-625 (are you holding back :eek: on something); lol -- hope you aren't as picky with your significant other

[MrBigglesworth]

since the player scale is 0 to 100 it was easiest to reference the double team being on that scale also...and to what are you referring with this 375-625 (are you holding back :eek: on something); lol -- hope you aren't as picky with your significant other
The draft file generator for 2k4 has this in the help file:

Columns H - AV: Player Ratings.

Ratings in each category are on a 375-625 basis. These ratings are not exact. When a new career begins, Front Office Football uses the ratings in the draft file only as a general guideline. Internal ratings are on a 0-1000 scale, and are partially determined by random chance. This adds to the replay value of the game, as you can not count on a player being a superstar or a dud in each new career.

There is an option, when starting a new game of Front Office Football, to be more exact when importing ratings. What this does is greatly lessen the variability of the ratings selected for individual categories. A "550" in a rating will always be better than a "500". Without that option selected, the "500" could be better than the "550" in some random instances.

Here's a list of the frequency Overall Player Ratings are assigned in the default data file:

600-625 - Rare Superstar - 0.3%
575-599 - Superstar - 1.4%
550-574 - Near Superstar - 1.8%
525-549 - Elite Starter - 1.7%
500-524 - Excellent Starter - 3.5%
475-499 - Very Good-Plus Starter - 4.3%
450-474 - Very Good Starter - 6.0%
425-449 - Good Starter - 16.2%
400-424 - Replacement-Level Starter (decent backup) - 27.2%
375-399 - Roster Filler - 37.6%
I guess I was wrong and internal ratings are actually 0-1000. What people suspect (and I think it has been confirmed by Jim) is that the 375-625 range means that a player with a 60 in a skill is not twice as better as a person with a 30 in a skill (except for scramble frequency). It might actually be 525 compared to 420 in the actual rating.

My point though (which I probably explained stupidly) was that there is no reason why a value couldn't be above 100, because the CB+FS value wouldn't represent a percentage but would rather just be a modifier to be compared against the skills of the WR and QB.

I see you just started posting, if you never came here for FOF2k4 there is a lot of great info in the FOF2k4 strategies section of the forum, a lot of which is still operative.

[michael1123]

I just played a game where double coverage worked amazingly.

I'm playing a historical game and was against the 49ers in the playoffs. As you would expect Rice is a god in my game, and he gets thrown to a ton. Young is also a god, but their running backs really sucked this year. I play my playoff games out in pbp and my gameplan was to play nickel almost the entire game (party due to my WLB being very weak as well) and double team Rice on almost every play. If they killed me in the running game so be it, I had to try and limit Young and Rice as much as possible, particularly since I had a lot of injuries on offense.

I barely won the game (19-13 with a late 2 minute SF drive that failed), but looking at the stat sheet afterwards I was amazed at how effective my double teaming was. I limited Rice to 40 yards (his 5th lowest yardage total in a game in the 6 full years of this game) and no touchdowns. He only caught 3 of the 12 passes targeted at him, while over his career he's caught 64.4%!

I also amazingly limited Young (86/86, 3 time league MVP and best QB in this game by far) to a 38% pass completion rate and a QB rating of 53.4, even though I didn't get any picks. They did run for 109 yards on only 16 carries (took the lead early), but shutting down their passing game, and namely Rice, was enough to secure the win.

I do have a top cornerback (78/78) though, and good safeties. Perhaps if you don't have enough talent in your secondary even if you're double teaming a guy isn't enough to shut down a top reciever. But the combination of a top CB and double teaming seems to be real effective.

[jzicc]

What are your safety's ratings and your nickel CB's? Was SF going 3 WR most of the time (since you said you were going nickel)?

[michael1123]

I was going with nickel on basically every play that wasn't a short yardage situation, but switched to 4-3 when it was. My FS is 60 overall (all of my secondary is at their full potential), SS 57 (great in run defense but weak in pass defense) and both safeties also had minor injuries and were listed as probable. Top CB 78, with my other 60, but he was seriously injured very early in the game. My nickel CB who became my starter at this point was 47.

I was also regularly blitzing one player and have a real good defensive line and was able to create a lot of pressure (3 sacks and 12 hurries), so that certainly helped matters. But Rice, who is by far the most talented WR on the team, was easily their least effective target.

Their backs caught all 4 passes to them, but I also held their second best WR to catching 4 of 11 passes for 68 yards, and their 3rd best WR caught 2 of 4 for 25 yards.

[jzicc]

Were the 49rs in 3 wr versus your nickel ? I assume YOUNG's Read D is pretty high (and his Sense Rush)? Obviously pressure played a large part - It would be real interesting to see what happens without the crazy pressure...