Man, bump, zone...?
 

Okay, so I've been wondering if anyone has any strategies on how they decide how often to play man, bump, and zone. Anyone have any ideas to share on the subject?

I am usually willing to go in either direction:

-I will design the coverage scheme around my cornerbacks' best skills
or
-I will design a scheme, and then acquire corners who specialize appropriately

I think a CB's most important skill is in the one type of coverage that you use most highly... especially if you depend on one system heavily (for more than 2/3 of your plays, for instance).


My latest efforts were with a scheme that dictated very high man coverage... and I made a point to pursue corners whose skills complied. Worked out awfully well.

I thought this was going to be some sort of beatnik riff post.

Okay, I guess here's what I'm really getting at. In order to start focusing on one type of coverage, I guess I need to clear up what is 'balanced' -- is it 20's in each field, or 33 in man, 33 in bump, and 11 in each type of zone? Should the fact that there are three types of zone listed affect my decision-making, or should I just treat them all as 'zone'?

For example, my HFL team has players that are better at man and bump, then they are at zone. However, the scout's recommendation suggests 23 at man, 25 at bump, 17 at 2-deep, 18 at 3-deep, and 17 at 4-deep (in normal situations). That's 52% zone! Now, even assuming that my scout missed the boat that zone is our weakness. Shouldn't he suggest we run zone something more like 33% of the time?

On the other hand, my eNFL team is highly zone-oriented -- in fact, quite a few guys on my roster are there only because they're good at zone defense, and not much else (option 2 from QS, which began out of option 1 from QS (although I include safeties in my reasoning as well)). The recommendation is not much different -- 24 man, 24 bump, 18 2-deep, 18 3-deep, and 16 4-deep. 52% zone again. Meanwhile, my own eNFL gameplan runs it 85-90% of the time.

Without giving too much info to a fellow competitor in the eNFL, I find the AI recommendations for coverage almost completely useless as they don't seem to weigh what my current DB's are good at (among other reasons.)

Don't leave this up to your staff, if you want it done right.

if your CBs are better with man and bump... use something like 60% man, 30% bump, and just a smattering of zone. Or even more stilted in favor of what you prefer. No need to diversify much just because the defaults are pretty balanced.

The gameplan I described above is about 75% man, 25% bump, and no zone at all, ever.

If you use almost exclusively one type of coverage, can't the opposing offense beat it through play selection?

For example, if your DBs are best at zone coverage, so you call zone defense 90% of the time, wouldn't the opposing offense just call a whole lot of "seam" pass plays that are designed to beat a zone?

And if you play man coverage 90% of the time, wouldn't the offense just call pass plays specifically designed to beat man coverage (I'm not sure what that is, maybe play action)?

It seems like no matter what your players are best at, it's always bad to be too predictable.

Or maybe FOF doesn't simulate this? (I don't know).

What specifically does Bump and Run do? I know man is obviously 1vs1 coverage, Zone covers parts of the field. Bump is when the CB beat the hell out of the WR at the line, and then cover the short stuff, while the Safeties get deep routes?

Even if they get used to the D, would yuou rather run a defense you suck at and have them torch you that way?

I really expected this thread to go in a completely different direction...

Yeah, as anyone who's torched me in the fourth quarter knows(especially you pyser), i need this advice :).

woohoo! a shoutout! i still dont know how king ran that 2 minute drill. hes rated a 0/1 in 2-minute offense. 0!

i was hoping this thread would slide on down without many enfl-ers catching it, but...oh well.

I generally pick one type of coverage and run it 100% of the time in all situations.