FOF 2007 Pass D's
 

In 2004 you could play one pass D exclusively with a fair amount of success with the right personnel.

Anyone know if Jim has addressed this issue in 2007, so we have to mix things up a little more?

I've run no tests on this yet, but from reading the help file, it is pretty clear that you're going to want DB's with different skills for different situations.

I'm currently running a fictional team and built it through a preference draft, set QB priority to the max, secondary the next best at 3 clicks to the right, D-line one click to the right, LB reduced 2 clicks, RB reduced a couple clicks, and kicker reduced 3 clicks. Used both my offense (which I was sure the most thought out) and that same radical run D. I figured my 74/74 QB would be awesome and the D would be interesting. I hoped to win 10-11 games. I went 15-1, the QB and offense were so-so, and that radical run D was brilliant. Pitched 4 shutouts, allowed 7.6 points pergame. I also have two 70+ CBs to compliment the extreme run-D. I really think the way to go on D is grab two maniacal lockdown corners and set the D to a ridiculous run stopping level and watch the fun.

Good luck with keeping the personnel to execute that strategy, especially in MP.

Thanks guys. Interesting article Leonidas, kind of you to share your research rather than wipe the floor with everyone! As you say though, beating AI and humans are a different proposition. I guess when you make your strategy well known that could work against you, everyone will try to expose that run commitment. Perhaps.. Although maybe the DB personnel you have will be enough to counter the issue.

Eh, why was this an issue? I like the arbitrage opportunities in 2k4 that are being removed in this version. I don't like the idea of just looking for the CBs with the best overall rating for example.

I'll test this over the weekend to see if it's really the case.

I'd be real interested to see what you can dig up. I tried at least half a dozen ideas for pass defense and couldn't find anything that made a consistent, significant change in performance. Shoot, I couldn't even make it worse.

I'm gonna try some experiments by creating my own personal online league so I can jack with the opponents gameplans and see what happens. That information I am not likely to share.

If I'm reading correctly, though -- this was a test being run basically with a "given" roster, correct? Meaning that, I presume, your DBs had some scattered ratings in the various types of coverages.

Seems to me the real test comes when a team can be built that mostly has players who have organized coverage styles. In FOF 2004, this was a nice "arbitrage" opportunity (I like that term) to get cheaper, easier-to-find players who were mostly skilled in one, or even two, coverages -- and then build your defense around that.

So far, I have heard a lot of grumblings suggesting that this strategy is now out the window -- but not a lot to back that up. Your testing with stock rosters is very interesting to me, but the normalization of the skills actually gets in the way of one factor that is pretty important here.

In my mind, thihs remains a fairly unanswered question... perhaps now that the specifics of the strengths and weaknesses of each coverage style are documented, it won't be easy to get away with this in a MP league -- but for SP, I'm not sure we've really proven much on this front yet.

I haven't even played around with coverage styles. I just looked at the basic gameplan screen and the defensive personnel screen. Not that I'm not interested in coverages, I just only have so much time in the day and haven't gotten to it. In fact I took a step backward today and am testing some of my FoF2007 theories on 2004 to help me with an online league I'm in.