I think the most useful way to think about systems like this in FOF is to somewhat forget what you know about real football, and think of it as a math exercise (designed to simulate the real thing).
So, in real football... sure, the left side CB is man-up with the WR on that side, and has primary coverage there. But the whole scheme counts, too... if the free safety on that side gets pulled off his secondary coverage duty, it changes the play. On a certain level, the whole defensive structure matters, even for just those two guys "on an island."
So, in FOF... coverage is probably best thought of as a "cloud" function, where a soup is developed including the relevant ratings for multiple players. In doing so, the game probably recognizes a certain defender as key/central/whatever, and maybe his coverage rating/s get used extra, maybe a lot extra, as a modifier to this "cloud" calculation.
So... on a pass over the middle to the TE... the game seems deliberately likely to select your SLB as the central defender for that play. He'll get assigned the catch allowed if it happens, and if the play merits an internal dice-roll for specific events like a pass defensed, it will be that guy's ratings used (in whole or in large part). I think that, in this game, is as close to "the Sam covers the tight end" as we are going to get.
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