My Training Camp for Madden 16 (and possibly 17)

[tubaSimulator]

Quote: Originally Posted by rich8682

any progress on this idea? been thinking of doing something similar Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

I haven't bought M17 yet myself - the game started freezing so I didn't want to pay full price for something that didn't look like it was going to work - so I haven't been able to test much myself. Might go back to M16 soon and see if I can get a full run-through of Training Camp and Preseason and see how it goes, but I might go all the way back to Madden 12 as well as that was the last Madden I actually enjoyed playing...

But if anyone else is doing Training Camp in M17 (or M16), please feel free to post your impressions and training camp stories in this thread. I'm keen to hear about how it's working

[tubaSimulator]

I've updated the first post with more drills and a roster breakdown.

[csofva]

Just picked up madden today plan on implementing this into my season with dallas ill keep everyone posted on my off season

[rich8682]

Gonna do this in my Eagles cfm, started a few hours ago. Had a great first draft, signed a bunch of UDFA, starting camp now. Gonna run it for around 2 hours, gonna do preaseason tomorrow.

Sent from my SM-G386W using Tapatalk

[tubaSimulator]

Started an expansion franchise in Madden 12, both because M16 and 17 was a bit of a let down to me and because in Madden 12 you can create a team and start playing with it right from the start of Season 1. I replaced Washington, kept all their rookies and found the rest of my roster among Free Agents all rated 75 OVR or below. In Madden 12 however, you get a bunch of UDFA's where all their attributes are hidden so you have to test them out in practice to find out if they're any good - a great feature EA should definitely bring back in my opinion!

Anyway, started with a Kicker and Punter competition as I had my two starters being challenged by UDFA's.

Kicker Battle:
We started with 35-yard field goals, then moved it back 5 yards at a time until they missed. I then moved the ball back/forward 1 or 2 yards until I found the Kickers' absolute limit.

K Clark was the challenger, the UDFA, going up against my FA signing, Lloyd. Clark looked good early on, but when we moved the ball backwards and lined up for 50-yard field goal attempts, Clark struggled and his longest recorded FG made was a 49-yarder. Lloyd on the other hand made a FG from 50 but didn't have the leg for 55. His longest recorded FG made on the day was a 54-yarder. He was also consistently stronger on kickoffs and won the job.

Punter Battle:
I started with punts from my own 20-yard line with no return team, first right down the middle of the field, then to the right and left sideline, to record their longest punts. Then I let the kicker kick from the End Zone with a return team on the field, before I took the return team off the field again and let the punters kick from midfield and try to pin it inside the 10-yard line.

The punting competition, however, was quite the opposite of the kickers. The veteran FA pickup, Dodge, did record the day's longest punt, a 66-yarder, but when kicking towards the sidelines he was inconsistent, not getting the right angle on it. From the 50-yard line he rarely got any balls inside the 10; they either floated through the end zone or disappeared out of bounds after just 20-30 yards. Enter Webster, an UDFA off the street and thrown into an NFL Training Camp. His longest kick of the day was 3 yards shorter than Dodge, but when asked to hit it deep and out of bounds, Webster was the polar opposite of Dodge, consistently getting maximum distance on it while letting the ball hit the grass right on the sideline marker. From the 50-yard line he was able to pin the opponent inside their 10 on a consistent basis and even showed off with some kicks bouncing out of bounds inside the 5-yard line.

The UDFA got a contract. The veteran was cut.


The Battle of the Offensive Linemen - Day 1: Pass Protection
In this drill I chose different pass plays, all with only 5 blockers (no TE help) and all requiring the QB to hold on to the ball for 3-4 seconds (I actually took quite a few sacks rather than throw the ball too quickly). I then watched the O-Linemen on the replay and gave them a 'Good', 'Bad' or 'OK' depending on their blocking on that particular play. After 10-15 plays it becomes easy to see who's consistently making good blocks and who's struggling.

15 linemen in camp, 3 at each position, so I divided them into three teams, the 1's, 2's and 3's. I let my best defenders (which at this stage isn't very impressive...) stay on the field to face all three teams so that the linemen would face the same competition (not realistic, but easier to evaluate).

At LT I had a battle between Wells (1) and Goldberg (2) with UDFA Hartfield on the fringe. At LG Procter (1) was thought to be our starter with rookie Hurt (2) and UDFA Hunt (3) the only challengers. At C Nieswanger (1) and Mruczkowski (2) were evenly matched with UDFA McGee (3) looking for a job at Wendy's. At RG the veteran Hochstein (1) got the nod ahead of DeVan (2) and UDFA Marshall (3) and finally at RT E.Young (1) got the start ahead of W.Smith (2) and UDFA Patterson (3).

But that was before Day 1 of Training Camp...

The 1's started the day and immediately the inside struggled. LG Procter, C Nieswanger and RG Hochstein looked awful and if I had any worries about my offensive line heading into our first season, they were tripled after seeing their display. The three combined for just 2 good blocks, both by Hochstein, in about 15 plays... Wells at LT looked slightly better, but not good enough to be the most important player on that line. RT E.Young however outplayed them all. Play after play he made solid blocks and I filled up the Good column and never had to touch the Bad or even the OK column. A solid day for Young who could be moved to LT on day 2.

The 2's certainly knew places were up for grabs with 4 out of 5 1's barely showing up and LT Goldberg certainly wanted to cease on the opportunity to move ahead of Wells come Week 1. Despite a few bad blocks (one which was non-existent...) the majority of his blocks was solid and he rarely let any defender past him. Hurt at LG and Mruczkowski at C did not cease the day and continued the poor inside line play. They looked slightly better than their main rivals Procter and Nieswanger and may have done just enough to switch places for Day 2. They were more consistent, with less bad plays and were on average OK. On the RG however, DeVan looked a lot better than Hochstein and should definitely find himself among the 1's for Day 2. At RT W.Smith did nothing special. He looks like a decent backup. He should look out though, because there's a RT among...

...the 3's who had the performance of the day! Patterson, the UDFA, had one bad play early on, but after that he never let a defender past him even though I let him stay on the field for 21 plays. I recorded 18 good blocks, 1 bad and 2 ok. We might have a hidden gem among our UDFA's. On the inside, LG Hunt, C McGee and RG Marshall did nothing to advance their case for play in the NFL but LT Hartfield looks like another UDFA that could have a Training Camp Breakout. He had more bad blocks than Patterson and a few more OK blocks as well, but he still had a majority of Good blocks where he wouldn't let the defender past him at all. If Wells don't step up his game, he might get cut in favor of an UDFA...


WR 40-yard Dash Battle: Who's Gonna Be My Speed WR?
In this drill I line up on my own 10-yard line, select a hail mary play with 2 WR's on the LOS and snap the ball. When the 2 WR's have crossed midfield, I throw the ball away and look at the replay to see who won the sprint.

Mike Sims-Walker is looking to be the #1 WR this year, but he's certainly not the fastest. Sims-Walker started the day against Hankerson, the latter winning the sprint to midfield and the former having to go up against the next man on the list. That man was Kirk who was beaten by Sims-Walker and had to go up against Paul. Kirk won before Paul beat Urban and Urban beat Mays. Mays was beaten by a clear margin by Robinson, which meant Robinson had to go up against Urban, Paul, Kirk and so on until he was beaten by someone. That didn't happen until Robinson was up against the fastest man of the day, Hankerson, and again Hankerson proved to be the quickest WR on this team. Robinson had to settle for 2nd while Sims-Walker finished 3rd.

Robinson showed he has the NFL speed, but during the Offensive Linemen drill he did get the chance to catch a few balls. He made one spectacular diving catch and didn't drop a single ball thrown his way. I'm looking forward to see what he can do when we start focusing on catching on Day 2.

[Jimbo12308]

Hi Tuba,

How would you suggest running training camp to test for some difficult things like run blocking, zone coverage abilities, or any type of test for linebackers or safeties? I've struggled quite a bit with judging linebackers due to how many variables are involved in plays that go to them. It's hard to isolate a linebacker to test their skills in the same way that you can isolate and test a corner in man coverage.

Thanks

[tubaSimulator]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jimbo12308

Hi Tuba, How would you suggest running training camp to test for some difficult things like run blocking, zone coverage abilities, or any type of test for linebackers or safeties? I've struggled quite a bit with judging linebackers due to how many variables are involved in plays that go to them. It's hard to isolate a linebacker to test their skills in the same way that you can isolate and test a corner in man coverage. Thanks

Hi Jimbo,

Very good question and I might not be able to give you a great answer (if anyone else has a better one, please reply). But here's my overall approach to it:

First of all, I set the type of player I want in each position and find the most important attributes for that type. This is easier in M16/17 since each player has a Type, but it can be done in earlier editions as well. The types I want depend on the kind of offense or defense I play; i.e. usually I want a run stopping DE in a 3-4 but a pass rushing DE in a 4-3. I want a pocket passer or a Strong arm QB in a Vertical offense, and a faster Mobile QB in a West Coast offense.

Once you have your system and the player types and know what attributes to look for, it's a bit easier to evaluate in practice. Coming up with drills that can show off a player's strength or weakness can be tricky but not impossible. I'll try to address the different positions as you asked about them:

Run Blocking:
Here I test the ability to run block for O-Linemen, TE's and FB's.
Running in the NFL is very much based on situation, so I try to
1. set up a number of different scenarios,
2. then pick and offensive and defensive play for that situation and then
3. run the play and evaluate on the replays.
Scenarios can be anything that you'll see in an NFL game, from 3rd&20 to 4th&1, from 1st&10 from you 20-yard line to 1st&goal at the 3-yard line. The key is to pick an offensive play that match the situation, and a defensive play that will be a real challenge to that run play.

I also vary the offensive plays and try to get as many different runs and blocks in as I can. Even screen passes can be useful to judge a lineman's ability to get down field and block. I run to both sides of the field, both inside and outside.

In the replays what I look for is the players' abilities to find the right defender to block, get to the defender on time, ability to hold the block and open a gap for the RB. For linemen I also look at their ability to trap. I always have a pen and a paper to take notes and judge a block from "Perfect" to "Non-existent" (where the blocker is not doing anything useful).


Zone Coverage
This one is tricky to say the least because in a lot of Madden editions, even the latest one, you can still see players with a high Zone Coverage ability let receivers run through their zone with no reaction what so ever. So getting a large sample size is key I think. I evaluate a lot in practice, but I also usually spend a lot of time during the preseason games looking at replays (although this means a preseason game can take 2-3 hours to complete, but hey, it's part of training ). If you play a lot of zone (at least for the safeties) you should get some useful information on how they perform.

Remember though, you're not trying to figure out what a player's Zone coverage attribute number is. You're just trying to compare let's say two of your safeties and see who's the better option.

In general though I suggest evaluating one position at a time so that you can pick an offensive play that will challenge that particular position and so that you can test different types of zone coverage (deep zone, defending behind a CB who's in press and so on). Then run routes and concepts that will take receivers through the safety's zone and see how he reacts to it. I also like to test his reaction, interception and tackle ability by throwing to the receiver going through the safety's zone at different times; sometimes I throw just as the WR enter the zone, sometimes just as he's leaving the zone.

It's tricky to do, especially since you can't see the different zones in replay (those big colored circles), but if you're willing to put in the time and effort, I think it's doable.


Linebackers
My favorite position on defense so I always love having a lot of them and test them in training camp! Here's where I think your scheme and player Type becomes crucial; You have to know your defense (3-4, 4-3 at least) and the types you need in each position to know exactly what to look for. There's no use having a high OVR MLB who's a tremendous pass rusher if you want him to drop into man/zone coverage 50 times a game.

Pass rushing
When you know exactly what you're looking for, you know exactly what to test and so picking drills becomes a bit easier. If I want to test an OLB's pass rushing ability, I usually line him up on the right side and pick an offensive pass play and a defensive play that will get my OLB in a one-on-one battle with my LT (who's usually my best pass blocker). Same for MLB's really; there's no problem lining a MLB up at the ROLB position for a pass rushing drill. If you're only going to rush the MLB up the middle though, it's better to pick a 3-man defensive line with a MLB blitz and run that a few times.

Zone coverage
As you mentioned, being able to isolate players is important to judge their abilities so I always try to get them in one-on-one situations, although on run plays a linebacker will often have to shed a lineman before getting to the RB. I therefore try to pick very clear and basic defensive plays so it's easy to see a defenders role on a specific play and how he performs it. So, if I want to test a MLB's ability to either cover the middle of the field or a TE running straight up the middle, I choose a basic 4-3 (so that the MLB is alone in the middle), often with OLB's blitzing or covering the outside and safeties dropping deep. I then pick a play with a TE running up the middle and see how my MLB cover him. I usually run the same 2 plays multiple times to get a nice sample size. Another good offensive play to test a MLB's zone coverage ability (and here you can use 3-4 to test 2 MLB's at a time) is a crossing route with a receiver running from one side to the other, straight through the MLB's zone.

Run defense
Here I run run plays (obviously) and look for:
-Is my LB able to get to the running back?
If yes, how? Unblocked or by shedding a block?
If no, why? slow to react? Getting blocked and if so, by a good run blocking lineman or a TE? Or is he holding up a blocker so that a teammate can get to the RB?
-If my LB gets to the running back, is he able to make the tackle?

I also prefer speedy LB's, so I always look at how quick they are to react, how they follow the play and how fast they are chasing down the RB.

Note: To test their true abilities, it's important that you're not controlling the player you're testing!

As you mentioned, it is hard to isolate a LB or a S and see how good they are. I think the key is to pick very basic offensive and defensive plays to get a lot of one-on-one matchups and to slow everything down on replays afterwards. Also, run the same plays over and over before switching plays and take notes after each play. It helps to have a good sample size.

Also, if it becomes too frustrating and time consuming, I find the 3-5 most important attributes for the Type and let those decide who'll get the starting job/make the roster/is cut. It's perfectly ok to look at the individual attributes when evaluating I think, although don't let it overshadow the actual play on the field.

Hopefully this was of some help, but if anyone else wants to chime in with tips and tricks then please do!