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Old 09-28-2020, 10:17 PM   #17
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Re: Zone defense

I’ve been one of the biggest complainers when it comes to pass coverage. However, recently, I really took to studying up on how it is supposed to operate in Madden. It actually worked really well for me in M20 once I learned what everything was supposed to do, but I haven’t had the same level of success in M21. However, there isn’t quite as much of a sample size to go off of for me.

Definitely look into how the coverages are supposed to function vs. certain alignments. It made me really enjoy Madden and football in general for a few days. I was locked in.
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Old 09-28-2020, 10:30 PM   #18
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by benton32
I wish i could post this play ohh wait maybe i can i posted it on twitter ill find the link omg hot garbage zone, the safety was covering kittle and then just took off and left him for a wide open TD



https://twitter.com/MikeHen93038720/...18603695460352



by the way did the new patch mess up Qbs taking off and running now half the time they just keep back peddling till they get sacked


This has happened to me a lot, defenders just abandon their zones and aggressively go after a receiver just to leave another one completely free for a massive gain or a TD. I would understand if the first receiver was going through the defender’s zone and there’s no one else to cover him, but sometimes they completely leave their zones even when there’s another defender covering the receiver (sorry, English is not my first language and sometimes I have a hard time explaining myself).

Another thing that bothers me is that sometimes they are really slow to react. I’ve seen receivers make a cut and my defender just watches him go by before deciding to run after him a couple of seconds later.
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Old 09-29-2020, 12:41 AM   #19
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by tg88forHOF
The problem is that Tiburon has actually done a decent job over the last several years updating pass coverages to match real league defensive trends....it may not be enough, or fast enough, but over the course of 6-7 years or so, they've incrementally added a few new zone options and match coverages every year to where we have a lot of options that all play differently, and you can actually call somewhat modern options.

Unfortunately, they haven't updated the Skills Trainer at all during that timeframe. It still teaches you 80s spot-drop concepts ("a cover 4 is a zone concept with 4 deep defenders, good against deep passes") when what's available to players on the field is more 21st century. Really, the Skills Trainer is where all of this should be.


This. Can't tell you how many times I've seen a new guy in our league or someone elsewhere on discord/forums complain about "EA's broken coverage" while they were usering a defender with match responsibilities and the busted coverage was 100% on them, not the game. The issue is education. There's zero way for most players to know how this works. The reading up on NFL coverages or watching YT videos explaining how it all works--that's the tiny minority of players.

And don't even get me started on how "sim" players, by virtue of self-identifying as "sim," often cannot take any feedback that anything was at fault other than a broken game.
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Old 09-29-2020, 01:29 AM   #20
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by Aestis
And don't even get me started on how "sim" players, by virtue of self-identifying as "sim," often cannot take any feedback that anything was at fault other than a broken game.
Or that "sim" is only about stats and choices in the coach menu between games, and has absolutely nothing to do with the play on the field.
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Old 09-29-2020, 12:18 PM   #21
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by tg88forHOF
Or that "sim" is only about stats and choices in the coach menu between games, and has absolutely nothing to do with the play on the field.

Yeah, and the same person who is throwing it hyper-aggressively 20+ yds in the air into tight windows on 75% of throws leading to 4 INT games they blame on unrealistic coverage, is often the same guy who can speak with reasonable intelligence about football strategy while relaxed & watching an NFL game. And because they DO have some football knowledge, they assume their in-game decisions reflect NFL decision-making, and are often hard to convince otherwise.

But the uncomfortable truth is that knowing something and having that knowledge inform your decision-making in the fast-moving heat of the moment are far from the same thing.

That's the complexity of it--often you are NOT talking about football imbeciles who don't know crap about the game. You are talking about people who do know some football or occasionally even a LOT about football. Our league has multiple IRL HS coaches. At least one has probably forgotten more about OL/DL technique in the past year than I'll ever know. But he's one of the least realistic decision-makers in the league and I gave up trying to reason with him in that regard a long time ago.
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Old 09-29-2020, 06:03 PM   #22
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by Aestis
Yeah, and the same person who is throwing it hyper-aggressively 20+ yds in the air into tight windows on 75% of throws leading to 4 INT games they blame on unrealistic coverage, is often the same guy who can speak with reasonable intelligence about football strategy while relaxed & watching an NFL game. And because they DO have some football knowledge, they assume their in-game decisions reflect NFL decision-making, and are often hard to convince otherwise.

But the uncomfortable truth is that knowing something and having that knowledge inform your decision-making in the fast-moving heat of the moment are far from the same thing.

That's the complexity of it--often you are NOT talking about football imbeciles who don't know crap about the game. You are talking about people who do know some football or occasionally even a LOT about football. Our league has multiple IRL HS coaches. At least one has probably forgotten more about OL/DL technique in the past year than I'll ever know. But he's one of the least realistic decision-makers in the league and I gave up trying to reason with him in that regard a long time ago.
Or the people who do know more than the casual fan, but don't realize how outdated their information is.

This is all over the place, not just Madden....national media, broadcast announcers, actual "analysts" who write football analysis for a living. But a lot of those people are former players or coaches, who played or coached in the 70s, 80s, or 90s...and the game has changed radically since then. I think people underestimate the influence repeating those misconceptions or outdated information for 3 hours at a time on Sunday can have on the general football consciousness.

I was so thrilled when Dan Fouts got let go and not rehired by another network...the dude was just plain not competent to call a modern game.

We see it here when people see season completion percentages in the high 60%-low 70% range and call it unrealistic. Or when announcers talk about "setting up play action with the running game", or about how team X will win if they get RB Y an arbitrary number of carries, or about how rain or snow means the passing game is off the table.

Or, in this case, how people think running a 4-3 or 3-4 scheme means most of your plays will be run out of a 4-3 or 3-4, and nickel and dime packages are rare exotics, instead of what you should be running 70% of the time.

It doesn't help that, again, Madden plays into this. Default defensive playbooks still have a higher number of plays out of base packages than any individual sub package. Hell, as I was typing the above, I realized that the Skills Trainer basically gives the same information as your average TV broadcaster....great info if it were still 1995.

This is a fun ranty tangent
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Old 09-30-2020, 04:11 AM   #23
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Re: Zone defense

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Originally Posted by tg88forHOF
The sad answer is "all over"; there's no one single source that answers how all of those options play in Madden.

The problem is that Tiburon has actually done a decent job over the last several years updating pass coverages to match real league defensive trends....it may not be enough, or fast enough, but over the course of 6-7 years or so, they've incrementally added a few new zone options and match coverages every year to where we have a lot of options that all play differently, and you can actually call somewhat modern options.

Unfortunately, they haven't updated the Skills Trainer at all during that timeframe. It still teaches you 80s spot-drop concepts ("a cover 4 is a zone concept with 4 deep defenders, good against deep passes") when what's available to players on the field is more 21st century. Really, the Skills Trainer is where all of this should be.

It turns out, modern NFL defenses are complicated, and until recently, Madden let us get away with playing decent defense using outdated, simplified concepts. Now we need to use those modern concepts, and only hard-core football people have access to that info on a tribal basis.

So you have to go hit the web...YouTube, Reddit, scattered threads here and on other Madden forums, etc. I've found a surprising number of decent coverage explanation articles on SB Nation team fansites. Bear in mind that a lot of those resources will explain how things work in the real game, and due to legacy issues and just normal video game translation, Madden will execute them similarly, but not exactly.

Some starting points:

Coverage shells vs. different alignments (doubles, trips, bunch) - CM Hooe had a solid writeup in this thread:
https://forums.operationsports.com/f...e-year-me.html

I'm also hoping Stinkubus sees this....he always does a solid, intelligible write-up on this.

C4 Quarters and Palms pattern-matching -

https://www.reddit.com/r/MaddenUltim...m_source=share

https://www.reddit.com/r/MaddenUltim...m_source=share

Inside The Pylon has some useful definitions here: http://insidethepylon.com/category/f...-football-101/


Some quick hits:

Cover 3 Sky vs. Buzz - This determines who will take one of the underneath curl flat zones (the other will always be the underneath strong side LB or slot DB). In Sky, whichever safety isn't covering the deep middle will drop down and cover it (the video the guy posted on page 1 of this thread looks like a Sky call, with that S dropping down to cover that zone and leaving Kittle open). In Buzz, the weak side LB or slot defender in dime will cover that zone, and the extra S will take an inside curl hook instead).

Cover 1 Hole vs. Robber - The difference between the two is who covers the underneath middle zone (mid read or 3rec hook) in a Cover 1 that doesn't blitz. In Hole, a LB or slot DB provides that zone. In Robber, the extra safety (the one who isn't playing the deep middle) drops down to cover it. With the change to LB coverage, Robber is much better on passing downs.

Thanks a lot for this, helped tremendously.

This is what i have realized this year as well. Sometimes the skills trainer tells you to do one thing but there's something better elsewhere.

Although, the coverage decisions, playing within a scheme, and understanding leverage, depth, time, alignments have mattered a lot more this year and i love that! It's finally felt like chess which is why i need to learn the schemes and their intricacies.

I used to user the dline; but this year decided to try cb and it was hard, so tried to user the safety. First few games I was doing too much. If i had a cover 2 invert where i had to drop down and someone ran two crossing routes id often leave one open as i would double team one receiver and not follow my assignment. IF i called a cover 1 and i ran with a crosser i got beat by the post. IT was always a mistake i created. So i went back and watched how the cpu played as a safety, and now i've learned to wait and anticipate, try to see route combinations and pick your spot. Also to trust my teammates.

I just had a game with two earl thomas picks facing the saints. On one it was a 3 x 1 set. I call a cover 3 (forgot which one) but im the purple zone down. I see wr 1 run a streak and my cover 3 cb had him, and i realized wr 2 was running an out route, so i was waiting and as soon as he broke out i ran to the spot and picked it off. It was such a rewarding moment.

Really impressed by EA for adding these coverages, and passing concepts makes a huge difference.

Thanks again for the articles. helped me a lot!
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Old 09-30-2020, 04:18 AM   #24
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Re: Zone defense

I find zone more consistent than man, because if you call cover 3 all game, the CPU will settle for the checkdown 80% of the time.

I play on all madden default sliders, so take that how you like.

Neither zone or man are consistent for me. And my defense is stacked.
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