Breakout DEF Player Dev Upgrade

[KagedStorm]

Hey there!

On my third season of Franchise and noticed that meeting breakout dev upgrade goals for defense positions can be pretty hard.

Playing as the Chargers, missed Nasir Adderley's in my second season. I think it was either hold opp off to <200 pass yds (which on All-Madden w/ default sliders just ain't gonna happen) or get 2+ INTs/FFs/TFLs. Now in my third season I got one for Kenneth Murray, which is get 3+ SCKs/TFLs/FFs/INTs.

Gonna flat-out admit that I've been quitting out of the game whenever the goal isn't met (even when I had the game won) cuz I'm pretty sure if you miss it it's gone for good unless the player gets DPOY or is a major stat leader.

Is there a better way to get a player you want more involved in plays? I've tried switching between usering the player the whole time to letting them be AI with mixed results. I noticed blitzing from the second level (LB/CB area) can make the OLs miss picking up your blitz, but that's not very consistent.

Thanks in advance for looking at this

[Joewilson16508]

I find them pretty easy, just play a db at slot corner or a safety at sub lb and play the run for tfl

[CM Hooe]

A few things you can do:

- manipulate time of possession on offense to make the yards allowed goal easier; easiest way to do this by running the play clock, but I've seen some players with confidence in their offense go as far as to deliberately cut kick returns short to facilitate longer drives
- crowd the line of scrimmage (and hang out with a user defender for about a second post-snap) to force the CPU OL into one-on-ones vs. your rushers; formations such as Nickel Double A Gap and Nickel 335 Wide are good for this
- on obvious passing downs, call press-man coverage to try and buy time for your DLs to get home and get sacks
- call match coverages vs trips (Cover 4 Palms in particular) and freelance with the weakside safety. Your only coverage responsibility in this role is crossers from the trips side, specifically the #3 receiver (ex. the TE in Y-Trips or the innermost slot WR in Trips TE / Trio). Note that the safety you let the CPU handle (on the trips side) needs to be a good MCV defender or the CPU will get wise and start calling #3 flag routes and torch you. You can call the other match coverages if you get real wise as to not only your responsibilities on the play but also what bugs in how the AI runs the play you have to cover for.

I actually haven't had many defensive breakout scenarios in Madden 21, but in Madden 20 the games I had defensive player breakouts were some of my most fun to play.

[KagedStorm]

Thanks man.

For some reason I met my goals for Murray but it counted as a fail. I guess this breakout challenge meant to get 3 in one stat, and not 3 cumulative across all the stats it outlined. Frustrating but whatever, I get to move on

[ednaaard]

Quote: Originally Posted by KagedStorm

Thanks man. For some reason I met my goals for Murray but it counted as a fail. I guess this breakout challenge meant to get 3 in one stat, and not 3 cumulative across all the stats it outlined. Frustrating but whatever, I get to move on

It is 3 in one stat unfortunately, so 1 sack, 1 pick and 1 tfl wouldn’t do it but 1 sack, 1 pick and 3 tfl would.

I also find it very difficult defensively. If it’s a DB I user them and call a lot of blitz, or put them in the slot. It’s still hit or miss but feels like I hit a little more.

[ParaAut]

First I think it's important to note that the breakouts are not designed to upgrade every single time. If every breakout means an automatic upgrade, it's boring and screws the balance of the league as CPU won't have that. But of course in a single player league everyone can choose whatever they think they have the most fun with.


Goal descriptions are a bit "buggy" or have just mathematically wrong descriptions. Sometimes 2+ means 2 or more, sometimes 3+ means really 4 or more. So it's not always the same rule for all levels.


Especially on defense the goals are very good, as it's not that easy (especially with user vs user) to control the breakout player and still get it. Offense breakouts are much easier as you can focus on one player, defense is much more organic. In my opinion a breakout should be rewarded after a good game for the player, not focussing 100% on the player and don't care about the game itself. That takes away the sense of playing a football game, but instead focus on an arcade element of a normally sim environment in CFM.


Even if you miss it, there are season end upgrade and players can have mulitple breakouts. So it's not end of the world to miss one.

[RogueHominid]

This is for sure a valid inquiry, but I'll just say where I came to regarding dev upgrade opportunities.

I've found that I wind up pressing and changing how I play to try to force certain players to get certain stats. When I do this, my overall gameplan suffers and I generally play less sound football.

I ultimately decided to ignore these prompts and call a normal game, letting the chips fall where they may.

That approach might not work for everyone, but if you're quitting out of games that don't go your way statistically, it might be worth sitting a littler looser toward these objectives and hoping your guys get upgrades due to performance in the off-season.

Just my .02 about another way to look at this issue.