What About The Defense?

[shttymcgee]

Quote: Originally Posted by CreatineKasey

Well Pittsburgh would have their DL playing 2 gap for the most part along with their linebackers flying around, penetrating, and simply making plays. I think in it's most basic form is what Pittsburgh-style 3-4 defense is about. When in base D against base formations, that's their goal from what I can tell. I think some of it has to do with pass/run recognition, too. I can't imagine defenses in the 4-3 wanting their DL to penetrate against run plays sometimes when it's unnecessary. I think only 1 DT does that while the other "stays home" and hammers on a double team? I'm no expert here but I think it may get complicated to the point where we can't tell a difference anyway. In light of what Adembroski said in a different thread, if this game was perfectly sim it'd be no fun at all and excessively difficult. There's many different alignments and assignments that just don't work against each-other that we're not familiar with. I agree with wanting more variety on defense, but honestly I stiill think they need to fix the basics here in many situations. For example, twist blitzes in this game aren't really effective. In real life, they are some of the best, most successful trademark blitzes that teams do. This game "knows" what the defense is doing so twists, delays, and other methods to mess with assignments seem to go without working. Madden is counter-intuitive in this case. In Madden, there's little incentive to get tricky with who you send, how you send them, and where you send them from because the AI always knows what blitz you are running. In reality, twists and tricky stuff will mess with OL better than basic overloads. I guarantee you basic overloads get picked up like it's not even an issue in many games. In Madden, straight line blitzes and overloads are ideal because the tricky delays or twists give no real advantage in comparison to just sending numbers. You know why Lebeau is considered a defensive master? You don't know who he's sending, where they're coming, and how they're getting there. Honestly, that's never been really well represented in ANY football game, EVER! If we matched reality closer on defense, there'd be incentive to send your CB once in awhile, or to twist y our MLB's on a blitz instead of sending them straight in: obvious stuff gets shut down in the NFL. Tricky stuff works. It's the opposite in video games because it's all about "making holes" in the OL.. not by tricks, but by brute force. Do you guys agree? Not agree?

The Steelers only 2 gap the nose. The ends are responsible for the B gap in their base schemes.

[shttymcgee]

Quote: Originally Posted by Palo20

I posted this in other threads but it's fitting here: Playing defense really feels the same with every team, and with every scheme. Here are a few suggestions to make it more unique for each team. I'd like to see the "opposite" of the Predator formation from the 3-4. We should have a 4-3 formation where the DE is used as a stand up LB Packers Used some 3-5 sets this year Pats Often use 3 Safeties in their Nickel D (McGowan playing LB type position) Need the Predator in the 3-4 **Pre-Snap Auto Motion** One way to make teams/plays feel unique is to give us the option to set up pre-snap motion. Some examples: --Single High Safety (Really Deep) --Moving an extra safety into the box when expecting the run --"A" Gap Pressure Package This is a staple of Jim Johnson's defenses (and now Steve Spagnuolo). Many teams are showing this a lot now. A Nose Tackle, with 2 LB's right up in the A Gap. There should be a bunch of plays out of this set. Here is the Bengals using it: http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-films-...itzing-Bengals One gap vs. two gap styles Have two gapers hold the point and look to “block” other lineman from getting to the second level. Play Recognition skills are vital here. One gappers are flying up the field. Better All out blitzes, but they should be rarely used. **Enough of the Engage Eight and Double CB Blitz** Proper Pass Rushers It should be pretty much automatic that when you play certain teams, they have their best pass rushers at DE in the Nickel and Dime. Harrison and Woodley for the Steelers. Suggs and Johnson for the Ravens. Ware and Spencer for the Cowboys. Make the true pass rushers actually rush the passer. Create a Hybrid Position DE/LB. This has been touched on by a lot of people here. Give us a hot route option to move a guy from a 2 point to a 3 point stance. Proper Fatigue and Substitutions From www.profootballfocus.com. This is a great site to show how teams use their players. Check out how many plays each DLineman plays each game. Can also see who is used on 3rd down as pass rushers or Nickel LBs/DBs. Most 4-3 Teams use Strong and Weak Side LBs 4-3 Teams that Flip Used Strong and Weak LBs in 2009 Falcons Bills Redskins Bears Bengals Lion Vikings Texans Colts Jaguars Saints Giants Raiders Eagles Rams Seahawks Bucs Redskins 4-3 Teams that Use Left and Right OLBs Panthers Titans (Bulluck is almost always on the Right) Pete Carroll, Seahawks Uses lots of Double Eagle Flex—Aaron Curry is going to be used in the Pass rushing role. http://www.trojanfootballanalysis.co...dpress/?p=1088 Article on his use of the Under set: http://www.trojanfootballanalysis.co...dpress/?p=1062 Blitz Schemes: http://www.trojanfootballanalysis.co...dpress/?p=1066 Anyone Else have some defensive tendencies from their teams?

Some teams use "strong" and "weak" backers in their over defenses, but actually flip the backers in their under alignments.

Also, in a 1 -gap control defense, the defenders do not charge hard up the field, instead they look to "control" the gap, hence the name. There aren't many 1-gap penetrating style defenses played in the NFL as a base, its used more often in some sort of pressure scheme.

[shttymcgee]

Quote: Originally Posted by CreatineKasey

You know what'd go a LONG way for defense? - Pass rush angles improved to limit scrambling to plausible situations - A match-up function that has some more prioritization behind it. Right now if I match0up one player and he isn't on the field there's a chance I'll get a linebacker matched up out wide on a WR and a CB on a FB or something weird. Cleaning this up would help a ton. - Individual or at least group shading of man defenses. If I call a cover 0 I'd love to shade inside and force my opponent to try to throw something other than a slant or drag. If I call 2 man I'd love to force my opponent to use the outside passes right into my safety help. If I call cover 1 I'd like to funnel routes into my safety. You get the idea... - an improved defensive hot-routes feature that allows you to adjust a player without actually being on them (like APF). These 3 things could be added very easily to the game IMO... especially fixing match-ups.

Why would you ever use inside technique in a 2 man defense? I have never seen a team do that except when facing a plus split.

[CreatineKasey]

Quote: Originally Posted by shttymcgee

Why would you ever use inside technique in a 2 man defense? I have never seen a team do that except when facing a plus split.

Well, I guess it depends where your safeties are and where you focus them. If your safeties cover the sidelines, wouldn't you want your CB's taking away a middle route like a post?

IDK, I'm sure you know more than me about this. I'm definitely no expert and a lot of what I wrote/write is hypothesis and from reading.

[CFTejada]

To answer why we haven't seen defensive Vids is because Is EA really going to advertise a 1 yard stop? LOL no + It's played on Rookie or Pro...

[shttymcgee]

Quote: Originally Posted by CreatineKasey

Well, I guess it depends where your safeties are and where you focus them. If your safeties cover the sidelines, wouldn't you want your CB's taking away a middle route like a post? IDK, I'm sure you know more than me about this. I'm definitely no expert and a lot of what I wrote/write is hypothesis and from reading.

Normally, in 2 man, the safeties will have a flat-footed read. They are playing more like they do in 4 then they would if they were in 2. The corners have to play outside trail, funneling the receiver into the safeties. The inside pass defenders should align inside their men to wall/jam inside breaking routes. The corners in outside alignment also allow you pass off an inside stem by the outside receiver and a quick outside breaking route by the inside receiver.

The safeties then would have force vs the run, because that puts them in the area between the outside leveraged trailing corners and the inside leveraged walling defenders. The safeties will then read pass-run flat-footed. Vs a run read, they are going to play force if its to them and cutback if its away. VS a pass read, they will read inside-out. The normal 3x1 adjustment is to have the backside safety read the release of number 3 and carry him if he runs vertical.

So, the corner may align inside the widest receiver if he's outside whatever divider the defense uses, or if the ball is close to your endzone.

I definitely agree that there should be more options in techniques played by secondary defenders though.

[Jukeman]

Quote: Originally Posted by J Masta J

Here's my first reaction: you're overreacting. It's May 1st. I understand your concern, but in all honesty, we've only gotten like 4 worthwhile nuggets of information about changes to the upcoming game. Oh, and for what it's worth, realistic in-air collisions can probably be categorized as a defensive upgrade. And don't forget double teams! Maybe they'll use the new ability to double team block to ensure that good 3-4 NT's occupy blockers. Perhaps the things they're improving on the defensive side of the ball are so basic and fundamental (yet important), that they don't really know how to highlight them in a blog? I mean, after all, the fact that 3-4 D-lineman play like 3-4 D-lineman isn't necessarily going to appeal to the masses and IGN like a "revolutionary" feature like GameFlow will. Speaking of, I understand your criticisms of GF/GP, and they make sense, but seriously, I think it's a great improvement. I won't be using GF because I like complete control, but GamePlan will definitely be utilized (especially if it lets you use packages...). As for the dilemma of not wanting to be in nickel against a team just because they have 3-wide, don't use GF, use GP. You have 15 to choose from for a given personnel group (please don't lie on this regard EA). You should easily be able to include a solid run defense alignment within that situational category. And if not, you can always go to the old-school playbook and find it. So yah, I agree, defense needs some juice, but maybe it's getting it? We have no idea at this point. We haven't even seen 10% of the new stuff, so let's not jump to conclusions, shall we?

NCAA is a couple months away and all of the info for that game been about OFFENSE...

[InSainn]

I know exactly what you're talking about. Defense has always been an afterthought in Madden and well, every football video game I can remember since I was a lil kid (and I'm 32 now). And sadly, it seems like the more smoothly the game runs and the more it actually plays correctly the worse the defense is. Even in 2K5 the defense just wasn't up to snuff and it was because the blocking was so right on. By now we should be able to play a game on 15 min. quarters without the score getting ridiculously out of hand. On the other hand, I don't think it's all bad defense though either. Something is just out of proportion to real life, I don't know if it's the speed in which players move compared with the speed of the clock or maybe the field is smaller than it should be and players cover too much ground too fast? I really don't know what it is, but I've had some games where, even though my D played solidly, they still somehow gave up 30-40 points (I only play on 15 min. quarters).