Plays to Add to Madden

[Hova57]

good info guys, I still think that we should have the ability to call stunts using the L2 button as a presnap audible and using the left stick for linestunts and right stick for lb and line stunts

[Sven Draconian]

Quote: Originally Posted by Senator Palmer

Let me pick your brain a little, shtty, because I have the same issue with my defensive playcalling as 1_two_3_forte. Basically, you're saying that Madden has this part of the game right, whereas we are expecting the wrong things from 2 Man Under. Ian intimated in a post that he was not in favor of tiered playbooks, or more audibles because most NFL defenses have the corner technique, line stunts, etc. already built into the play, so I'm thinking that I do not have a full understanding of every defensive call. If I am in 3rd and medium and I want to stop in-breaking routes, or slants, then what man coverage should I go to for the corner to play inside leverage or what type of blitz for that matter, because I have seen in replays, the CPU corner play inside technique? And is there any type of zone, say in nickel or dime/dime flat that takes away the inside?

"Tampa 2" was THE DEFENSE to take away the quick game. The corners aligned inside, and forced the wide receiver outside. The OLB were coverage players who could drop into the throwing lanes. The MLB was playing the TE post aggressively.

This was a big change from "traditonal" cover 2, where the corners aligned outside and force the receivers inside. This almost conceded the slant, atleast inside leverage, but now those corners were taking it away. The T2 came about because of the West Coast Offense.

The WCO (and it's concepts, which have survived on) is a Cover 3 killer. The NFL was a cover 3 league (To get the vaunted "8 in the box"). With the corners and FS playing nice and deep, Walsh & Co. (Mumme especially, but plenty of other influences) they realized they could play 11 on 8 by running short passes that the corners and safeties couldn't get involved in.

A lot of the WCO (traditional stuff) is based on isolating 1 defender, and throwing the opposite of his reaction . An easy example is the Curl/Flat.

Imagine Cov 3 in your mind. Either the SS (rolled down) or OLB are in charge of the "flats". They read pass, they run over to the flats.

The offense is in pro, split backs. Jerry Rice is all alone at Split End. Craig is at HB (IE, to Rice's side). We already know that some unlucky OLB is going to run to the flats.

So Jerry Rice is going to run a slant. 3 yards deep, break sharp inside. Craig is going to run a little swing route.

That OLB see's pass, get's on his horse and starts running after Craig (who is running into the flat). On his way, he see's Jerry Rice running right at him. He has a decision to make. Does he stop and Covery Rice, or keep running and cover Craig?

Joe Montana is sitting back there with his eyes on that OLB. If he stops or hesitates, he throws to Craig because that OLB won't be able to catch up. If he ignores Rice, he hits the slant route right now.

NFL defenses catch on, realize they can't sit there in Cover 3...start playing tighter coverage...eventually the "Tampa 2" comes about, kills the WCO...which morphs into all the spread/air raid stuff we have now.

[Sven Draconian]

Should also say,

Since The T2 became obsolete (no point in having the WCO killer when that offense is "dead") there are a couple major schools now.

The "Quarters" defense, which gets into pattern matching and playign every DB a little too tight to be a true "deep zone" player, but tight enough to not just concede slants, curls and digs all game.

Cov 1- Probably the biggest "faction", let the corners play nice and tight man, keep a couple of free runners on the defense. It matches up nice with everything, but...well...you get lots of man to man matchups (thus all the formational shifting shennanigans...to get good matchups).

Plus, a good mixture of other "stuff" (Cov 2 still exists, so does T2...but more situationally. Lots of the Dick Lebeau "fire zone" zone blitzing all around the league). But those are the 2 "base" defenses.

Also, all sorts of "split" coverages with one half a defense playing x and the other half playing y.

[shttymcgee]

Problem is, the "Tampa" style cover 2 is not implemented properly in the game, because the OLB's don't wall, and the corners take outside leverage.

[Senator Palmer]

Sven Draconian, shttymcgee, 1_two_3_forte, thanks for all the input -- definitely have a lot to chew on and add to my repertoire. I've gone back into practice mode and tried to watch the corners more closely and I will say that in Cover-1, especially vs. slants, the corners make a hard initial move to take away the inside route, wheras in 2 Man Under, they don't play quite as hard to the receiver's inside shoulder. At the snap, they backpedal a little more head up and look a little flat-footed when the receiver breaks across their faces. This is the same for game action too, as well as different formations, dime and nickel.

Quote:

Sven Draconian Cov 1- Probably the biggest "faction", let the corners play nice and tight man, keep a couple of free runners on the defense. It matches up nice with everything

I thought it was just me, but I have been noticing a lot more Cover-1 the past few years, especially when the offense comes out in some kind of stack formation. I was under the impression it was archaic because of the way I heard Warren Sapp make fun of Al Davis still preferring the single-high look in his defenses.

Cover 1, as it's implemented in the game, is better at taking away inside stuff, whereas 2 Man Under seems to work for more vertical stuff, streaks and 7 routes. But Cover-1 is weak against out routes. This is opposite to how I thought it should have worked, so I see why my corners constantly got beat inside in 2 Man.

The trail technique by the cornerback is there, but I've only seen it when the call is double x or z. It's not perfect because the corner can still be beat inside by a post, but at the snap, he takes a hard inside move and lets the receiver get a little ahead of him then runs the trail as the safety brackets over the top. However, the corner opposite the double team doesn't play hard inside at all.

Quote:

Sven Draconian "Tampa 2" was THE DEFENSE to take away the quick game.

Quote:

shttymcgee Problem is, the "Tampa" style cover 2 is not implemented properly in the game, because the OLB's don't wall, and the corners take outside leverage.

I've started using this a little more in my short game, which is antithetical to my thinking, but I have seen results, mainly, out of the 4-3 Normal. It can be weak against the running game, but in the Cover-2 Buc in the 4-3, I have seen the corner sit hard inside the receiver. The big problem here is that the corner doesn't get hands on the receiver to re-route him in any way as I have seen noted numerous times around here.

In the Dime Cover-2 Buc, the corner does sit more to the outside, however in Dime Flat, the corner is off pre-snap, then squeezes down and takes away the inside post-snap.

Quote:

Sven Draconian The "Quarters" defense, which gets into pattern matching and playign every DB a little too tight to be a true "deep zone" player, but tight enough to not just concede slants, curls and digs all game.

Just curious, is this similar to the match-up zone that Butch Davis brought to North Carolina where the zone play can almost look like man coverage and is that similar to what the Cowboys ran in the 90's?

And as of right now, with what you laid out on how the league has evolved -- and I'm curious what others think -- in what situation would you use Cover-3 for? I use it like you said to bring the safety down, but coverage-wise, what is your thinking in what you are trying to stop? I know it feels like a pretty safe defense to me in 4-3, but when I get into Nickel and Dime, it feels a little too lose, especially over the middle in that intermediate area.

[shttymcgee]

I think Sven has talked about Quarters coverage before, but I'll give you a quick answer. Quarters was the defense for a while, especially when I first got into coaching. It has played a major part in forcing teams to use multiple formations, especially at the college level. Even predominantly single-high robber teams, like VT, have adapted to spread teams by playing quarters, or "two-high robber."

There's a few different ways to do it, I'll tell you how we do it. The corners are true cover guys/pass defenders (think DeAngelo Hall), they have the OSR locked on on any vertical route using inside leverage (unless they're inside the divider). They will always relate to the divider, so they'll squeeze the post or dig from outside in. Their inside alignment discourages the quick game (but not bubble screen), but the bail technique does give up the hitch. If the OSR runs hitch, the corner will look to the inside receiver to take care of the smash/china (hi-lo).

The safeties are the force players, but will also carry #2 vertical. They'll read the release of the #2 player, if he blocks, the safety screams up to force the run inside, if #2 releases vertical, the safety locks on, if #2 goes in or out, the safety will "rob" #1, creating a double team on the OSR.

The OLB's have the flats and the middle LB will relate to #2 short after the deployment.

There are other versions, what we call "2 read" the main one, that I'm pretty sure Sven described in some detail earlier.

Cover 3 is still a big defense, but more as a change up to the catch-man style of Cover 1, and it's more often taught as a pattern-reading defense instead of the old-school spot dropping style. Take Sven's description of the curl flat play. In the pattern read version, everyone's accounted for, because the flat player will take the first outside (the back) and the hook player will relate to #2 short (the curl). Presto, everyone's covered. And on the chess-match goes.

I really think that the trend, against spread teams anyway, especially in college vs the spread to run teams, is to play cover 3 using the zone blitz. You lose a hook defender, but trade him for an extra rusher.

[1_two_3_forte]

Quote: Originally Posted by Senator Palmer

I thought it was just me, but I have been noticing a lot more Cover-1 the past few years, especially when the offense comes out in some kind of stack formation. I was under the impression it was archaic because of the way I heard Warren Sapp make fun of Al Davis still preferring the single-high look in his defenses.

A lot of people were kind of critical of the single high defenses of the Raiders because you simplify the reads for the quarterback a lot of times.

Single high safety pre-snap? Some sort of Cover 1 man w/ or w/o a blitz, or Cover 3 w/ or w/o a blitz. Also, you kind of limit your corners on the outside. Due to the fact that they don't have help over the top of them, it really takes away from the temptation to jump routes underneath ran by their man. Nnamdi has said that he'd love for them to be more versatile and get out of the cover 1 and single high looks all game. He said this 2 years ago I think. First of all, in 2 man, corners can jump routes underneath more because of the safety blankets over the top of them. Most notably, because if you disguise and play different coverages, you can confuse the quarterback a lot more instead of basically showing your hand.

Its like poker. Try not to show your hand and make the quarterback think. Slows down his reaction time and a half a second too long could be the difference in a sack/fumble/interception to a completion/touchdown.

I've heard of the Raiders having a lot of different strange concepts.
I've even heard that they don't have run gap responsibilities.. If that is true....wow.

Also to the guy above(mcghee I think it is)....you kind of got my quote out of context. I don't mean for the corners to watch the quarterback way past the snap. They only peak inside at the snap of the ball to read pass or run.....if it's pass....I've been under the understanding that when in 2 man under...they play the inside hip of the receiver with the trail technique. Its all good bro. We are just at different ends of the spectrum. But I know teams like to attack that...along with a lot of man coverages really.....with Bunch formations/Stacked receivers/Crossers and etc.

[Senator Palmer]

Quote: Originally Posted by shttymcgee

Quarters was the defense for a while, especially when I first got into coaching

Just to get a visual in my head, is this picture I posted on page 2 a representation of the first type of quarter defense you described or is this a different type of coverage like a Cover - 3 which is in the Madden playbook out of nickel 3-3-5? All 11 defenders are in the pic...

It's 3rd and 19 and it looks like the Packers are in a 3-3-5.

LB Bishop - 55 is towards the bottom near the 40.
LB Zombo is just inside him opposite the receiver
ILB Hawk is in the middle of the screen at the 37 taking Gonzalez. Is this the "divider" concept at work?

At the top, near the 35, it looks like the corner is bailing to run vertical with the receiver. I think it's Williams but I'm not 100% sure.
Woodson - at the 39 who started in the Nickel was playing just underneath that route.
The corner towards the bottom of the screen at the 34 - #37 Sam Shields looks like he's playing identical technique as Williams at the top. But both corners look like they are squeezed inside away from the sideline.
And it looks like the Free Safety - Collins is sitting the deepest in a single high with Peprah robbered down at the 36 near Hawk.