How do you down the ball on punt coverage?

[sox73b3]

Whenever I get a good punt inside the opponents 20 I can never down the ball, it always rolls into the endzone even though my coverage guy is right there. How do you stop the ball?

[TMJOHNS18]

Catch it or dive on it.

[mjhyankees]

It's a problem this year that every punt seems to skid straight toward the endzone. My only success has come from 1. angling the ball so it skids out of bounds 2. controlling a coverage guy and getting into the 'target' area...once in a while the ball hits him. 3. If you can get it to land around the 11 or 12 yard line it will not quite make the endzone. I'd like to see some backwards bouncing or left or right bouncing balls once in a while. In the NFL you never know which way the ball will go. They used to have that in Madden..."sigh"......why they took it out I'll never know...they do that crap all the time....leave the darn thing "in the game" once you have it.

[DukeC]

For the 360 use the LB (Left bumper) button to swat it with one of your defenders. That should stop the ball and immediately down it before it goes into the endzone.

[Vaporub83]

switch to your gunner and catch the ball. If they don't catch it they will stop it from going into the endzone.

[bc3po]

Quote: Originally Posted by mjhyankees

It's a problem this year that every punt seems to skid straight toward the endzone. My only success has come from 1. angling the ball so it skids out of bounds 2. controlling a coverage guy and getting into the 'target' area...once in a while the ball hits him. 3. If you can get it to land around the 11 or 12 yard line it will not quite make the endzone. I'd like to see some backwards bouncing or left or right bouncing balls once in a while. In the NFL you never know which way the ball will go. They used to have that in Madden..."sigh"......why they took it out I'll never know...they do that crap all the time....leave the darn thing "in the game" once you have it.

I agree, it would be really interesting not knowing where the ball was going to bounce, in NFL you see punts that sometimes take a huge backwards bounce. Its just another little thing that would add so much to the game

[tcrews]

I seem to remember in years past the ball bouncing multiple directions after it had landed. Depending on the angle, where the ball hit when it landed, etc. It would even bounce backwards at times, as in hit the 3 yard line, and bounce backwards to the 5 or 6 yard line instead of continuing into the end zone. I'm not sure what absolute realism is in this case, since I don't know a lot about physics, but I definitely appreciated the randomness of not knowing which way the bounce would go. This year I've gotten used to them always rolling/bouncing into the end zone and nowhere else. The best advice I can give is to do what everyone else said regarding the catch/swat/dive button.

But as a stopgap from having to try and attack the ball with your players, here's some punting advice.

If you know your punter well enough and know you can kick a ball into the endzone. I always put the arrow the highest up it can go (most hang-time, but not as much distance as a flatter punt) and choose my power accordingly. If I'm in my opponents territory, just out of field goal range, I'll put the arrow at the highest and punt the ball around 45-55%. I'd definitely go into practice mode and punt the ball for 15-30 minutes. It's actually cool that field position seems to matter more this year, it's very hard for the offense to get into a rhythm when they're worried about a safety. Hope this helped.

[Champion8877]

i always just angle it so it bounces out of bounds.