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After reading Chris's review on NCAA 13 he made a great point on defense that really needs to be looked at and changed for next year. Here is a quote from the review...
" For starters, defense (as alluded to before) simply isn't handled correctly. Football defense is not like football offenses, you do not have play books full of plays for defense. You have assignments and roles which each player fills as part of an overall scheme"
As a former Defensive player in high school and college, now a coach I can not agree more with this statement and am glad that somebody gets it. The most frustrating thing for me is the inability to run the scheme that I would like to run in real life. The main reason is because there are too many plays and I don't want to learn them all. But just like Chris said, there are not really specific "plays" in real life defenses. Breaking it down simply first as far as assignments go is simple, the DL has a call (really from the LB), the LBs get a call, and the DBs get a call (coverage). So I was thinking why can't we get a system like this on our play call screen on defense? If it were up to me it would be simple, and please feel free to give suggestions after reading.
Instead of choosing one "play" you first choose a formation and then choose 3 assignments for the DL, LB, and DB. To make it user friendly for those who may not be familiar with terms it looks very similar to the playbook today. Here is just an idea of how it could look like.
1. Choose formation just like today
2. Next comes three columns seen on the screen, one for the DL, the next column is for Blitzing/QB Spy/etc (DL, LBs, and DBs have assignments found here), and the last column is the coverage. The columns are easy to navigate just move the stick or d-pad left/right for the columns, and up/down for choosing the calls.
3. Choosing the calls would be easy to navigate, each column has the name of the call and has it drawn up similar to today's version but only specific for each, for example DL's plays would look like Crash Left, Crash Right, etc. The Blitzing column would also have names and have each player that blitzes drawn up. The same would go for the coverage column, having Cover 1, Cover 2, etc. The best part about the entire process is as you are choosing each call there is a drawing of the formation (somewhere outside of the columns) you have chosen and of each call you make which is changing as you are choosing them. It is like you are creating an entire play WITHIN the game. This would not only change the way we play defense in the video game but also bring about the possiblity of a VERY dynamic defense for the first time from both the USER and CPU (assuming that gets some work as well).
I have many other ideas as far as alignments and assignments go after choosing the play but this is just the basic formula that I truly believe could help take a step forward for making defense fun and easier. So what do you guys think?
" For starters, defense (as alluded to before) simply isn't handled correctly. Football defense is not like football offenses, you do not have play books full of plays for defense. You have assignments and roles which each player fills as part of an overall scheme"
As a former Defensive player in high school and college, now a coach I can not agree more with this statement and am glad that somebody gets it. The most frustrating thing for me is the inability to run the scheme that I would like to run in real life. The main reason is because there are too many plays and I don't want to learn them all. But just like Chris said, there are not really specific "plays" in real life defenses. Breaking it down simply first as far as assignments go is simple, the DL has a call (really from the LB), the LBs get a call, and the DBs get a call (coverage). So I was thinking why can't we get a system like this on our play call screen on defense? If it were up to me it would be simple, and please feel free to give suggestions after reading.
Instead of choosing one "play" you first choose a formation and then choose 3 assignments for the DL, LB, and DB. To make it user friendly for those who may not be familiar with terms it looks very similar to the playbook today. Here is just an idea of how it could look like.
1. Choose formation just like today
2. Next comes three columns seen on the screen, one for the DL, the next column is for Blitzing/QB Spy/etc (DL, LBs, and DBs have assignments found here), and the last column is the coverage. The columns are easy to navigate just move the stick or d-pad left/right for the columns, and up/down for choosing the calls.
3. Choosing the calls would be easy to navigate, each column has the name of the call and has it drawn up similar to today's version but only specific for each, for example DL's plays would look like Crash Left, Crash Right, etc. The Blitzing column would also have names and have each player that blitzes drawn up. The same would go for the coverage column, having Cover 1, Cover 2, etc. The best part about the entire process is as you are choosing each call there is a drawing of the formation (somewhere outside of the columns) you have chosen and of each call you make which is changing as you are choosing them. It is like you are creating an entire play WITHIN the game. This would not only change the way we play defense in the video game but also bring about the possiblity of a VERY dynamic defense for the first time from both the USER and CPU (assuming that gets some work as well).
I have many other ideas as far as alignments and assignments go after choosing the play but this is just the basic formula that I truly believe could help take a step forward for making defense fun and easier. So what do you guys think?
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