Some of you might remember a few of my older playbooks, such as
The Veer and Shoot and the first edition of the
I-Bone.Well, for the past few seasons I have continued to run the I-Bone in Madden 18 and 19, both in offline franchise, Online Sim Style Franchises, and, of course, H2H mode, piling up a decent record in the latter. ( If you don’t want to read the rest, don’t bother. You can download the playbook on XB1 under
Ibone4 and, if you are not on x box,
here is a spread sheet for the offense.)
Disclaimer: This is not the FACEMELTER 3000 or a money playbook.
If you follow the above link to the I-Bone, you will note that I said that the devs had pulled the triple option sets from the game,by and large, which forced me to go away from the source material. Madden 18 and 19 had strongly nerfed the Triple Option from the Pistol sets. It was a source of immense frustration for me. I love the Triple as a constraint pay and a way to keep people honest and now my offenses, though still very viable, were missing a critical component.
Madden 20, for whatever reason, (probably the amount of success the Ravens and Lamar Jackson had) BROUGHT BACK MY TRIPLE! In addition to the vast amounts of RPOs and Jet Sweep, Madden brought back a lot of the option plays in the pistol that were previously scrubbed. What does this mean to you, the reader? Well, primarily,this means I could recreate the version of the Madden 17 I Bone, which was fairly popular. But then, I thought, can I modernize this offense ever more? Can I make it better? Can I keep it within the same style of offense that the Holy Tom Osbourne used whilst dominating with the ‘Huskers? This would,of course, be a power running game that used the option as constraint plays.
As it turns out, yes.
The key additions, as it turns out, are not the RPOs, even though these are as fun as anything. Instead, it is the Jet Sweeps, Touch Passes, and the Play Action passes off of them. One of the things that I hated about the unbalanced formations from some of the Single Back sets was an inability to attack the flank quickly. The Jet plays have completely changed this. I now have added the majority of them into my playbook as constraint plays and quick audibles. What’seven more amazing is that they are blocked properly and very well done. They have quickly become a very important part of my offense, one that has caught several users completely off guard. It forces players to defend their flanks at all times, usually with a safety rocked into the box. This means I have a numbers advantage elsewhere. Anyway, before I digress into a love song for the Jet Sweep, let us move forward to the players needed for the system.
Maybe My Favorite Play
This is a power run offense, ergo, you must have good to great run blockers up front. The guards need to be able to pull and trap or wrap. While you can use Inside and Outside Zone, I prefer Power, Toss, Iso, and Trap, with a dabble of Buck Sweep. Run Blocking is king, but they should be adequate pass blockers at the very least.
Centers Sorted By Run Blocking
Guards Sorted By Run Blocking
Tackles Sorted By Run Blocking
The TE: The TE has to be able to run block first and foremost. Any catching ability is a bonus. Obviously this can be a big part of your offense if you can find one that can do both.
Tight Ends Sorted By Run Blocking
The I-Back: I like a big,sturdy back that can punish defenses in the interior and also push the edge on tosses. So, not like LeGarrette Blount Or Feast Mode. Slightly smaller. Demarco Murray would be one and Nick Chubb would probably be another. Small backs like Tarik Cohen can be good in this offense, but often don’t have the push to fall forward from the I or Pistol Formations. Ideally, finding a back that can stay on the field in all situations and get moved around a bit would be the best, someone like...CMC maybe, would be an excellent fit. Another would be someone like Jordan Howard. Obviously Zeke or Saquaon would be fits, but they work anywhere.
All Halfbacks sorted by Strength
All Halfbacks sorted by Speed
The Wing/Slot Back: This is a new position for this offense. It simply wasn’t relevant in the past as it was not a person who will often carry the ball from a hand off or touch pass. Obviously, with the implementation of the Jet Sweep and some of the Bubble RPOs, this is now a position of more importance. This player generally needs to be one of the faster players on your roster. The player also needs to be fairly agile and shifty. I prefer to put a running back like Tarik Cohen in this position as a home run hitter. Bigger, stronger players who have good agility, like Cordarale Patterson are also good fits. Slot WRs like Taylor Gabriel or Julian Edelman are also good fits. I will say...don’t bother running the Jet Sweeps with a TE. Just a mess really.
There are a lot of players that fit this role to be honest. Jakeem Grant, Braxton Berrios, and, of course, Tyreek Hill.
All Halfbacks and Wide Receivers Sorted by Speed
The Fullback: The Huskers had a proud tradition of running fullbacks as short yardage backs who smacked people around in the trenches. The Makovika brothers were all very good runners and blockers for the Huskers back in the 90’s. There are really not a lot of teams with fullbacks that are actually capable runners as well as blockers. Kyle Juszczyk is one of them, although the 49ers are not a great team to be running this offense. Cethan Carter would be a decent fit, as would Zach Line.
All Fullbacks Currently In Madden
The WR: Release and Catching are probably the two most important parts. They should be bigger bodies as well. People love to walk up their corners and play cover one or cover zero against this offense for whatever reason. Having someone on your offense that can exploit that is a happy bonus.
The X and Zs must also be willing blockers in the screen and jet game. (Chris Conley is the best run blocking WR in the game. GO DAWGS)
The QB: Ah, finally, the trigger man. THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE TOMMY FRAIZER. They just have to be ground threats. 5-10 yard gainers that the other players have to respect. I know that I have gashed people with Trubisky and of course Lamar Jackson is a stud in this offense. Any halfway mobile QB works. Carry rating is important. There seems to be a slight issue with QBs fumbling this year. They need to be stronger armed QBs as they need to be able to exploit the deep third portion of the field.
Executing the Offense.
Truth be told, I did not grow up an I Form fan. I grew up running, coaching, and playing in the Delaware Wing T and a lot of my offensive principles derive from that. One of the keys of the wing T is always having the threat of 4 receiving options going downfield. That is not one of the keys to this offense. So, after a few hours of intense labbing and love, I have found a compromise. From every formation there is the threat of the run from at least three different players. This can be the QB on a roll out, PA or otherwise, or the read, triple, or power option. It can be the FB on a dive, which is effective, the HB on a pitch, toss, dive, iso or whatever and finally,the newest wrinkle, the Slot/Wing on a jet sweep/bubble/RPO. This places incredible stress on the defender and makes it incredibly difficult on whom to key and, if you read your pre-snap keys correctly, you will be able to make it so that the defender is NEVER in the correct position. Obviously, you can get “Maddened” from time to time. But I try to neutralize that as much as possible, by spending a lot of time in the lab and in practice. Plus, I have been running this offense for about 3 years at this point, so I know the reads and how the AI tends to play certain formations. (And also how human players tend to play them)
After playing almost 40 head to head games, winning some and losing some, I have found that the most important part of running this offense is committing to it and being flexible within the offense. There are answers to most defensive looks inside the running game. With the addition of the jet sweep as a good sound play and the ability to audible to AT LEAST one outside run play per personnel grouping, there is no reason that people jamming the middle should ever work against this offense
When running the PA passing rollouts it is important that the other player sees your QB as a threat to run and accounts for him. This should leave someone open. If they don’t want to do this...well…green grass, haul ***!
On the formations:
What you are seeing, as you pursue the playbooks is a variety of ways to attack the defense on the ground. The formations themselves are just as important as the plays. One of the easier ways to prevent the game from spazzing out on you or from getting off schedule on down and distance is to use the formations to your advantage in the run game. There are a few unbalanced formations in this book such as the wing formations and singleback doubles south (which has a phenomenal jet sweep) If the opposing player is OK with getting out flanked, abuse them on the corners. The playbook is set up in such a way to allow you to change formations within position groups rather easily.
There are a few formations I would like to highlight, however.
Pistol Strong Slot-amazing formation with a good run game. Also has Power Option, Triple Option, Jet Touch Pass, and Dragon Stretch, which combines a Slant Flat Combo with stretch. Nasty look.
Pistol Spread- It got nerfed then brought back to life. Really dangerous running formation with several RPOs that can shred the opponent.
Pistol Trips Left Open- Similar to pistol spread, this is a formation that is fantastic to run from. It has alerts, bubbles, and an RPO. That RPO can take some practice to get used to, but it works often enough that I have not scrapped it from my playbook.
Ace Doubles South- On of the best complementary sets in the game in my opinion. You have a very nice Jet to the TE, some decent running plays and a good to great set of passing and PA passes.
Shotgun Wing Slot WK/ Shotgun Wing Slot Offset- One of the many mini schemes in this offense. Wing Slot WK has Bucksweep RPO, which is very good, and with a simple shift you can be in Wing Slot Offset and cut the edge with Jet.
I Form Tight: In general, I feel like the under center running game has been buffed hard this year. I really enjoy running from them more, that is for certain. This formation has more pass plays that it has had in the past and one particularly nasty Alert called “Stretch U Pop” where the backside TE runs a little post/slant above the stretch. Red Zone Killer.
Teams to use:I would recommend the Bears, the Cowboys, Seattle, or the Panthers.
I plan on uploading videos of this offense in the future just as soon as I can afford to get a half way decent recorder. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the offense!