[Kruza]

I wanted to keep silent about this for as long as I can, but... argh... I just can't do it any longer.

The pass defense may be looking good, but I dunno man. It's like the user helped the CPU out too much to display this. Especially during Denver's opening possession in that Broncos vs. Raiders movie.

First, the user controlling the Broncos in this movie did not once let the CPU take control of Jake Plummer dropping back, which most experienced NFL 2K3 players already know is an automatic no-no in most situations. A manual dropback would likely screw up the timing of the play and subsequently cause errant throws like the 1st INT (more on this below).

On 1st & 10, the Broncos call "50 Double Slant" while the Raiders appear to call "All Blitz 0." In this play, Shannon Sharpe is lined up next to Ashley Lelie, and both are running slant routes. The Raiders sends the house to Plummer at the snap of the ball -- nickelback (Nnamdi Ashomugha), dimeback (Derrick Gibson) and linebacker (I assume Napoleon Harris) included. But the user chooses to throw at Lelie instead of a wide open Sharpe. Eh? When controlling Plummer in this situation, I know as soon as I see that LB rush toward the line of scrimmage, my eyes would've lit up and the ball would be humming to Sharpe running through that void in the middle of the field uncovered. Also, Terrance Shaw is lined right over Lelie before the snap, which basically gives away that he's covering Lelie on this play. [Yeah I understand that the user could've pressed the wrong button by mistake, but the 'Y' button (Sharpe) isn't that close to the 'A' button (Lelie) on the Xbox controller.] I just don't get what was going through the user's head here.

And on 3rd & 6, the Raiders call what looks to be "4 Cloud," which has Charles Woodson lined up 12 yards back from the line of scrimmage. The Broncos call "90 Z Slam," but then the user re-assigns Ed McCaffrey to run a go route instead. Huh? Why do this at all when it's pretty clear that Woodson -- and Gibson in the middle for that matter -- is in good position to break up any thrown deep balls? The assigned hitch route was fine as is. If anything, the only route that would be wise to re-assign to in this situation would be the out route. The strongside linebacker, Bill Romanowski, may be in position to cover McCaffrey then, but that leaves FB Mike Anderson open on the swing route. Romo can't cover both guys here, so either McCaffrey or Anderson will be open on this play. But what happens in the movie? McCaffrey runs deep and is covered by Woodson and Gibson. The football eventually gets thrown toward the direction of a well-covered Rod Smith. The errant throw toward Smith sails high and goes right into the hands of Rod Woodson.

Well, I'm guessing the user is just doing the things in this movie to show off the pass defense in this game, which is cool I suppose. If so, you all can disregard everything I said in this post as meaningless babble.

At any rate, I would like to see more footage of a user making good decisions on where to throw the football for a change, particularly against different zone coverages. Can this be hard to make?

Kruza