Good write up! It is too bad that people don't want to see the truth right before their eyes.

Dude, you are bang on the money; but it still wont change how Madden is developed or sold!! And that's the TRUTH. the task you talk about is something that would take Madden devs a whole console (next-gen) cycle to maybe fix (5 to 7yrs); and by then we will all be near sited and beyond our years of playing Madden! lol
So let's just enjoy the rubbish produced by EA! hope you didnt spend too much for your copy? then that would be a darn waste!
cheers

In all honesty, I have 0 problems with a good pass rusher at DE in getting to the QB. I play with the Right End all the time, no matter who it is. When I have a poor pass rusher, I don't get anywhere, really. I'll end up going donut all across for the whole game, and end up getting pancaked 4 or 5 times as well. When I use a team like the Giants or Eagles, I can get consistent pass rush on the QB from my ends pretty much all day, as long as I mix it up. I prefer finesse rushers, I like power rushers but when I use power and blow up the LT in a bullrush and it takes so much time to recover that most times the QB gets the ball away before I can lay wood. I find it effective against runs on my side though. And with this year's game, I sometimes trip over the dude I just rushed over and I definitely don't get the QB (which is cool to me). I find the swim move and spin move much, much more effective. And I get AMAZING speed rushes from the Eagles' ends. Also, I notice this year's game that if I'm rollin, and I get a good number of pressure plays on the QB early in the game, the O-Line tends to pay more attention to me and the other side can get in the backfield more effectively.

I think the O-Line needs to be worked on in Madden and I've felt that way for many iterations. I feel like it's gotten slightly better this year, but I don't think it's because they've worked on it. I think it's because of the Infinity engine that makes the interaction a little better.. still not good enough to me though, but it's not a deal breaker for me either.

As far a couple of your complaints though, I have to say that the whole point of blitzing is to do just what you said. You send more rushers than the line can block and in those situations in real life a rusher will get off of his guy to negate the speeding rusher from killing his QB. Now in real life those plays normally result in holding penalties because smart linemen would rather take the lost of 10 yards than a lost of 8 yards and a down to boot. Not to mention the possibility of your QB getting hurt. It's just done ugly because the O-line isn't done right. Those situations is when holding is normally called in real games so I wish Madden would get more realistic on the penalties in certain situations. They hardly call holding at all but if you put the slider up, they call holding on everything.

@Plush oNe. In appreciate/respect your comments, but I honestly disagree with a lot of what you said. I don't see any of those things you stated in Madden (speed rush, finesse moves being effective, etc...) and no NFL-caliber Offensive Tackle is going to consistently leave a Defensive End unblocked on a blitz pick-up. It just doesn't happen like that in real life.

The thing I HATE in this game is that the offensive lineman during a 3 or 4 man rush the extra offensive lineman or linemen just stand there and don't help out which tome is another reason why I get sacked and cant get the ball out; it's not good d line it's bad o line.

I totally agree man, I had to move Doom over to the right side just so he could get double digit sacks.Because Von Miller's speed and acceleration is soo high, I broke the sack record for a season. I thought I was a beast, until I started really dissecting the replays, seeing how the rushers engage then disengage, idk if that was what EA was calling a speed rush, but it was very funky looking.

@denverbro89. EXACTLY! Once you go into replay mode and start looking at things up close, you discover exactly what I am describing in my blog. Things are definitely NOT what the seem at first glance. Thanks for the comment!

This is funny, and sadly true. Whenever i get sacked its usually from a 3 man rush. The DE's bump into my Tackles twice, then are released to my QB. Another major issue i have is that the O-lineman dont run block effectively. They dont attempt to push forward, they simply engage just like pass blocking. DT's are too quick to come laterally off thier blocks to make a tackle on the RB. This makes running the ball between the tackles ineffective. When im in a Big formation (2TE 2RB) i should be able to push back a 3 man front or a team sitting in a Dime package. overall i like this game but these few issues just kill the basic strategy of football.

The right end rarely get any pressure on the QB... DE or a beast at ROLB like Ware... Even when playing against them... Who is Jared Allen again???

I played the Giants and I saw A LOT of Tuck and DT's... I just came to the conclusion that you can't do anything about it... This offensive line/defensive line issue have been like this for years...

You have to tweak sliders and count... I managed to semi get a reasonable 4 man pass rush for and against me randomly... Also, make blitz effective with LB's getting 9 or so tackles... I learned not to look at the line mechanics or from whom, just count how long you have to throw the ball... I average around 3-4 seconds with a regular 4 man rush... 2-3 with blitz... Which is the closes thing I can get to real football... But yeah the ish is broken... EVERYTHING that happens in football starts with the offensive line vs. the defensive line... I don't understand why they have neglected that so many years...

APF 2k8 was a dope game man... I used to enjoy playing it.

@Illustrator76 Well, of course no NFL caliber OT is going to do that consistently. In the NFL, they will make the proper adjustments and put a Back in the backfield or stack up with a TE.. run screen plays as well to negate the rush. Because no matter what, 1 can't block 2, and no good OT is going to allow his QB to get tagged.

As far as the finesse moves, I decided to record a few interactions with Trent Cole vs. Joe Thomas. All with 4 down linemen, no blitz calls:

Spin Move: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-DB4v8r0Cw

Rip Move: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lb3kjJzLmU

Swim Move (Babin, Joe Thomas started getting help on the other side): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_2hpmyc8w

Speed Rush: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AICdpK2p2Y

It's a timing thing. If you don't time it right, you'll end up going no where. If you start your spin or swim move too early, you'll get held up. If you start your speed and bull rush too early/too late, you'll get caked. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't owning Joe Thomas or nothing. The guy is one of the best LT's in the league. Most of my speed rushes ended like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU6htnCpDbw

The only way to get good pressure is by nano blitzing smh

@Plush oNe. Your last video/statement did nothing but help to prove what I have been saying. No matter how good/bad the Offensive Tackle is, pretty much every finesse move pass rusher ends up on the ground. You may be able to get an occasional sack here or there with 95+ finesse move pass rushers, but consistent pressure? Forget about it. Also, why should the moves have anything to do with timing in the first place? When the whistle blows, you have to get after it, if your first move doesn't work, then hit the lineman with a double move. You can't do that in Madden. Again, look at the All-Pro football video and compare it to Madden. The pass rush is much more effective and it plays out miles better than this instant win loss garbage that Madden is using.

Not only that, how many sacks/how much pressure do you get with your finesse move DE's when the CPU controls them? I let the CPU control Cliff Avril and he gets ZERO sacks and no pressure unless he gets "blocked and released" by the Offensive Lineman. Avril doesn't even USE his finesse moves at all. There should be no reason whatsoever why I should have to control my D-Line in order to get pressure if I have the right guys up front. I don't have to do that in "other games".

@Illustrator76 I controlled Trent Cole the whole game and I got 3 sacks -- that's not bad. I was in the backfield a lot, on all those videos I showed, only one of them I actually got a sack in. The Jason Babin vid was controlled CPU, the protection was getting slid to my side and I was stuck for pretty much a whole quarter. Babin was in the backfield more than me, but I honestly can't remember how many sacks he got. I know for a fact he had at least 2, and he caused a lot of incompletions via underthrows and throwaways.

I had one game against the Jags with Cole a couple of days ago, I had 5 sacks with him. I don't know who their LT is, but he was getting BEAT DOWN, so I'm guessing his rating is poor. All-Pro LT's shouldn't be giving up consistent pressure in the backfield, neither should decent ones. And I wouldn't want a game where I get 8 sacks either, that should be CRAZY hard to do. Hell, only like 11 or 12 players in the history of football ever had 5 sacks in a game and I got that with Cole.

I'm alright with the timing being a factor in rush moves. I don't want it to be so easy where all I have to do is flick the right stick and I beat him no matter what. Maybe that's just my deal. Mixing it up is also a factor, because the first move I tried was the speed rush, but he kept pinning me and pinning me. Come to find out, that set him up for the spin move (which felt good btw).

I'm not comparing All-Pro and Madden. I'm not in the business of doing that. Besides, all that turns into is a pointless 2K vs. EA e-fight that I am on neither side of. I was just stating that pass rushing is and can be effective, and gave a couple of pointers on how. I could agree 3 years ago, Madden's line-play was definition win/loss, mostly because of the suction. I can have a free run or beat the LT, yet end up getting sucked back into him, which really pissed me off. I didn't watch the All-Pro vid, but maybe the line interaction is better than Madden's, I can certainly believe it. Because I said in my first post, this is something that they've needed to fix for years. It won't happen this generation though, that's for sure.I just personally believe that for now, it's deal-with-able and can be fun. Of course you're not going to agree with me, and neither will anybody else who visits this blog, but I was just showing my point of view. See you, bro.

@Plush oNe. Yeah, I think we will agree to disagree then. I'm not sure what level you were playing on, whether or not you were using sliders, etc... I just know that the pass rush in Madden is most certainly still weak and absolutely broken, and people inside EA have basically admitted as much, so that kind of tells it all to me right there. Maybe it's an online/offline thing (I doubt it though), but I know I just got done playing a few online games, and once again, Cliff Avril got ZERO sacks, and ZERO pressure at all. Guys CONSISTENTLY had 5+ seconds to throw in the pocket, and any of my sacks were by my DT's, and that's how it has always been. I also disagree on the timing thing as well, it flat out shouldn't be that way. Pass rushing should be based off ratings, and mixing up your moves (that part we do agree on), not when you "time" a pass rush move. The ratings and mixing up your pass rush moves should bare the brunt of your success or failure.

I wish I had a recording device, because I could just as easily show my DE's constantly getting stuck on blocks forever game after game while playing online.