EA Zone Running Challenge to YOU!!

[LBzrule]

Quote: Originally Posted by Senator Palmer

@LBz in the third video, you pointed out my biggest issue with Madden; that against the run game, stunts are useless. Once your defensive linemen are engaged, they don't/can't complete their assignment. This is why this game HAS to have true gap assignments programmed into it, if it's ever going to take that next step in authenticity. Let me ask you a strategy question in real football and Madden-ball terms? What is the best front to use to combat the zone run? When I'm playing Madden, I try to use 4-3 stack (which really looks more like a true Over front, but that's another thread) and use the principles of the Miami 4-3 in flowing to the ball with my linebackers, but I find a lot of frustration with that because of another thing you pointed out in the video. In Madden, to combat plays that are supposed to stretch out, linebackers have to shoot gaps, instead of stringing the play out as they do in real life because there's no real movement by the defensive line. So, I'm constantly fighting with myself at that snap. I read plays pretty quickly and I'd like to flow from gap to gap, but too often, in order to play effective run D, I wind up overrunning a play and shooting a gap that isn't mine because I'm never 100% confident the linebacker next to me is going to flow properly to his.

Couple of things. This is why I call it Lavar Arrington style defense. Because you cannot trust the other linebackers you unfortunately are left to guess IF you are playing run defense in a manner you see in real football.

As far as fronts, I would say the best one is the one that fits your personnel. In real life, if you notice, most teams are not going to stop doing what they normally do with their front seven. Now just watching the Ravens over the years, one thing we do is go with Safety Fires on the edges. But for the most part we stay with what our personnel is comfortable doing. I'm not sure what we will do this year with the loss of JJ and now Suggs for a bit. I'm not sure we are going to stay with the Under front. We'll see.


When you are dealing with a wide zone running scheme I think you first gotta look at your personnel and ask if you have two guys that you trust will be able to set the edge. This is where Jarrett Johnson and T-Sizzle were MVP's for us. Very rarely could teams get outside both of these guys. Now, if a team can get outside on us, how are we going to combat that? Again, the Ravens used a lot of Safety firing off the edge to truncate and squeeze the wideness of the wide zone and allow the pursuit to clean up. You also gotta make sure that your backside guys are disciplined enough to play cutback rather than running out of there.

These are all very intricate and difficult issues to deal with when you are playing Madden. That's why I get really frustrated when I see guys asking for a "run stopper" in Madden. And then when I see what guys do to stop the run, that's when I know the game is messed up and is a bad representation of football in that regard. There is no such thing as any one run stopper. People have been playing Madden over the year's and this game has conditioned them to look for that one play or that one set of adjustments that will work. That's terrible.

Frankly, I hate Madden/NCAA adjustment system. In the real world none of it deals with the run game. I see guys stop the run easy in Madden. Guy I used to lab with, he would run 46 Normal all day. Put both DT's in Spy and manually move the SS down on the outside and then manually move the Weak OLB down and a little outside on the other side. He would control the safety and bring him down. Couldn't run up the middle the blocking would get messed up. This type of stuff is WACK. What they need is Run Fits and Strategic Adjustments that have to do with the run game. Let me give some examples of the latter discussing a 3-4 defense.

If I am having trouble off tackle, I might call cloud coverage but then I might give my Sam backer a red call. So we will call it Sky-Red. What this is is when the Sam and SS read run, they are gonna stunt. The Sam is going to slant inside and hit the gap between the TE and the Offensive Tackle. The SS is on a Sky call is going to crash hard from the secondary and pick up the outside with an outside-in angle of containment. Now Sky-White is the exact opposite. Sky-White has the Sam backer crashing outside to pick up anything outside while the SS is going to drop out of the sky and crash the off tackle hole. The important thing here is this is only performed if the defenders read run. Otherwise drop to your zone assignment because it is a pass.

In 2k8, while it was not perfect, you could run these type of adjustments by simply calling the Sky play and then hot blitzing your linebacker to blitz INSIDE, (yes in 2k8 you could have your backer blitz straight down, inside or outside). Then you just take the Safety and manually crash the outside or inside. These are the type of strategic adjustments I'm looking for along with fronts on the fly. I'm not into the cookie cutter BS that people are almost forced to do in Madden if they want to deal with something.

[AC IS ART]

I wanted to bump this and say that the WR's don't run the safety/secondary player out the play. On most of the zone plays in this game they don't even have blocking assignments. They run straight up and make contact with whoever is in front of them, instead of walling off the edge in unison with the TE/OT leaving the RB to make "one guy miss".

Also, where are the cut blocks at? That's another reason why there are so few cutback lanes.

While I don't believe this will be fixed anytime soon, I have found that faster lineman do a much better job of engaging and getting to the second level on zone runs. Its not the fix we need, but a speed increase to zone blocking OL would do wonders for the current Madden until they redo OL/DL interactions. It would also further differentiate zone blocking lineman from power scheme lineman.