Elaborating on "Scheming" vs. "Tinkering"

This post I made in another thread deserves it's own thread....Discuss...

You know, the OP is on to something....

I have hit a wall lately. Frustrated with the game, so I've been searching for new D recently...and some really ABSURD plays that no one uses (crossfire 3 or crossfire man) can be VERY effective with minimal adjustments....running the plays as is can really confuse your opponent as to where the heat MIGHT be coming from...

I'm not saying to always do this...but think about it this way....why, sometimes does the CPU in practice mode have some ODD ways of stopping your quick passes? All it's doing is calling a play and man aligning OR showing blitz in practice mode...it doesn't hot route...

Another thing....it's a quick pass world....I find that you can run blitzes where you send a lot of heat even versus a quick passer, so long as you are covering his receivers at the LOS...for instance...think about a trips left look versus weak blitz 3 out of 3-4 rush/predator....if you leave the play stock...both the LOLB and LILB (looking at the screen) will run over and cover the 2 slot receivers on the left....they are still blitzing....there is a FS in a yellow zone over the top....Now, even though both those slot WRs are going to be open...they won't be IMMEDIATELY...no one in their right mind is going to hike throw to a slot receiver that is covered pre-snap by a defender. Now after the snap, there is a grace period where the QB won't throw....there are a lot of moving parts to a zone blitz. People dropping into coverage, heat from odd angles...is a safety creeping down into a short/flat zone? etc...there are a lot of things to think about when you run stock blitzes and show blitz or man align...


I REALLY LIKE LEAVING 3-4 BLITZES ALONE VERSUS SPREAD SETS....EVEN though a slot receiver is covered pre-snap by a guy you know is blitzing, your opponent doesn't know that! By the time your opponent realizes that the man that covered him pre-snap is rushing the passer, the SS over the top has already picked him up in his zone assignment, or maybe a DE is dropping into a yellow zone....

I have found myself really MINIMALLY tinkering with 3-4 stock plays...and it's kind of working...Now, it's not going to win me a MC without me having my own hot routed plays to mix in...but you get the point....

When I see people MANUALLY moving guys into gaps now, I'm simply playing the numbers game:

1. If this is a man blitz that's TRULY coming from the left A gap, then I should slide protect left with a hot read to left flat to my best mismatch, as there will be FEWER guys manned up on the left side of the field and more room to run after a catch. If I guess wrong and it's a bluff, then the DE on the right could come hot....that means I need either a hot read right or a block and release assignment for my RB....

2. If this is a zone blitz that's truly coming from the right side, then I need to slide protect right, maybe leave a back in to block my blindside, and call a flood concept to the right side...or I can always smash the ball down their throat....good luck stopping me with a zone blitz...as all your guys involved in your manually made nano blitz will get picked up by run blocking...and all your guys NOT blitzing have their first step going BACKWARDS...again, have fun...


You get the point....When guys manually stack gaps, it's fairly predictable as to what is coming....play a numbers game and say to yourself "If this blitz I'm reading is REALLY going to come through, then that means THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS, and THIS/THIS guy need to be blitzing....that means THIS THIS THIS AND THIS guy are in man coverage and I should attack man coverage with THIS player because the man assigned to him will have to cover more ground on the route..."

You get the point...What I'm saying is that manually tinkering 5 or 6 guys makes my reads easier than if you were to go with an approach that is attacking my tendencies and mixing up the rushers/droppers behind it...My struggles lately have been my Mike Martz attitude towards playcalling. I'm doing what Martz did early in the year when the Bears lost back to back to the Skins and Seahawks...I'm refusing to be flexible on both sides and take whats being given me....

Another thing...you wonder why the mantra to Madden on next gen is that "anyone can pick up the sticks" and win now....This is why...

In PS2 days, the best scheme/uniqueness won all the MCs. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE had their own offense...and it was hard to prepare for the top players because they could pull routes, do mirror route combos, form shift, etc...That's GONE....Now we are basically limited (to an extent) to the 200 or so plays we have in our play books with fairly minimal adjustments....

Call a play and play has started to work over the best $$$ plays...and we wonder why....It feels that the whole GameFlow attitude the EA team has developed has really brough this game to a level of anyone can compete....So why are we continually living in the days of "run $$$ plays all game" when in fact, the only money plays that work vs the majority of coverages are slant outs with an RB fade out of the backfield....

$$$ Defense is gone, and the best players are the ones who are giving the most unique looks on defense....Gone are the days of Strike 2 Deep being 90% of your defense....If you mix up your BLITZES moreso than your DEEP shell, you will get to the QB more and neutralize some of these Bench Switch players....

i guess the answer is to use a little of both
Very good read

and also, is it just me, or to blitzes work a lot better when you mix up defensive formations...

Well of course! Giving a different look consistently keeps the offense out of their comfort zone!

Great post Zan, I can use this a lot. Much appreciated!

I like one formation all game long. You can move players around to give any look you want. I just believe in i like a 4 downline form and a 3 downline form. I just sprinke in a couple of 4-3 normal, and nickel strong and 3-3-5. to go along with your bear. The game is very pass happy, so it's really no good to read packages and go from there, i mean yes sometimes it's cool. but hell, mostly all day. 2 back 2 WR ,or 1 back 3 WR, we're all calling he same base or same personnel.

I disagree...Unless you're making ALL of your plays look exactly the same in your 1 set, I'm going to get a tell from each of your set ups after you run them....

Look for instance at the AM mini-scheme that they tout to be the EXACT same look every play from the 3-4 solid....when in fact, it's not....

One play brings RDE heat with the LILB behind the LDE, while the other play brings LDE heat with the LILB to the side of the of the LDE brings the LDE pressure....Don't even get me started on the other play in the minischem (being a no assignment nano that has both OLBs in respective A-gaps).That's a DISTINCT tell, to me!

No i don't make my plays all look exactly the same. I use 4-6 bear for my one formation. I mean i have a left side blitz and right side blitz that looks the same. I don't really believe in making everything look the same. I just stay in one form and adjust to the offense. I'll be getting a xbox in a month or so, so maybe we can play then. I'm not a real 3-4 fan, those AM plays are cool i guess, but A gap head requires to many blitzers for me, i'd rather send 3 and force slide protection or blocking a back. I HATE RB routes, I blitz just so he blocks the RB. RB are orgasm to deal with when in the right hands, lol NO ****! hahaha. 5 man rushes are cool, but i really think thats his base defense lol. smh.

ZAN wrote:

Well of course! Giving a different look consistently keeps the offense out of their comfort zone!

No I mean i think it affects the AI as well

That's beyond Ian Cumming's think-base. He can't even get the AI to cover the correct person let alone condition them to blitz tendencies....

I want to hire Zan as my Madden coach

Thanks bro.

All these guys can hate on me for hating how this game plays. But I really do expect better things from EA than this pile of garbage they've given us. I mean, I guess I can't blame half these cats running stick, bench switch, draw, hb off tackle, and hb slip screen with slant outs to bail them in 3rd and long or 4th and long....but I don't want to hear it when they go back to their anonymity after this year....

There are a few guys out there who claimed to have been around as a very competitive madden player...but it's funny that I've never heard of them before this year...and yet my name is synonymous with great football scheming in this community (despite me not having a high finish in any major tournament)...and things that I bring to the table are used by everyone every year without people even noticing (i.e. who was motion snapping an outward release route behind a streak/inside release route to get a bad double switch before I came on TWIM?) I mean, I don't want the credit...but it's just funny. I win probably less than 500 a year playing Madden.

It's really funny that THIS year is my worst year ever playing Madden yet I've WON more money than any other year (between saloon and local tournaments)....Maybe a testament to how ridiculously stupid and flukey this game is 90% of the time....

Like I've said, I'll keep griping about gameplay and coming out with schematics that are used by many players....while others can choose to have their 15 minutes running truth O and slant outs....

lol....geez Im starting to feel bad...I use slant outs ONLY to RC them...I dunno how many times I seen an all out coverage and its like pointless to throw into coverage...streaks are kinda hard to do against cv4 so i been using slantouts as my last read to rc.

but I normally dont find myself in situations where I need to RC...If it wasnt for me being able to rc, I prolly would consider myself a sim player lol

but zan I totally agree with you....I think I could run the boat or canoe and I never even touched the dallas playbook or seen any twim games. I just seen it so much.. despite the limited features and plays, I still think people can have their own unique offense. If people would take the time just to look at other plays in games or took the time to lab. But since the NFL is a copycat league and since madden is based off the NFL, we caint expect anything less.

Good post....

im just going to keep it 100 i use to throw slantouts they were my first read now there not but to not have them in your play as a last read is dumb i would match rather have a slantout then an in lol.

I wouldn't....It's not getting you any better at this game....

Saying it's your last read is the SAME as saying "If you can't beat such and such a play...what do you do?" That's how I look at it...

Another thing I LOL so hard at is this....I played a guy today, right....he's in my LEX division. I beat him in LEX by 2+ scores....Good player....The guys spends 100 hours a week in practice...yet all he comes up with is Gun Tight Flex WR Cross down into I-Form Twins HB Power O/slant out to DHB...Really?!!!!

I played him with a new O and D book with no audibles set....he goes up by a TD using it...so as a courtesy, i let him know that im on a new O and D book and im labbing, he quits and starts dissing on me about he i was horrible...and yada yada yada....but the fact remains that i spent less time in practice than he does...beat him in LEX league by 2 tds without slant outs or stick...and since then hes put in 100s of labbing hours to only come out with.....the EXACT same thing he used against me the first time we played in LEX....

I really dont understand why ppl use the same plays as the norm. Last year with my ATL pb I had over 300 plays that I could run. And all of them were plays that I trusted that I could run to perfection if the time called for it. yea in all honesty they were prob 60 different plays but I had 4-6 different looks for all of them.

(ps: i still havent seen any1 run my fav version of the falcon cross yet..lol)

I just wish more ppl played like that, that way i would have soo much more fun playing the game. As of now u can figure out some1's entire scheme in a quarter an a half

WFColonel56 wrote:

I really dont understand why ppl use the same plays as the norm. Last year with my ATL pb I had over 300 plays that I could run. And all of them were plays that I trusted that I could run to perfection if the time called for it. yea in all honesty they were prob 60 different plays but I had 4-6 different looks for all of them.

(ps: i still havent seen any1 run my fav version of the falcon cross yet..lol)I just wish more ppl played like that, that way i would have soo much more fun playing the game. As of now u can figure out some1's entire scheme in a quarter an a half

Streaking the Slots, eh?

naw... its pretty simple, but I havent seen any1 motion the WR on the post to the other side, and then streak the WR on the flat/wheel route

Who has time to put 100 hrs into a game, that's just crazy. On another note, I agree with Zan about the snugs offense, I was using it cuz it worked but I felt dirty after I was done. I have gone back to what I love and that is 2 back twins forms, weak tight twins and far tight twins are some of my favorite forms, I am not very good at the game and don't have lots of time to practice so I have stuck with things that work but this thread and everyone sharing schemes for Christmas has made me want to run something unique and different so thanks.

100s might be a slight exaggeration...but the guy spends entirely too much time in practice to come at me with snugs flipped and slant outs lol

all of this talk about cats running the "same" stuff is one of the main reasons why i stay away from the more "popular" or "elite" pbs in this game every year! everyone jumps on what is hot (i.e. playbooks, formations, plays, set ups etc.).

as a result of all of that, very rarely will i venture out and away from both the Ravens Obook and Dbook. sure, their Obook lacks tons of the trendy and exotic plays in the game such as the Gun: Tight, Strong: Close etc., but then again....that is a good thing cause now i have been forced to "create" fresh stuff.

~Mili

Megatron_81 wrote:

but zan I totally agree with you....I think I could run the boat or canoe and I never even touched the dallas playbook or seen any twim games. I just seen it so much.. despite the limited features and plays, I still think people can have their own unique offense. If people would take the time just to look at other plays in games or took the time to lab. But since the NFL is a copycat league and since madden is based off the NFL, we caint expect anything less.

yo all my sh!t is real its funnny all my offense with dallas i was using it even b4 gibs was on dallas he was on AZ or atl not sure and doing these certain plays that i did even last yr on madden that i hardly saw especially strong close and i been through most playbooks and i didnt like them i like dallas for every play it has in that book do i abuse certain formations hell yeah cause u cant stop it and it works if its not broke dont fix it im not gunna stop the bleeding til u give me a reason to

all my spread offense i use to use on u and i explained to u to a teeee i see people using it now i was being unique by using it and now everybody does the way i run flip trips and shotty 2 back people have those audibles and use it as well but not like me i run mine a lil different people use it like robots my offense is no robot that audibling to strong close thats just last yrs concepts for me only thing idont see right now is people using my ace and jumbo which i only use on certain occasions ur right its a copy cat league game online now that AM posted this 34 solid no assignment blitz with a 4 play mini scheme ima see that all the time now which is *** iknew about it b4 it was posted jus not my cup of tea if u know what i mean ur corner strike btw i used last yr for a while when i was a scrub but not ace everyone uses now i run my O nothing close to a robot online using a e book ibelive in concepts and taking what the defense is giving me never bought a ebook in my life