Bottleneck META

What is the ideal lineup and play call people are running this with? I was thinking trying out

• CB1 - Revis (Bottleneck/Universal)
• CB2 - Ward (Bottleneck/OSA/all man KOs)
• Slot CB - Samuel (Bottleneck/Reinforcement)
• FS - Wilson (Universal)
• SS - Neal (Universal)

As for play call, are people running something as simple as a computer killer man zero blitz like Over Storm Brave in Nickel Over or LB Blitz in Nickel 33?

Try out the different Man Coverage & Man Zone schemes & see what works also having another CB with Universal X-Factor or Bottleneck if they have most of the Man KO’s they can equip it helps with filling in the last piece you need 

my personal scheme is a Man Zone Coverage with 2 CB’s playing FS & SS up top 

 then my actual FS & SS as a SubLB to cover the TE & RB 

& my 3 CB’s covering the WR’s 

but what helps me use this without blitzing is my D-Line creates a fuck ton of pressure so the QB either gets sacked or throws an incomplete 

I have 2 baked in UF on the edges & 1 Blitz x-factor & 1 Momentum X-factor as my DT’s so the O-Line never gains resistance points the whole game & its an easy D-Line shed everytime

SwaggyPJ2 said:

Try out the different Man Coverage & Man Zone schemes & see what works also having another CB with Universal X-Factor or Bottleneck if they have most of the Man KO’s they can equip it helps with filling in the last piece you need 

my personal scheme is a Man Zone Coverage with 2 CB’s playing FS & SS up top 

 then my actual FS & SS as a SubLB to cover the TE & RB 

& my 3 CB’s covering the WR’s 

but what helps me use this without blitzing is my D-Line creates a fuck ton of pressure so the QB either gets sacked or throws an incomplete 

I have 2 baked in UF on the edges & 1 Blitz x-factor & 1 Momentum X-factor as my DT’s so the O-Line never gains resistance points the whole game & its an easy D-Line shed everytime

You also gotta know wtf you’re doing if you’re gunna run Man cause if its your first time running Man Coverage you will get smoked everytime by someone who knows how to beat it so you gotta know when to audible a zone coverage or put someone on a flat  or learn to cover their first read with your user usually people go for the TE or the RB when they play against Man but if they know the WR routes that beat the man coverage then you’ll have to move fast from TE to that WR usually people throw to the outside numbers  

now if you’re playing against a QB scrambler you will lose alot of yardage easily especially if you cover their reads & also QB rollouts will murder your man defense everytime cause of the extra bought time so having those QB contain man coverage plays comes in handy for it

I think you might want OSA on Samuel as well. My understanding is you do not get reaction benefits from OSA with reinforcement.

If you have enough bottleneck players you can honestly get away with running cover 2 man with a good pass rush against some players. Good cpu blitzes can be decent as well but if you can work in a good meta blitz calls that's going to be even better since some cpu blitzes still give your opponent enough time to get the ball out to a wr in single coverage.

You need to check if your opponent has 1 or more of the following Ceedee Lamb, Evan Engram, or Herman Moore. With their xfactors they can beat the bottleneck press and potentially make a catch over a KO if you leave them in single coverage

I was just about to post this

.

I tried this in H2H seasons last night and it was awful

.

Revis, Samuel, Ward (all with Bottleneck, Man KOs and One Step Ahead)

Neal and Wilson as Safeties with Universal Coverage and One Step Ahead

5 Blitzers - (Hutchinson, Sapp, Wilford, Oweh, D Thomas) - all with either unstoppable force or colossus

User - Seau with Mid Zone and Reinforcement

.

Problem 1 - bottleneck doesnt work half the time...both Revis and Samuel would routinely get beat by streak

Problem 2- bunch formations jam up my DBs and they get stuck on one another and end up way behind the WR

Problem 3 - crossers...they call illegal contact on defense all the time, but never on offensive players...offensive players on crossers will occasionally set picks on my DBS, allowing 1 WR to be wide open

Every time I see shit like this it just reinforces my thought that my account is targeted by EA for DDA. Bottlenecks bag all of my guys and nobody gets open regardless of what route combos I put on the field.

KissTheRing said:

Every time I see shit like this it just reinforces my thought that my account is targeted by EA for DDA. Bottlenecks bag all of my guys and nobody gets open regardless of what route combos I put on the field.

Put a WR with route tech on a crosser, and put your RB on a Texas route, ideally going in opposite directions. Both  break man coverage, and  their user can only pick one to take away. Typically most players take the crosser because it is deeper and they leave the texas route wide open for a massive gain.

Appreciate all the thoughts. Every time I run into the bottleneck META, I just run the cheese RB swing routes and rotate between slinging it and pounding it with Perry. They usually quit out because their one dimensional scheme can’t adjust. Highly recommend the spread playbook in this META backdrop.

doncoyleone said:

What is the ideal lineup and play call people are running this with? I was thinking trying out

• CB1 - Revis (Bottleneck/Universal)
• CB2 - Ward (Bottleneck/OSA/all man KOs)
• Slot CB - Samuel (Bottleneck/Reinforcement)
• FS - Wilson (Universal)
• SS - Neal (Universal)

As for play call, are people running something as simple as a computer killer man zero blitz like Over Storm Brave in Nickel Over or LB Blitz in Nickel 33?

This is the correct lineup, you've basically got everything dialed in with your roster.  The play people tend to use is this Mike Blitz 0 play, from Nickel 3-3 Cub.  It's in a bunch of playbooks.  The setup is basically the same/similar, but adjustments to make:

1. Press
2. Slide D-line away from the opponent's TE
3. Crash D-line Up/Out

Coaching adjustments;

• Auto Flip ON
• Default alignment
• maybe Match, but that's personal preference if you put any Zones out there, just in case

Hover over the Center, on the strong side of your alignment, the goal is to basically overload the opponent (three rushers, versus only two blockers)... hold L2 (left trigger) when the ball is snapped, do a little quick step towards the O-line, before dropping back into coverage.  In a perfect world, you'll take away your opponent's first read, which is often the HB or TE, ensuring you cover the middle of the field and hope your defense does work.

Only advice or suggestion i might give (regarding the roster), would be to remove the Short Route KO from Charvarius Ward, possibly/probably replacing this with Bench Press, or whatever you desire.  In a perfect world you shouldn't see any short routes, as the receiver should get hung up at the line of scrimmage.  However, i'm already back to using primarily Zone coverage, as I've found Man to be wildly inconsistent.  When it works, it's absolutely glorious, but it's far too easy to beat, IMO.

The counters are the following receivers; Ceedee Lamb, Evan Engram and Herman Moore, who all get baked on passive X-factors as abilities (Double Me, RAC `Em Up & Max Possession), which cannot be cancelled by Aidan Hutchinson and give our receivers the potential to insta-beat these Man Press attempts, even when facing Bottleneck.  Good luck, YMMV.  This is gonna be nasty once a ton of folks are running this -- the DBs will typically run the routes for the receivers, you'll know it's working when you can basically set up the defense and then just put your controller down, everything gets bagged.

jimshredder said:

I was just about to post this

.

I tried this in H2H seasons last night and it was awful

.

Revis, Samuel, Ward (all with Bottleneck, Man KOs and One Step Ahead)

Neal and Wilson as Safeties with Universal Coverage and One Step Ahead

5 Blitzers - (Hutchinson, Sapp, Wilford, Oweh, D Thomas) - all with either unstoppable force or colossus

User - Seau with Mid Zone and Reinforcement

.

Problem 1 - bottleneck doesnt work half the time...both Revis and Samuel would routinely get beat by streak

Problem 2- bunch formations jam up my DBs and they get stuck on one another and end up way behind the WR

Problem 3 - crossers...they call illegal contact on defense all the time, but never on offensive players...offensive players on crossers will occasionally set picks on my DBS, allowing 1 WR to be wide open

FYI, Universal Coverage has baked on One-Step Ahead, so you don't really need to run both.  It's redundant.  Great write-up, awesome information.  My experience has been similar, although I continue to tinker with my D-line, specifically the pass rushers.  At the moment i'm trying out; Aidan Hutchinson (MS), John Randle (UF), JJ Watt (Run Stopper), Odafe Oweh (Colossus) and Ray Nitschke (Run Stopper)... that Derrick Thomas looks super interesting, although the lack of run stopping abilities has convinced me to stick with RayRay for the time being, he's max 99 SPD / stats and can keep up stride for stride with anyone in the game.

All of your stated problems are basically spot-on, nearly the identical experience i've been seeing with my own testing.  Maybe i didn't stick it out long enough, i know my Zone coverages will often get cooked, as well, but I tend to know what adjustments i made that caused the underlying issue, whereas there's not much we can do to make Man any better.  Our DBs either run the routes for the opponent, or we're getting cooked for HUGE gains / one-play tutties.  As with most things in Madden/MUT, it's a frustrating mess.

I'm sticking with Zone, but good luck with the new meta.

mberezoski said:

Put a WR with route tech on a crosser, and put your RB on a Texas route, ideally going in opposite directions. Both  break man coverage, and  their user can only pick one to take away. Typically most players take the crosser because it is deeper and they leave the texas route wide open for a massive gain.

It's almost like I've been playing Madden/NCAA for well over a decade and know how to do this.

peatrick said:

FYI, Universal Coverage has baked on One-Step Ahead, so you don't really need to run both.  It's redundant.  Great write-up, awesome information.  My experience has been similar, although I continue to tinker with my D-line, specifically the pass rushers.  At the moment i'm trying out; Aidan Hutchinson (MS), John Randle (UF), JJ Watt (Run Stopper), Odafe Oweh (Colossus) and Ray Nitschke (Run Stopper)... that Derrick Thomas looks super interesting, although the lack of run stopping abilities has convinced me to stick with RayRay for the time being, he's max 99 SPD / stats and can keep up stride for stride with anyone in the game.

All of your stated problems are basically spot-on, nearly the identical experience i've been seeing with my own testing.  Maybe i didn't stick it out long enough, i know my Zone coverages will often get cooked, as well, but I tend to know what adjustments i made that caused the underlying issue, whereas there's not much we can do to make Man any better.  Our DBs either run the routes for the opponent, or we're getting cooked for HUGE gains / one-play tutties.  As with most things in Madden/MUT, it's a frustrating mess.

I'm sticking with Zone, but good luck with the new meta.

Are we sure that Universal Coverage really has OSA?  I thought it was just the KOs, and Shutdown was the one with OSA (and PA).  No?

donaldkoch said:

Are we sure that Universal Coverage really has OSA?  I thought it was just the KOs, and Shutdown was the one with OSA (and PA).  No?

Well, if you can trust EA's own Tips and Tricks, here's what it says for the description:

Now, universal coverage in my opinion, is it's easily the best defensive X factor. It is if you can activate it, it is outside shade. Inside shade, one step ahead. Short route KO, medium route KO, deep route KO, flat Zone KO, mid zone KO and deep out zone KO. It is nine abilities built into one X factor at once. It literally knocks every ball out. If they make any type of contact anywhere on the field, it's going to limit. If you man them up on somebody, it's going to limit a wide receiver's ability to actually get separation. It is actually insane.

source: https://www.ea.com/games/madden-nfl/madden-nfl-24/tips-and-tricks/best-defensive-x-factor-abilities-madden-nfl-24

You'd think you could rely on them, but it is EA, so...  If UC does all that, what the heck does Shutdown do?  How would you test it? Should your CB just light up on all of the WR cuts?