Defense is getting absolutely killed...

Title. This is getting kind of insane. I'm 84 on both sides and just picked up an 87 drake london because it was a great deal. The card plays fantastic, but it's like the game will now do anything to make everything insanely hard for me. Whatever my opponents do on offense, it will 100% work. They block my guys for days, and I got 85 on my DL except my DT2 being 82. If I send more heat, guys are open instantly. If I go man coverage someone is open asap. If I go zone they leave holes and guys are still open just as fast. If they run the ball and I get there to stop them someone always shows up to push them forward for an extra 2-3 yards, sometimes even my own guys hitting them the other direction. I get that my coverage ratings are not ideal but nobody has great coverage all across the board at this stage. It really doesn't matter what I do on defense at all.

I do well on offense usually, but if I make a mistake like throw a pick, it's basically game over. And ever since I picked up that london card I've been having WAY more inaccurate throws than ever before. And THIS IS AFTER PUTTING "DOTS" on RG3...I mean, I don't get it. Why even get nice cards? Luckily I'm NMS because I know better, but it would be nice if the game at least tried to be sort of realistic sometimes. Kind of venting here but there is something definitely a bit wrong with how defense is playing. It doesn't even exist in this game. I have about a million coins saved up and it's like why even spend it on better defensive cards if it doesn't even matter? I get that I'm not a great player and there's probably a lot I could improve on but the pendulum swings in this game can be kind of ridiculous.

I agree. Defense gets absolutely destroyed and players don't react to the ball or play their zones, even man coverage gets destroyed. I've had some success manning up 1-2 guys and leaving the rest in zone but it doesn't work all the time. I'm usually a defensive player first but this year, it's pretty demoralizing. Last night, some guy had 81 Leno Jr at tackle and he was owning my 88 Smith with double or nothing. I don't expect a sack every play but an 88 against an 81, come on now. Also, my 86 Hopkins demolished Primetime in one game. Had like almost 200 yards receiving. Just a very inconsistent game.
 

 I'm at 1.5 million coins but i'm pretty much holding it since i don't see the point in upgrading right now with some of these prices.

What i try to do is control the clock. Long drives so your opponent doesn't have as much time on offense to limit the damage on defense. Once in a while, i'll get into a shootout and then whoever gets the ball last  will usually win which sucks since you can put up like 500 yards of offense and TDs and get zero stats if you lose

SportsPerson94 said:

What i try to do is control the clock. Long drives so your opponent doesn't have as much time on offense to limit the damage on defense. Once in a while, i'll get into a shootout and then whoever gets the ball last  will usually win which sucks since you can put up like 500 yards of offense and TDs and get zero stats if you lose

Appreciate both posts. People like you - defensive minded, wanting to play a solid fundamental game - should be rewarded but sadly, it seems like the NFL is going the direction of "chicks dig the long ball" basically, and Madden is taking this to a further extreme. I myself can almost score at will when my throws are on point and basically do whatever I want on offense. I still have some bad games on offense too but working on that. Anyway, do you have any recommendations for the play calling aspect? I'm familiar with coaching adjustments, setting base align default, depth on flats and curls etc and people advocate for match coverage but...what the hell man, match coverage isn't doing ANYTHING as advertised. Isn't match supposed to be closer to playing to the man? Like they approach your zone and you stick a little closer to them? Maybe I got that wrong but that was my understanding of it.

Also, imho, cover 2 is borderline useless. Not only do you basically have to send a yellow zone up into middle third, making it basically cover 3 anyway, but it's REALLY vulnerable to the mid outside region. Cover 3 has its issues but between the two I would call cover 3 about 9/10 times personally. That's just me though. My approach is basically something like cover 1 hole or cover 1 robber (not press) OR cover 4/6/9 type plays on first down and...I dunno, go from there. Normally I like to do cover 3 sky and make pre snap adjustments accordingly on second down but we're already getting ahead of ourselves because this implies I stopped anything on first down, lmao. I'm feeling like I need to throw everything out the window at this point. But it's not really a fundamental play calling issue - you see how your guys are playing their zones, they are very stubbornly sticking to it and doing absolutely nothing about what the opposing offense is doing. Like if you got a deep blue or hard flat on one side and it's a flood to the other, they just stand there rather than go do something useful. But if they know you're defaulting to man coverage they will exploit this eventually too. I dunno, maybe it's an issue with like...low play recognition or something?

Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out what we can do to take what little advantage we can. Hopefully I can get roasted for being wrong somewhere or there's some insight to be gained here.

Edit - dang bro this got long, my bad haha.

Since Madden  13 you've had to kinda make a sham on the fly d#. Don't pick d# to stop a play. Pick a d# and adjust to the player your playing against.  It's that simple... Have a base. And don't forget. Don't ever run cover 2. Ever ..

antitwisted said:

Appreciate both posts. People like you - defensive minded, wanting to play a solid fundamental game - should be rewarded but sadly, it seems like the NFL is going the direction of "chicks dig the long ball" basically, and Madden is taking this to a further extreme. I myself can almost score at will when my throws are on point and basically do whatever I want on offense. I still have some bad games on offense too but working on that. Anyway, do you have any recommendations for the play calling aspect? I'm familiar with coaching adjustments, setting base align default, depth on flats and curls etc and people advocate for match coverage but...what the hell man, match coverage isn't doing ANYTHING as advertised. Isn't match supposed to be closer to playing to the man? Like they approach your zone and you stick a little closer to them? Maybe I got that wrong but that was my understanding of it.

Also, imho, cover 2 is borderline useless. Not only do you basically have to send a yellow zone up into middle third, making it basically cover 3 anyway, but it's REALLY vulnerable to the mid outside region. Cover 3 has its issues but between the two I would call cover 3 about 9/10 times personally. That's just me though. My approach is basically something like cover 1 hole or cover 1 robber (not press) OR cover 4/6/9 type plays on first down and...I dunno, go from there. Normally I like to do cover 3 sky and make pre snap adjustments accordingly on second down but we're already getting ahead of ourselves because this implies I stopped anything on first down, lmao. I'm feeling like I need to throw everything out the window at this point. But it's not really a fundamental play calling issue - you see how your guys are playing their zones, they are very stubbornly sticking to it and doing absolutely nothing about what the opposing offense is doing. Like if you got a deep blue or hard flat on one side and it's a flood to the other, they just stand there rather than go do something useful. But if they know you're defaulting to man coverage they will exploit this eventually too. I dunno, maybe it's an issue with like...low play recognition or something?

Anyway, I'm just trying to figure out what we can do to take what little advantage we can. Hopefully I can get roasted for being wrong somewhere or there's some insight to be gained here.

Edit - dang bro this got long, my bad haha.

Lmao all good. Madden makes us rant sometimes.

but yea, i'm also a base cover 3 sky person and i usually work out of that. I've been using cover 4 a little bit more and also, cover 3 seam has been working well for some weird reason so give that a try. I'm not a big blitz guy and always enjoyed rushing 4 but i'm blitzing a bit more this year in certain situations. The funny thing is that i'm trying to learn how to use the zone drops more. Last night i had my cloud flats to 20 and the guy kept beating it regardless of where i put it so i still need to learn that. 
 

What i do is take my best man corner and put him on Rice or whoever their go to WR is then work from there. A few times i go full man coverage but then you get burned so it depends on what formation they are coming out in. like 4 or 5 wide, man coverage for me would get wrecked. I'll try to man up on like 3rd and long or 4th and long depending on the formation. I also set my CBs to speed so my fastest guy is on their fastest guy. Not sure if it matters. I'm hoping all of this garbage defense is due to players having low play rec and zone but we will see.

SportsPerson94 said:

I agree. Defense gets absolutely destroyed and players don't react to the ball or play their zones, even man coverage gets destroyed. I've had some success manning up 1-2 guys and leaving the rest in zone but it doesn't work all the time. I'm usually a defensive player first but this year, it's pretty demoralizing. Last night, some guy had 81 Leno Jr at tackle and he was owning my 88 Smith with double or nothing. I don't expect a sack every play but an 88 against an 81, come on now. Also, my 86 Hopkins demolished Primetime in one game. Had like almost 200 yards receiving. Just a very inconsistent game.
 

 I'm at 1.5 million coins but i'm pretty much holding it since i don't see the point in upgrading right now with some of these prices.

lol LENO holding blocks! that's entertainment at it's finest right there.

Time to start loopin. cub or dollar, best defense in the game

theoriginalkbgames33 said:

lol LENO holding blocks! that's entertainment at it's finest right there.

yea man. He was owning Smith lol. Once i saw Leno there i was like ok, Smith should definitely eat today. Boy was i wrong

SportsPerson94 said:

What i try to do is control the clock. Long drives so your opponent doesn't have as much time on offense to limit the damage on defense. Once in a while, i'll get into a shootout and then whoever gets the ball last  will usually win which sucks since you can put up like 500 yards of offense and TDs and get zero stats if you lose

This. It sucks to get into a shoot out, and then have nothing track on some fluky BS catch or pick at the end.

Someone else said it - you have to adjust to your opponents scheme. Have a base, but then adjust as you see your opponents tendencies. Everyone has them. It's why I rarely quit out of games, even if I'm down 2-3 scores. People have their comfort and go-to reads. Once you pick them up, you can start baiting them.

pimpachu2001 said:

This. It sucks to get into a shoot out, and then have nothing track on some fluky BS catch or pick at the end.

Someone else said it - you have to adjust to your opponents scheme. Have a base, but then adjust as you see your opponents tendencies. Everyone has them. It's why I rarely quit out of games, even if I'm down 2-3 scores. People have their comfort and go-to reads. Once you pick them up, you can start baiting them.

Yea i agree. A few times this year, i came back when i was down 10-14 points, it's fun because once it happens, your opponent kind of just says screw it and gives up lol. I also blew a few big leads so i've been on the receiving end