My defense does nothing

antitwisted said:

Yes you do. I personally love Ed Reed and Pinnock and don't really care about Taylor or Krause because of the increased cost with weaker man coverage. Blount could be another option as well I think. You could probably try those options out without making big commitments on your coin stash. Do note, the man coverage threshold is 80 before 90 is the highest tier threshold, whereas zone has thresholds at 80, 85, 90. I think speed is a little more important though. But a guy like Krause or Taylor, yeah..they're gonna get burned with that garbage man. Teo is a bit of a problem for me at times but his job isn't always necessarily to stay manned up either, and I really need him as some run support.

Right now i play out of Nickel. My FS is Taylor, SS Berry fully upgraded, CBs are fully upgraded Ramsey, Pat Pete in slot and Primetime. Sub LBers are Krause and Troy. I assume i would need to replace Krause and Taylor since the other guys should be ok in match?

SportsPerson94 said:

Right now i play out of Nickel. My FS is Taylor, SS Berry fully upgraded, CBs are fully upgraded Ramsey, Pat Pete in slot and Primetime. Sub LBers are Krause and Troy. I assume i would need to replace Krause and Taylor since the other guys should be ok in match?

I thought about picking up Pat Pete, saw him for low 200k coins on PC the other night. I didn't pull the trigger and he got snagged quick. Woodson is a bit expensive for my tastes personally but still a consideration if the price drops or I get lucky on a deal. I'd maybe test things out on the cheap before selling your cards first but that's up to you. I would expect that Krause and/or Taylor likely don't do well in match but I'm also actually kind of curious now. Can you try it out and let me know (maybe in practice mode hah)?

antitwisted said:

I thought about picking up Pat Pete, saw him for low 200k coins on PC the other night. I didn't pull the trigger and he got snagged quick. Woodson is a bit expensive for my tastes personally but still a consideration if the price drops or I get lucky on a deal. I'd maybe test things out on the cheap before selling your cards first but that's up to you. I would expect that Krause and/or Taylor likely don't do well in match but I'm also actually kind of curious now. Can you try it out and let me know (maybe in practice mode hah)?

So i played a game. 3rd and 31 and i hit match coverage cover 3. I think Taylor got roasted over the top for a TD lmao

Since switching back to match coverage after starting the year using it, I can say my defense has improved very slightly. It's still playing terribly though. My Myles literally only has 1 sack after around 20 games. Bruce Smith and Randle have been getting more pressure. But my DBs will be in cover 4 against verticals and be all over their guy and still fail to make a play on the pass while they're literally stuck onto the receiver i.e. bumping into them all the way down the field. On corner routes, they play absolutely terribly. Like they just do not react to the receiver at all. They just run right past them and keep going.

SportsPerson94 said:

So i played a game. 3rd and 31 and i hit match coverage cover 3. I think Taylor got roasted over the top for a TD lmao

Yyyyeah, that's why I would've done it in practice mode. I didn't expect that to go well with Taylor having such an insanely dirty man coverage rating. I'm still testing a lot of this stuff out and figuring it out myself, but I am dedicated to this project because I like to do my own stuff and at least this is a little more original than what most people are running. But in case it was unclear, I'm definitely not advocating for this as something that improves or helps anything (yet, but I do have hope). I hope I didn't come across like I was.

StoicMartyr said:

Since switching back to match coverage after starting the year using it, I can say my defense has improved very slightly. It's still playing terribly though. My Myles literally only has 1 sack after around 20 games. Bruce Smith and Randle have been getting more pressure. But my DBs will be in cover 4 against verticals and be all over their guy and still fail to make a play on the pass while they're literally stuck onto the receiver i.e. bumping into them all the way down the field. On corner routes, they play absolutely terribly. Like they just do not react to the receiver at all. They just run right past them and keep going.

I'm glad it improved a little. Corner routes are tough with any coverage and a pretty well known man beater so it would make sense match is bad against it. Honestly corners have been hard for me and I'm not sure I really have an answer to it. Best I've found is cover 4 without match, or just man up and hope they stick but even then I'm not entirely sure it's really the best answer. But so far, I'm of the persuasion that match is best as an option to keep them guessing, and be ready and able to do it all - pure zone, pure man, hybrid like cover 1 or something like calling cover 3 cloud and manning up their weak side, and zone match, with the option to blitz in varying degrees. I figure I don't know what I'm doing so at least my opponent won't either, but I definitely don't believe match is a one size fits all answer as of so far, since it is not on flexible enough terms to begin with.

Edit - btw, did you verify the formation they were running? Because remember a 4x1 I've noticed will completely screw you in match. It definitely doesn't work.

antitwisted said:

Yyyyeah, that's why I would've done it in practice mode. I didn't expect that to go well with Taylor having such an insanely dirty man coverage rating. I'm still testing a lot of this stuff out and figuring it out myself, but I am dedicated to this project because I like to do my own stuff and at least this is a little more original than what most people are running. But in case it was unclear, I'm definitely not advocating for this as something that improves or helps anything (yet, but I do have hope). I hope I didn't come across like I was.

Yea i get it. I will definitely be experimenting with this tho. Thanks again

SportsPerson94 said:

Yea i get it. I will definitely be experimenting with this tho. Thanks again

Not a problem. I'm running an experiment to basically stick with it all or most of the time to see if it can be done, or how to get the most out of it when I do call match. I got one more tip and trick to share and it applies to zone or match. You can man align them exactly the same as if you were actually in man, while in zone, regardless of match or not. To do this, let's say for simplicity you went with cover 3 seam. Call cover 3 seam, man align, and then press IMMEDIATELY after you man align. Alternatively, this seems a little more reliable at avoiding cross zones, you can man align and then audible into the same play call. So call cover 3 seam, man align, audible into cover 3 seam IMMEDIATELY after man aligning and then press (or don't press, it's optional). This yields some pretty interesting stuff that of course has the potential to be burned over the top as you might expect (cover 4  is probably better for this). I have not heard of anyone else talking about this method and discovered it myself on accident in practice mode so at least I can say I got creative at something. It's definitely interesting in tandem with match coverage and blitzing. And naturally, this is another way to disguise your coverage and keep opponents guessing as to what you're actually doing. I love to play mind games. So there's another weapon.

Edit - while cross zoning is another interesting little thing, I would personally avoid it. If this happens, you got a panic button in the form of x or square, followed by L2 or LT. This resets to the original play call prior to any adjustments. You could do something simple like audible to cover 2 man or whatever too, but if you didn't set that as an audible you'd better be prepared. Better stock coverage than accidental cross zones. Anyone who runs any form of zone should know about this if they don't already because stuff just sometimes happens.

Yours too?

antitwisted said:

Not a problem. I'm running an experiment to basically stick with it all or most of the time to see if it can be done, or how to get the most out of it when I do call match. I got one more tip and trick to share and it applies to zone or match. You can man align them exactly the same as if you were actually in man, while in zone, regardless of match or not. To do this, let's say for simplicity you went with cover 3 seam. Call cover 3 seam, man align, and then press IMMEDIATELY after you man align. Alternatively, this seems a little more reliable at avoiding cross zones, you can man align and then audible into the same play call. So call cover 3 seam, man align, audible into cover 3 seam IMMEDIATELY after man aligning and then press (or don't press, it's optional). This yields some pretty interesting stuff that of course has the potential to be burned over the top as you might expect (cover 4  is probably better for this). I have not heard of anyone else talking about this method and discovered it myself on accident in practice mode so at least I can say I got creative at something. It's definitely interesting in tandem with match coverage and blitzing. And naturally, this is another way to disguise your coverage and keep opponents guessing as to what you're actually doing. I love to play mind games. So there's another weapon.

Edit - while cross zoning is another interesting little thing, I would personally avoid it. If this happens, you got a panic button in the form of x or square, followed by L2 or LT. This resets to the original play call prior to any adjustments. You could do something simple like audible to cover 2 man or whatever too, but if you didn't set that as an audible you'd better be prepared. Better stock coverage than accidental cross zones. Anyone who runs any form of zone should know about this if they don't already because stuff just sometimes happens.

Yea i will definitely be trying all of this. My defense doesn't do shit so if it helps even a little, i'm hapoy lol

SportsPerson94 said:

Yea i will definitely be trying all of this. My defense doesn't do shit so if it helps even a little, i'm hapoy lol

Yeah defense is frustrating as all hell this year. I was always interested in the concepts, why would I call cover 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 vs 6 or whatever else etc, why would I do this adjustment vs that, but this year seems to require one hell of a tight game plan where tougher opponents make you go all the way down to plan D just to get anything done. Seems like a good year to really get to know what your options are, so here's me getting into match coverage. Which admittedly, as much as I've divulged here, is still currently way above my head. Honestly I feel it works a little better for me because opponents simply don't expect it. It appears random and strange, although it does have systemic methodology. Cover 4 palms vs quarters as an example, appear to operate quite a bit differently. I'm figuring that part out but I'm getting the feeling that cover 4, 6 and maybe 9 are possibly MVP material here.

antitwisted said:

Yeah defense is frustrating as all hell this year. I was always interested in the concepts, why would I call cover 1 vs 2 vs 3 vs 4 vs 6 or whatever else etc, why would I do this adjustment vs that, but this year seems to require one hell of a tight game plan where tougher opponents make you go all the way down to plan D just to get anything done. Seems like a good year to really get to know what your options are, so here's me getting into match coverage. Which admittedly, as much as I've divulged here, is still currently way above my head. Honestly I feel it works a little better for me because opponents simply don't expect it. It appears random and strange, although it does have systemic methodology. Cover 4 palms vs quarters as an example, appear to operate quite a bit differently. I'm figuring that part out but I'm getting the feeling that cover 4, 6 and maybe 9 are possibly MVP material here.

Cover 6/9 are really good shell defenses imo. At least, they were until the update. Now my DBs just don't react or play their zones the way they should at all despite having the best DBs in game. Match coverage is pretty simple when you get to understanding it. Basically, if a receiver goes vertical into your zone, you play man, but if they go horizontal you pass them off to the next zone. The reason people get open easily is because you could be playing your zone and passing off to the next zone, but when the next zone had to go into man, you effectively passed them off to an abandoned zone. So it's important to know your route concepts or just know the common plays people run lol.

StoicMartyr said:

Cover 6/9 are really good shell defenses imo. At least, they were until the update. Now my DBs just don't react or play their zones the way they should at all despite having the best DBs in game. Match coverage is pretty simple when you get to understanding it. Basically, if a receiver goes vertical into your zone, you play man, but if they go horizontal you pass them off to the next zone. The reason people get open easily is because you could be playing your zone and passing off to the next zone, but when the next zone had to go into man, you effectively passed them off to an abandoned zone. So it's important to know your route concepts or just know the common plays people run lol.

Yeah see if that's true that's just plainly screwed up because zone coverage was already struggling enough at least from an NMS perspective and to make it somehow even worse after the patch is kinda BS. Also some annoying blitzes are still getting through and killing me asap so whatever they were supposed to do about that, predictably, wasn't really even done either. (Just played a champs game, opponent nano blitzed, I even blocked 7 guys and correctly IDed the mike lmao) Just simply changed what happens to be the exploit. Typical.

Defense is just fucked in this game. I think i'm gonna sell my entire defense and just go with the fastest guys, i'm pretty much done trying to buy the best players only for them to get fucking owned. Gonna put all my coins into offense and just outscore my opponent every game. EA made this game an arcade back and forth piece of dog shit where defense means absolutely nothing.  Nobody can tackle, nobody can cover, nobody can do shit. Over it