How the heck do you defend against the latest cards

Title. Say they have something like Pitts and Metcalf, the cards that have been burning me most...friggin A, just realized I haven't even had to face OBJ yet, and rarely Kupp (who did burn me pretty bad). So I don't have the latest cards because I'm NMS; in fact I'm still using guys like Curl, Pinnock, Ed Reed, Ramsey, Captain Barber, usering Chancellor. What I've honestly got on this so far that works sometimes? Go out in a formation like dollar or personally I prefer quarters, and sell out vs the pass. If they run then so be it. Do your best. Anyone got anything better?

It’s very unbalanced right now, NMS feels brunt of it since the newest cards don’t have a sub 400k cost counterpart. I’m doing fine atm with Ramsey, Marcus Peters (you can get BND for free), and then just spend on one corner like Tre Brown, 200k-ish, or Prime for around 100k (I sold my whole team so I’m using Terrell rn, and he’s honestly fine most of time unless you play a team with three speedsters like Metcalf, Pitts, Hill). if you do that, have Berry and Reed deep, someone like Chancellor sub lb and your favorite user, CB matchups by speed, you’ll be ok. I run 2-4 nickel like 75% of the time. You do have to shade overtop though to protect against deep ball, and you can never press. Just an unfortunate reality.  Oh and invest what you do have in a good d-line. If they can run on you and stretch you downfield with pass, you’re screwed. If you’re getting torched by a certain thing, play for the certain thing and hope they play into your hands haha.

edit: forgot to mention, IMO NMS is waaaay better off running heavy zone. I only play man when I’m confident in my shades and/or they’re running simple routes all game (like 4 verts)

Foobarbaz said:

It’s very unbalanced right now, NMS feels brunt of it since the newest cards don’t have a sub 400k cost counterpart. I’m doing fine atm with Ramsey, Marcus Peters (you can get BND for free), and then just spend on one corner like Tre Brown, 200k-ish, or Prime for around 100k (I sold my whole team so I’m using Terrell rn, and he’s honestly fine most of time unless you play a team with three speedsters like Metcalf, Pitts, Hill). if you do that, have Berry and Reed deep, someone like Chancellor sub lb and your favorite user, CB matchups by speed, you’ll be ok. I run 2-4 nickel like 75% of the time. You do have to shade overtop though to protect against deep ball, and you can never press. Just an unfortunate reality.  Oh and invest what you do have in a good d-line. If they can run on you and stretch you downfield with pass, you’re screwed. If you’re getting torched by a certain thing, play for the certain thing and hope they play into your hands haha.

edit: forgot to mention, IMO NMS is waaaay better off running heavy zone. I only play man when I’m confident in my shades and/or they’re running simple routes all game (like 4 verts)

I'm on board with a lot of this already. I did choose Peters as my BND and he's a baller. I personally prefer nickel 3-3 odd and find it properly balanced for me. Dunno, somehow I get more pressure out of it. Basically feels to me like the 3-3 normal but already having taken care of the presnap adjustments for me that I would normally make anyway. Yeah, it's not exactly the same, but I dunno. 3-3 normal never got it done for me. I find DL more important than anything else in the game, so I have not been messing around there. I love a great DL. Now, I am gonna have to differ a little on running zone heavy, as they will expose it and take advantage if they know you're doing it a lot, but the same could be said about literally any type of coverage. I bounce around between man, zone and match, changing around my coaching adjustments often and accordingly (sucks when I forget to get off man align when I call zone or match though but hilariously, I ended a game with a pick that way just a bit ago, haha). But yeah, I have found that even cover 3/4 somehow gets baited off of the top and gives up big plays to the house, regardless of zone/match. It does not matter. Something seems a little bit wrong with how deep blues in general are playing right now. If anything I actually think zone is worse about this than match honestly, but it seems to depend a lot on route combos (naturally). However I did build my defense a little more for man coverage. I personally favor shading inside, avoiding vertical shadings. 

I agree that pressing is pretty much out of the question against WRs who are faster than your guys covering them. However, one thing you can do is press or show blitz, then individually back off the CBs from the speedsters - say your Ramsey on their Metcalf. You gotta be fast about this, but press and/or show blitz, then select individual coverage by Y/triangle, A/X, right stick up to back them off. Predictably, that one can get screwed underneath on stuff like zig/drag/out routes, but I'd take that over getting burned by four verts. The main idea there is to get your safeties in better run fits via press/show blitz, but not sacrifice deeper coverage. And the risk is if you screw it up or run out of time, you're stuck in press. So, I would definitely use this one sparingly, but it is an option to be able to get your team in a closer fit. The other option could be manually selecting your secondary and moving them in position but I would rather stay on my user.

definitely not running man, they cooking man. I have D.K myself and when his unstoppable route tech lights up, good luck.

Droopy34 said:

definitely not running man, they cooking man. I have D.K myself and when his unstoppable route tech lights up, good luck.

Man yeah I'm a seahawks fan too but I'm kind of stubborn about how many coins I'm willing to spend on a card and Metcalf is out of that range. It's true what you're saying though, not saying I like running man or match as a default. So maybe zone heavy like the first person was saying might work better for me if I build a little bit better for it. I might try it out. In some ways kind of already have with cards like Chancellor, so yeah. I'll try it out again I guess, but not expecting it to go very well. It is what it is.

antitwisted said:

Title. Say they have something like Pitts and Metcalf, the cards that have been burning me most...friggin A, just realized I haven't even had to face OBJ yet, and rarely Kupp (who did burn me pretty bad). So I don't have the latest cards because I'm NMS; in fact I'm still using guys like Curl, Pinnock, Ed Reed, Ramsey, Captain Barber, usering Chancellor. What I've honestly got on this so far that works sometimes? Go out in a formation like dollar or personally I prefer quarters, and sell out vs the pass. If they run then so be it. Do your best. Anyone got anything better?

you just solved your own answer. the only course is to heistate the opponent's quarterback with different looks. pitts i'm not sure anybody can beat on a consistent basis but you can contain him. as for metcalf and obj there kinda hard for people to get easily evolved considering they line up outside a lot. sometimes you have to blitz when the situation is right. i always don't like dealing my hand on most drives so i like to feel what you like on offense weather you throw to your halfback or throw corners or certain patterns.

Call random plays and close your eyes and pray you hear interception or fumble

SportsPerson94 said:

Call random plays and close your eyes and pray you hear interception or fumble

I'm gonna go on a project here and try to see how well I can make quarters 1-3-7 work because nobody ever uses it or talks about it that I've seen, and I like being weird and different. Plus I think it looks cool. So maybe I can throw them off with something unconventional. I'm probably about to get demoted a couple times but meh.

antitwisted said:

I'm gonna go on a project here and try to see how well I can make quarters 1-3-7 work because nobody ever uses it or talks about it that I've seen, and I like being weird and different. Plus I think it looks cool. So maybe I can throw them off with something unconventional. I'm probably about to get demoted a couple times but meh.

Good luck man. Maybe Man up 3 deep is the way to go this year