Chapter 9 - SportsGamer's Defense Training Camp

SportsGamer.com presents a series of Madden training camp articles to strengthen your defense. These feature tips on shutting down the opposition's rushing attack, defending against the deep pass, countering the tight end, and containing a mobile quarterback. You'll find breakdowns of specific plays and situations as well as videos to illustrate the concepts.

Shutting Down the Run

By: Kyle Cooper

Playing against an opponent who has a great running attack can be extremely difficult to stop. One of the most successful theories behind slowing down the run is stacking defenders near the line of scrimmage. In this tip, we're going to show an example of exactly what it means to "stack" defenders in the box. It's important to remember to choose a defense that can also adequately defend against the pass.

In our accompanying screenshot, we've come out with the New York Giants in the 46 Normal 2 Man Under. We want to stress yet again the importance of not getting beat deep in just one play. The 2 Man Under is a solid defensive choice, especially at the beginning of a game, because every receiver is manned up with two safeties playing over the top deep. We would recommend controlling the deepest safety on the field and just staying back until you start to pick up on some of your opponent's tendencies. Once you've picked up on where you opponent likes to go with the football then look to take some chances later in the game. Before making any changes to the defense, we have eight defenders in the box, with the second level of defenders about 4 yards off the line of scrimmage.

The next step is to manually slide each linebacker and the lone strong safety directly behind the four members of our defensive line. By moving each one of these players we have now created a "stacked" look that makes it difficult for the members of the offensive line to know who they are accountable for blocking after the snap.

Stack your defensive players near the line to confuse the offensive blocking scheme.

As the quarterback turns to hand the ball off to the running back, a number of gaps open in the offensive line. Blocking won't always unfold in the same fashion but in this example, the right guard is basically useless as he stands in the middle of the field looking to make a block. If there's a lineman not blocking anyone, it means that we will have even bigger holes for our defenders to penetrate. However, the idea behind this theory is to create constant confusion for your opponent's offensive line.

The "stacking" defenders technique created enough confusion up front to allow multiple defenders in on the play. Getting multiple defenders in the backfield every time would obviously be ideal. However, all you need is just one to disrupt the timing of any play.

"Stacking" defenders can be done with virtually every formation in Madden. However, some formations may require a line shift or a fake blitz to get the right amount of defenders in the box. One example that comes to mind is when calling the 3-4 2 Man Under defense. When using this defense try shifting the defensive line to the left and fake blitzing to create a "stacked" look without any necessary manual movements. An opponent who can consistently bust your defense in the mouth with a tough running game may be the most challenging to play against. Fortunately, it only takes one loss in the backfield or a minimal gain to force your opponent into a passing situation.

Defending Deep

By: Kyle Cooper

Preventing your opponent from beating you deep should be your biggest concern when on defense, especially early in the game. Fortunately, Madden always does a great job of providing players with quick adjustments that can be made before the play begins to strengthen any weaknesses found on the field. In this example we're going to showcase one way in particular to greatly decrease your opponent's chances for completing a long bomb against you for an easy six points.

The Tennessee Titans have come out in the 4-3 2 Man Under. You would assume that this play does a great job at stopping any deep passes; however, certain route combinations from the offense can leave the safeties in extremely vulnerable positions deep.

The Washington Redskins are in the Shotgun Wing Trips formation. In the accompanying screenshot, we've highlighted tight end Christian Fauria's route because his streak route up the middle is nothing more than a decoy route created to force our safety to move away from the real threat on this play. The real danger here is wide receiver Santana Moss' streak route on the far right side of the field.

Shortly after quarterback Jason Campbell takes the snap, the receivers begin running upfield. The strong safety slides to the right to account for the tight end running a streak up the seam. Obviously, we would like for our safety to worry more about Moss' blazing Speed weapon than the much slower Fauria. However, the fact that the safety slides over to cover the tight end first makes sense. The reason the safety slides over to pick up this player first is because he is currently the receiver closest to the safety's area and the furthest down the field. This is how many of the game's best players are still able to abuse your cover 2 defenses.

Adjusting your zone safeties wider can help prevent the deep ball.

By the time Moss gets as deep as Fauria on the field and our safety recognizes the threat, he will have to make up so much ground that it makes it near impossible for us to make a play on the ball. The ball has left the quarterback's hand and all our defender can do now is watch. Moss will not only beats his man-to-man coverage, but he will also beat the deep safety for an easy six points.

To change things up, let's try applying the same coverage on the outside, but we've used the coverage audible on the deep safeties to move their zones out wider. Moving your safeties' zones out wider will leave you slightly exposed up the seam, but this area of the field is much tougher to attack deep.

In this configuration, the safety turns and runs up the field instead of sliding. The sliding action that our safety went into the first time we ran the play cost us valuable deep coverage on the right side of the field. The fact that our safety is now running as he commits first to the tight end allows our defender to make up the lost ground much easier when the ball is finally thrown. The safety again bites on the tight end because he is the receiver currently the deepest downfield. With the wider zones implemented, our safety recognizes Moss as he gets deeper on the field and he is in better position to try to make a play this time. The ball is easily swatted away by the strong safety.

Learning even the smallest adjustments to make in Madden 08 will continue to take your game to the highest level. One quick adjustment like the one shown in this example can be the difference in a game.

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