The Best Defense in Madden 10! - ZFarls's Blog

ZFarls's Blog

The Best Defense in Madden 10!

Posted on November 8, 2009 at 08:58 PM.

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Last year I raved about the 1-5-5 and if you ran it you know it was gold. This year the 1-5-5 is still just as effective but it has gone a bit more main stream. The novelty of it has warn off. When I got in the lab with Zfarls and Brian I wouldn�t to put a defense on the table that not only wowed them but also something they had never seen before. We literally labbed for two straight weeks without bringing forth this defense, we were finally able to harness the power of this formation and were ready to showcase it to the world. Last night on �This Week in Madden� we showcased the world premiere of a defense that not only has no one scene but a defense that no one has ever been able to IMAGINE. This defense will shut your opponent down, this defense will shut your opponent up, and most importantly THIS defense WILL win you games.

Let�s first take a look at the play setup and then we will talk about the strengths of each individual setup.

Setup #1

3 Deep Under

RB + left on the joy stick
Place DT, over center, on DE contain
Place DT, over RG, on purple zone
Place DE, on right, of screen on QB Spy
Place OLB, on right, of screen on a flat zone. (optional-slide defender out to increase his coverage to a quick flat)
User FS over the short middle (in yellow zone). Look to shade left side of field.

The dynamics of this play are in depth and extensive. However they are all in place for specific reasons and not simply used out of pure insanity. In the community these days there is no doubt that there is a terrible understanding of what a �nano� is and what a �overload� is. Everyone these days think that any type of blitz that gets pressure is a nano. We here at Madden Bible are from a more old school Madden age where �nano� actually meant something. For those that may not know the difference between the to:

Nano- any type of pressure that has been proven to consistently provide unevaded pressure on the QB. To be considered a nano we can not bring more defenders then there are pass blockers. The best nano�s bring the least amount of defenders as possible. Typical nano�s will usually contain 3-4 pass rushers. Slide protection DOES NOT defend against nano�s

Overload- any type of pressure that has been proven to consistently provide unevaded pressure on the QB by overloading specific gaps on the offensive line. To be considered a overload we will need to bring one extra pass rusher then there are blockers. Typical overloads bring between 5-6+ pass rushers. Pressure will be great but coverage can be weak.

Now that you understand the difference between the two lets start the breakdown of this play. Yes, it is a nano. No, most sites do not provide nano�s these days. With this play we are only pass rushing three defenders and containing one. When we look at the alignment of the goaline set we can see that we have a defender lineup directly in front of an offensive linemen. We then also have a LB on each side to line up across from a TE, if the formation calls for one. What this means for us is that it will be EXTREMELY easy to create overloads. It also means we have the possibility to create confusion on the offensive line. We do this with our hot routes.

The primary reason we place the DT on a QB contain is to prevent the QB from rolling out and escape the pressure coming from the left. What the contain also does is draw attention from the C and RG. You will see that they both actually draw towards the contain and away from the pressure on the left.

Our next playmaker is the d-linemen placed on a purple route. A special secret that no one in the Madden world knows, until now, is that anytime you place a d-linemen, in the goaline formation, on a purple route or a light blue route they will actually fake blitz and then drop into coverage. This works just as the contain and will pull the offensive line even further up field.

We next move on to our QB spy. QB spy is by far one of my favorite playmakers. The QB spy absolutely plays blanket coverage over any short route over the middle of the field. Your opponent will not be able to throw anything over the middle of the field as our defender will consistently jump routes.

Our last playmaker is the OLB in the light blue. What this does is prevent a quick flat to the weak side of where we are going to be USER�ing. This is important because we can feel completely confident that the right side of the field is 100% shutdown. We have a contain, purple, light blue, and a deep blue zone on the right side, dare your opponent to throw into this coverage. The contain will prevent quick passes to the HB out of the backfield i.e. fades, the purple route will shutdown corner routes, the light blue will shutdown any flat routes, and the QB spy will shutdown anything over the short middle. Our user defender�s primary focus will be to shutdown anything on the left side all the while we have three deep defenders splitting the deep part of the field into thirds.

Our last step is our user defender. We will want to shade the left side of the field as that is where we are weak in coverage. However look at the formation your opponent is using. If they are in a trips bunched to the right we shouldn�t be overly committed to the left as the offensive formation only has one WR lined up on the left. We will overly commit to the left only if the formation our opponent calls for this type of coverage i.e. 5 wide, 4 spread, trips to the left etc.

Let�s now take a look at the pressure. I have mentioned in previous write-ups that playing defense all starts with controlling the center. Once we do that we can break the offensive line up in segments and cause confusion. That is exactly what we are doing here. We are forcing the center and the entire right side of the o-line to literally block no one. Meanwhile we will sneak a defender in the back door to sack the QB before they can even get the throw off! The LG will block the defender in front of him as well as the LT. This leaves the OLB with a free shot at the QB. The offensive line has only one option to save the QB and that is to try and recover. Many times you will see the linemen make an attempt to recover but they miserably fail every time!

Ladies and gent�s this is only one of our setups. It gets even better! Stay tuned for our next writeup and our next show where we will break down more setups of The Best Defense in Madden 2010. Expect only the best from The Madden Bible!