Run Defense

[Warhammer]

How in the world do you improve your run defense in FOF2k4?

I have tried upping the % of defensive running calls. I have increased the run D aggressiveness. I have played more zone, over M2M. Nothing has worked. Most of my defensive players have good run D skills, so what gives?

[sovereignstar]

LOL

You sound desperate. Tart is going to run all over your ass.

[Kozure]

I have been testing it in single player and have been finding that no matter how you set your defense up, it will perform close to the same. You can go completely pass oriented for an entire season and run it 100 times then go completely run oriented and run it 100 times, and your stats will be close to the same.

Its actually a little depressing. I would figure that if you played a QB with very bad timing, using a bump and run defense could work for me, messing up the timing of the receivers routes. But it doesnt work. The QB performs the same no matter how you set your defense up.

Offensive game planning seems to much more customizable.

Maybe someone can shed more light on defensive gameplanning.

[Warhammer]

The funny thing is I have NEVER had a good run D in SP or MP. In TCY, the key was changing your primary formation before the game. In FOF2k4, I always give up 4+ YPC.

Yes, Tart did bring this up, but I am really not too worried about him. My poor Run D last year was misleading. I had two games where I gave up over 200 yards, the rest of the games I gave up a lot less. Plus, the fact that I won a bunch of close games last year allowed teams to keep running the ball late into games, which pushed up their run yardage.

I feel a lot better about the game this week, because I can game plan now, rather than just telling Cringer to make sure my depth chart is filled.

What I fear more than the Run D, is my QB situation. I have a much better QB than last year, but the results were about the same. Maybe I should go with the rookie again...

[Warhammer]

Well defensive pass D I really have no trouble with. I had a game in my MP league last year against one of the top passing teams in the league. I changed my defense to a heavy blitz M2M package, and pulled out the win despite 4 turnovers on the road.

My only problem was my defense went into a tailspin after that, since I thought it would work against more teams. But Pass D, you can change up your coverage schemes and blitz packages and make a difference. I do not see that in Run D.

[Kozure]

Yeah, i got a little off the subject. You were talking about run defense, and i got into the entire package.

But, i have no clue how to set it up a true run defense. I believe how your team does is entirely dependent on your team's defensive talent against the run and your coach's gameplanning.

[Subby]

I have come to find over the years that gameplanning doesn't mean much in FOF...there are so many variables involved in each play that a setting here or there doesn't mean a whole lot.

Personnel is what is important, as is being able to key in on the one or two primary ratings for each defender...

[Warhammer]

Well in that case, my line should be in great shape, because the lowest Run D on my line is like 55. So that indicates that my Run D should be much better. My MLB and WLB both have average - good Run D as well.

I think a lot of it has to do with your secondary as well. When I put my pass D in M2M mode last year my Run D suffered, which makes sense.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Subby

I have come to find over the years that gameplanning doesn't mean much in FOF...there are so many variables involved in each play that a setting here or there doesn't mean a whole lot.

This is patently untrue. I've had great success tweaking my gameplan. Often it only takes subtle tweaks, but paying attenting to what is happening in games and finding your teams weaknesses definitely gives you an opportunity to cover them up. I will agree that minor tweaks don't always do much, but larger settings like 4-3 vs. 3-4, throwing long vs. short passes, or running inside vs. outside can have a great impact.

Key case in point: I had a great QB and two very solid receivers, but a lousy passing game. I was watching my game logs and was noticing a lot of sacks and hurries on my QB thanks to a weak O-Line. I adjusted the passing distances to throw more shorter passes, and my offense took off. For the Super Bowl that year, I faced a power-running team, so I switched from my 3-4 blitzing scheme to a 4-3 conservative scheme, and shut down his running game.

Originally Posted by Subby

Personnel is what is important, as is being able to key in on the one or two primary ratings for each defender...

Personnel does have a big influence, of course. Lousy players will play lousy no matter what the gameplan settings. The key is to set up a gameplan that matches your personnel's strengths and hides their weaknesses.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Well in that case, my line should be in great shape, because the lowest Run D on my line is like 55. So that indicates that my Run D should be much better. My MLB and WLB both have average - good Run D as well.

Hmmm... if your MLB and WLB don't have good run-stopping skills (and "average - good" doesn't sound good enough to me) then I suspect you're going to have some troubles, almost no matter what your DL looks like.

[Subby]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

This is patently untrue. I've had great success tweaking my gameplan. Often it only takes subtle tweaks, but paying attenting to what is happening in games and finding your teams weaknesses definitely gives you an opportunity to cover them up. I will agree that minor tweaks don't always do much, but larger settings like 4-3 vs. 3-4, throwing long vs. short passes, or running inside vs. outside can have a great impact.

Hmm, I probably didn't word that too well. I was talking primarily about defense, which seems harder to control with respect to the micro settings. I do agree that big changes like 3-4 vs. 4-3 and 100 overplay run vs. 0 overplay run obviously matter. But I haven't noticed a whole lot of difference when I change blitz percentages or secondary coverage.

[mtsouth]

Get 2 run stuffing DTs, 2 good DEs (70+ vs. run), stud MLB, good OLBs (70+ vs run), solid DBs (50+ vs run). Get role players that can pass rush and intercept passes. Your base D will stuff the run and allow the roleplayers to use their strengths in nickel/dime packages. My MLB had 150 tackles and was League DMVP. A rookie DE had almost 10 sacks with 70+ in pass rush.

Also, a high scoring offense will force the CPU to run less and pass more.

[Vince]

So basically, get a good defense

[Warhammer]

I actually have a stud MLB, my WLB has run D ratings in the 50-60 range. My weakness is my SLB, who only has a run D in the 30s. My secondary has high run D all around.

[mtsouth]

They can be situational guys and they probably shouldn't be too expensive. Find DTs with 90+ run ratings and don't worry about the rest of their ratings. You can then find DTs with 70+ pass rush ratings for passing downs. Same with the DEs.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by Subby

Hmm, I probably didn't word that too well. I was talking primarily about defense, which seems harder to control with respect to the micro settings. I do agree that big changes like 3-4 vs. 4-3 and 100 overplay run vs. 0 overplay run obviously matter. But I haven't noticed a whole lot of difference when I change blitz percentages or secondary coverage.

It depends on how much of a change. A few points don't matter, but larger changes can. When I run a 3-4, I run 100% blitz, as you need at least one LB rushing to get much pressure. Drop that to 70% or lower and the 3-4 does not work really as well. And there have been other reports here of people adapting secondary coverages to their players and having good success.

What messes the percentages up is that the game will adjust the playcalling somewhat based on what is working or not working (or at least it appears to). I've had the same gameplan result in 50 rushes in one game and just 20 in the next, despite having the scoring go about the same (neither team built a big lead). In the first game, rushes were consistently working, in the second not so much but the passing game did well. Any percentages that get set appear to be suggestons rather than out-and-out orders.

But good nudges (10+ points) in one direction do matter, both on offense and defense. I've turned seasons around by doing so. The hard part with FOF is interpreting the limited data available to determine what part of the gameplan needs to be nudged. I have very high hopes that the new log information will be a huge step forward in this, but I'll have to wait for a season to go by to see what the effects are.

[Suicane75]

1 thing that I noticed, my team in the IFL last year did not have gaudy Run Defense ratings but we were an awesome D-Line, the thing that factored in more, IMO? They all liked each other very much. I think cohesion and affinity is very important.

[Kozure]

Originally Posted by Subby

100 overplay run vs. 0 overplay run obviously matter.

Not really. I ran a tests. Simulated 20 seasons with my defense (Every defensive variable) set at 100 at running and 0 at passing overplay and then ran 20 seasons with 0 running and 100 passing overplay. I found that there are minimal change to how teams fair on defense. I saw minimal difference either way.

If there is a difference in how a defense does, it is hardly noticiable. Maybe Jim can tweek it so that there is more of a benefit when you overplay and get it right and more of a penalty when you get it wrong.

Offensive gameplanning is very in depth though.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by Kozure

Not really. I ran a tests. Simulated 20 seasons with my defense (Every defensive variable) set at 100 at running and 0 at passing overplay and then ran 20 seasons with 0 running and 100 passing overplay. I found that there are minimal change to how teams fair on defense. I saw minimal difference either way.

If there is a difference in how a defense does, it is hardly noticiable. Maybe Jim can tweek it so that there is more of a benefit when you overplay and get it right and more of a penalty when you get it wrong.

Offensive gameplanning is very in depth though.

I think you might be doing overkill. I made some tweaks and wound up holding the other guy to 3.3 YPC. Not bad if you ask me. Now I just need to figure out who is giving up 2-3 40+ passing plays per game....

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Cohesion is important, as well as a coach with very good defensive playcalling skills. There are so many variables to this game, it is always difficult to pinpoint or account for everything. Here is another: some players don't play up to their ratings.