As many of you already know, Billy "Secret" Wolf, won the Minneapolis Madden Challenge this year This recent Madden Challenge win for "Secret" was his 3rd in the last 3 years. Billy used a number of different plays as he dominated the competition all day long with the New Orleans Saints. One play in particular that he has chosen to share with the SportsGamer community is the HB Middle play. The Saints have a lot more speed than most teams, especially when you put Bush and Bennett in the backfield as billy did, but this play can be successfully run with any team in the game.
Playbooks
Atl, Buf, NYG, Oak, Ten
Figure 1 - In this first image you can see the offensive assignments for the I-Form Normal HB Middle play.
Figure 2- The defense has called a man to man defense with safety help over the top. When "Secret" used the Saints he placed Bethel Johnson on one side of the field and Donte Stallworth on the other, forcing almost every opponent he played to have safety help to prevent from getting beat deep.
Figure 3 - The first two changes "Secret" makes when running this play is streaking both outside receivers to pull the safeties downfield. Then, he motions the tight end to the opposite side of the line. He motions the tight end for a couple of reasons. The first reason he motions him to the left is to force the defensive assignments to switch if the opponent is playing man to man. The second reason he motions him across is to improve the blocking for the FB or HB Lead Dive. Take a look at figure 4 to see what switches took place on defense.
Figure 4 - The most important switch on defense occurs when the left outside linebacker becomes responsible for the fullback. As mentioned above, "Secret" used the Saints. There isn't a linebacker in the game that is going to be able to catch up to Reggie Bush as he heads out into the flats on the left side of the field. Now he is ready to start the play.
Figure 5 - The first read on this play is the fullback moving into the flats on the left side of the field.
Figure 6 - The linebacker continues to chase the fullback on the left side of the field as our other receivers begin making their breaks. We want you to notice just how well spaced out this play is. "Secret" is able to attack multiple spots on the field every time he runs this play.
Figure 7 - The running back badly fakes out the defender when running the angle route. Also, if you'll take a look at the tight end slightly further downfield you can see that a high precision pass would be an easy completion to this player as well.
Figure 8 - The running back makes the catch with plenty of room to head upfield for more.
Figure 9 - The running back is finally taken down after a gain of nearly 20 on the play.
Final Conclusion
The bottomline why "Secret" has so much success year in and year out in Madden is because he executes on offense and on defense. Billy knows that he has great speed when using the Saints, so he has devised an offensive scheme that allows him to utilize that speed to the fullest. Everyone says you have to have height at receiver to win in Madden. However, there isn't a single receiver (Other than the tight end) on New Orleans who is over 6'0 tall. What you need to try to do is to figure out the best ways possible to utilize the strengths that your team has to get an advantage on your opponent.
