This year in madden having a well balanced offense is more important than ever. When trying to throw deep downfield passes for large chunks of yardage, you must first soften the defense up by attacking underneath and on the ground. The Singleback Big Wing formation is great for establishing a solid running game. However, to be truly successful you’ll need a sure fire pass play that will keep defenses on their heels. The pass play that we're going to break down in this tip is the Dual TE Flat. The Dual TE Flat allows you to consistently throw underneath the defense to your tight end. As you'll see below, this play still works even when we call a defensive play that is specifically designed to stop it.
Singleback Big Wing - Dual TE Flat
Playbook(s)
Arizona, Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Jacksonville, Miami, New England, New Orleans, New York Giants, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Tennessee, Pass Balanced, Run Balanced, Run Heavy
Console(s)
XBOX / PS2
Quick Setup
Step 1- Come out of the huddle and put your cone on the offset TE.
Sportsgamer Tip - To maximize the efficiency of this play you can implement the past tip on how to steal running back routes. Adding your favorite RB route to this play can prove to be devastating.
Play Breakdown
Figure 1 - Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts have come out in Singleback Big Wing Dual TE Flat.
Figure 2 - The Chicago Bears have come out in 4-3 Over Man Flats. Next, the defense aligns their defenders and bump and run is called.
Figure 3 - You would think that this Defense would be ideal when trying to guard the flats. You’ll notice that both of our outside linebackers are playing flat zones, while our faster safeties are playing man for man on our tight ends. Obviously, this defense can get beat deep easily. However, the reason that we want to show it to you in this example is because it appears to be ideal for stopping routes into the flats on either side of the field.
Figure 4 - We make sure our cone starts on the TE that is set off of the line of scrimmage. We chose to throw to Bryan Fletcher instead of the faster Dallas Clark to show that it will work with almost any tight end.
Figure 5 - As you can see right away, Fletcher immediately has a step on both our defenders as he gets off the line unbumped.
Figure 6- As the play continues we see that even more ground is gained as Fletcher runs towards the left sideline.
Figure 7- At this point in the play the defense is already 5 yards behind Fletcher as they desperately try to gain ground.
Figure 8 - You can make the throw by pressing up or left on the directional pad, depending on where the defense is positioned.
Figure 9 - The catch is made by Fletcher with room to turn up field for extra yardage.
Figure 10 - Fletcher is dragged down from behind after a quick gain of 8 yards on the play.
Figure 11 - In this image, we have come out of the huddle in the Singleback Big Ace WR Out play. The reason that we have come out of the huddle in this play is because we want to steal the running back's route and take it back into the Dual TE Flat.
Figure 12 - In this picture we stolen the angle route that the running back was running and added it to our play.
Figure 13 - The play will work to either side of the field with equal success.
Final thoughts
Being able to attack the flats and run the ball consistently is very important to becoming a better Madden player. The ability to throw to the flats against a defense that is designed to stop it will put extra strain on your opponents because eventually they'll have to try to manually guard it. Mixing this play in with a power run game and a solid deep threat will help your offensive numbers improve.
