Preventing your opponent from beating you deep should be your biggest concern when on defense, especially early in the game. Fortunately, EA always does a great job of providing us 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. By looking at this image you would assume that this play does an great job at stopping any deep passes. However, as you'll see below, 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. 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 Mark Brunell takes the snap, the receivers begin running upfield. Notice the strong safety sliding to the right to account for the tight end running a streak up the seam (upper left). Obviously, we would like for our safety to worry more about Moss' blazing speed 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.
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 not only beats his man to man coverage, but he also beat the deep safety for an easy six points.
This time we're applying the same bump n' run 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.
Notice after the snap this time 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.
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 2008 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. We would recommend working in all of the possible defensive changes as soon as you get the game to learn the strengths and weaknesses for each. Get ready, Madden season is right around the corner!
