Madden NFL 2004 Walkthrough for PlayStation 2 Game Name: Madden NFL 2004 Format: PlayStation 2 Submitted By: Simon Says Madden 2004 The Passing Game This article attempts to explain some key features involved in making the passing game work for you in madden 2004. It discusses important issues such as understanding defensive fronts and coverages, making pre and post snap reads, selecting the right personnel and protecting your quarterback. It then goes on to show how these ideas and techniques can be used in specific plays. All the plays can be found in the 49ers play book. The 49ers and their former head coach and now consultant Bill Walsh were the founders of the west coast offence, which aims to use high percentage, short timing passes together with a strong running game to move the ball and set up play action passes (passes that look like running plays). In this offensive system the QB makes a number of reads from the defence both before and after the snap of the ball, and looks at his receivers in a certain order to determine the right place to go with the ball, taking what the defence is giving you. Understanding defensive fronts and coverages In order to pass on a defence you need to understand what the defence is doing. Individual defenders in a system can be doing one of four things. They can be rushing or blitzing, trying to sack the QB before he has chance to get the ball away, or force him to make a bad decision. They can be covering a receiver man to man, concerned only with stopping that receiver from catching and running with the ball. They can be in a zone, protecting an area of the field and covering any eligible receivers in that area, or they can be spying the QB, watching what he does and ensuring he doesn’t tuck the ball in and run it himself. In any defensive play the eleven defenders will all be doing different things to try and confuse the QB. In all likelihood any down lineman will be rushing the QB. CB will usually be covering a receiver man to man and linebackers and safeties will be sitting in zones, although the may be blitzing or covering the tight ends or running backs in man coverage. Occasionally a linebacker will blitz and a lineman will drop back into the area he left. This is called a zone blitz. There are two aims of a zone blitz. Firstly, the offensive lineman responsible for blocking the lineman dropping back into a zone may become confused, and fail to pick up the blitzing line backer, so the blitz becomes more effective. Secondly, often when a QB sees someone blitzing they assume that there is a weakness in the coverage where the pressure is coming from, and will try to throw the ball into the area where the defensive lineman is waiting. There is nothing more embarrassing than throwing a pick to a lineman. Pre snap reads The first thing to consider is the personnel in front of you. Although the cpu team does not know what team you have picked it does know which players are on the field, so if you’re running with a four receiver set then it will most likely pick a nickel, dime or quarter defence. A nickel is worth five cents, and a nickel defence includes a fifth coverage guy called a nickelback, as well as the two corners and two safeties. Dime formations have six coverage guys and quarters, seven. You can use this to your advantage by either passing from a regular running formation, or choosing personnel to create mismatches, and ending up with slow guys trying to cover fast guys. The first thing to consider is the corners and safeties. If a corner back is cheating up to the line of scrimmage then he’s either blitzing or in a zone coverage. If he were to cheat up in man he’d be way out of position. Corner backs have to play very honest in man to man situations. This doesn’t apply to safeties because as they start further back they can cheat towards the line and still keep coverage on their guy. Another quick check to do is to bring a guy in motion. If a guy moves across with a motioning wide receiver then he’s covering him man to man. If he doesn’t then he’s in a zone. If you motion a Tight End from one side to the other and the line backers shuffle, but don’t go all the way with him then they’re also in man. Their coverages change slightly with the position of the offensive players. This is sometimes a good way to get a weaker linebacker covering your tight end or running back, especially if you’ve got a quality guy like Shannon Sharpe, Todd Heap or Jeremy Shockey playing there. Another thing to take a quick look at is where the linemen are lining up. Use this to try to anticipate what will happen to your pocket of protection when the ball is snapped. If the coverage is man and your offensive tackle can seal in the defensive end it might be a good opportunity to send the coverage down field and let your QB run with it. That’s about it for the pre snap reads. Post snap reads. Once the ball has been snapped on a passing play have a quick look to see what the defence are doing now. You should be aware of at least two of the route that are being ran. Are the receivers where you expect them to be or are they being bumped at the line. If so this will throw off a lot of timing patterns. Note that just because your receiver is being bumped doesn’t mean its man coverage. Once he’s free of the guy doing the bumping he may still be covered. If it is zone coverage you need to anticipate when a receiver is leaving one zone and entering another. Don’t wait for him to become open before you throw, because the second you do he’ll be in the centre of a different zone. Ideally you want him to catch the ball in the seam between two zones. Some routes are designed to have receivers running directly along the seams between two zones to make this easier. If you’re looking for big yardage is to determine how many people are in deep zones. In cover one there will be one deep zone. Two in cover two and three in cover three. You get the picture. The field is usually split evenly into these zones so if you can get a receiver deep and then have him run across the field you can anticipate where the seams are. Don’t throw the ball to lofted though, otherwise you give the safeties time to converge and make the play. Another way to beat the zone is to flood a zone with two or more receivers, so that the defensive back is pressured into splitting himself between the two, or taking the deepest man. Someone should be open. If its man coverage you have to either find a guy who isn’t being covered (sometimes running backs are neglected) or wait for someone to get open. You need pretty good pocket presence for that. You could also simply bet on your 1st string, tall possession receiver out muscling the corner back covering him for the ball, but that can be a bit hit and miss. Failing that it’s usually quite easy to anticipate if a receiver will be open when he cuts on routes like a hitch. He simply runs, turns and waits. If there is a guy too close to him, don’t throw him the ball, if not hit him in the numbers. Routes like hitches force defenders to play with tighter coverage, which is when you can try and run past them to sting them for the big yardage. Protect your Quarter Back Pocket presence is vital to pass successfully. If you feel pressured in the pocket you can alleviate a little by pump faking. Whatever you do don’t simply run your QB straight backwards. If your QB runs backwards out of the pocket the angle between the QB and the protection provided by the offensive line gets very small, and its hard for the O line to hold their blocks. The pocket presence drill in mini camp is good for teaching where to move when you’re being pressured from different directions. If the pressure is coming from the sides you should step forward into the pocket. If the pressure is from in front of you step to the side. If you think that pressures coming before the snap you can audible to have your backs stay in and block a side for you. Make sure you know where they’re going so you don’t run into them. Sometimes its good to have a blocking back on the same side as a tight end who is releasing to go on a route to compensate for the lack of protection there. Selecting the right personnel The defence selects its plays based upon the positions of players in the offensive huddle, but there are no rules that say they have to play in their roster position. Madden 2004 offers you the opportunity to change the offensive package. You can have a huddle with three wide receivers and line one up at half back to run the ball once the defence have chosen a pass orientation play, or you can send your half back out to receiver to catch a pass after he’s run clean pass the line backer who was trying to cover him. Audibles An audible is where you can change a play at the line of scrimmage. In madden 2004 you can change the route of a primary receiver to or you can change the route of any eligible receiver to a hitch, a streak, a five and in or a five and out pattern, or you can have them stay in as an extra blocker to one side or the other. This can be pretty useful if you don’t think the play you’ve called will work against the pre snap reads you make. For example, if you picked a flood zone play and the defence is showing man coverage. Play selection Some examples of the techniques discussed put into practice with a few favourite passing plays. The passing game is fun and exciting, and the fans love it, so its good for fan support in owner mode. It’s also dangerous in that passing plays are usually lower percentage plays than runs, and provided you haven’t run your back into oblivion you’re far less likely to turn the ball over on a run than on a pass. Controlling the football is vital if you want to be successful, but sometimes you just have to put the ball up their and make plays through the air. It’s also good to pass when your trailing in a game because you score quickly, and stop the clock on incompletions. Singleback formation Going from singleback can give you the edge, especially in a running team. Often the defence won’t even bother to cover your fourth wide receiver, so hitting him on a quick out or a flag route is a good option if the rest of the defence is in man. Unfortunately he is your fourth choice wide receiver and may drop the easiest of ball to catch, which is where the package selection comes into its own, as you can substitute him for a better receiver and still get no coverage. Don’t pick a play expecting him not to be covered though. I like using the double hitch play, check the right side corner is in man and the right outside linebacker isn’t. If so I go for the quick out, otherwise I wait for the hitch on the left. For a few more yards the WR breakout is good, but you have to be careful throwing over the outside linebacker’s head. Some of those guys can jump pretty high. Pro formation Pro formation is a good passing formation because the split running backs are in good positions to offer both protection against the rush and options out of the backfield. To illustrate a couple of previous points, from pro formation you can run an Overload Strg play. This play aims to flood a zone on the strong side of the field. On the weak side the receiver runs a streak should things get a little messy. The weak side running back stays in to block, and if no one comes does a quick hitch to provide another outlet. On the strong side of the field the wide receiver does a short hitch route, the tight end runs a short flag and the running back flares out, putting three receivers in that area. Ideally if the defence is playing zone there will be one or possibly two men covering an area with three guys. One of them must be open. Another nice play from pro formation is the Play Action. The point of the play action is to try and get the defence (usually the line backers) to step up to cover the run and leave a gap in the coverage behind them. By faking a run you can also buy a little more time for the QB in the pocket, but generally the play action is a fast play, usually intended for the tight end who fakes his block and then sneaks behind the coverage. In this particular play action pass both the wide receiver and the tight end move into the area which should become open through faking the run, the wide receiver doing a quick hitch and the tight end running another flag route. The other running back also runs a route downfield through the line of scrimmage. This adds to the effect of the play action, but if you feel like the pressure might come fast audible and get him to block the back side of the play. This play take a couple of extra seconds to develop, so protecting the QB is paramount. Finally the WR screen. You have to have a QB with cahoonas to run the screen. Basically what happens is his protection blocks for a second and then releases, forming a screen in front of the intended receiver (Usually a running back, but I prefer screens to the wide receiver). The QB drops back and once the pressure is on him lofts the ball over it to the screen guy who then has two very large blockers bearing down on two very small defensive backs. The drawback is that you risk giving up a sack if the QB holds on to the ball too long, but at least you know where the pressure is going to come from. You should always be aware where you emergency check off receiver is just in case things don’t go to plan, or if the defence calls a press coverage in which case there will be a corner back in the receivers face the whole time. I formation In I formation the running backs and quarter back in the back field line up in a straight line. This is good to run from because the running backs are already in a natural position to run vertically and gain good yards on the ground. In terms of passing there is a FL hitch play. In this case FL stands for flanker or flanked receiver, and is a throw back from the games rugby origins. The flanker receiver runs a very short hitch. This is ideal if the defenders are giving your star receiver too much respect and playing of in loose coverage. Use pre snap reads and timing to get the ball to him fast. Ideally the corner will be playing off a little, giving him a little to much respect. Leave it to the receiver to gain big yards after the catch on this play. As the corner back steps up to make the tackle its not too hard to turn fast and make him miss. Be aware that if the corner back bumps or presses the receiver, or is in a flat zone the receiver will not be open and you’ll have to find somewhere else to go with the ball. Another nice play from I formation is the TE flat. Here the TE runs a hitch and the running back flares out to the other side. The weak side receiver runs a post route. I always look to the check guy first. In this case it’s the running back. First look in the middle of the defence. It should be pretty obvious if someone is covering him man to man because of the lateral movement. If there is no man coverage on him look to the weak side receiver. If his is in man, or the corner back has dropped into a deeper zone then hit the running back and let him make the play on his feet. He should be able to manage eight or nine yards after the catch without a problem. The one thing you have to be careful of is that there is no one in the flats on that side otherwise you will give up a pick and most likely a defensive touchdown too. If the running back isn’t open then look to the tight end. If he’s waiting in space then hit him for a four yard gain, plus anything he might be able to manage after the catch. Strong I formation In the strong I formation the full back is shifted out of the I to the strong side. This makes for good running that side, and also sets up misdirection the other way. Passing to the weak side from the strong I can be good too. One play that can be used to great effect is the Quick Hooks play. As above first make the same reads on the flaring running back. If that’s not there wait until the receiver on the same side is about to make his cut. If there is a clear passing lane with not line backers waiting for you to make your move the throw it. His corner back should think he’s going deep and turn just at the crucial moment when the receiver turns the other way to become open. Sometimes this can also give good yards after the catch. Another pass from this formation is the In N Out. As the name suggests, one player goes in whilst the other goes out. First, before the snap check where the pressure might come from. Even though he’s lined up on the left the running back is going to block right, because that’s where the tight end is leaving from. If the pressure looks like its going to come from the other way change his block by pressing Y to change a hot route, and then his receiver button R followed by the white button to make him block left. Either way, be aware which side he is going after the snap and make sure the QB doesn’t run into him. After the snap first look to the tight end. He’s on the out route. If he’s in man and he’s beaten the guy after the cut, or its zone coverage and he’s heading out of the zone towards the side line then get the ball to him. Make sure that the passing lane is clear if it’s zone. Otherwise wait for the full back to run across the middle of the field in front of you. If he’s being covered in man the coverage will be loose because of the curved route. If its zone again make sure that the passing lane is clear of defenders. Make sure the lane is where he’s going and not where he is now and hit him. It’s well worth investing in a passing catching or balanced full back because they are often ignored on passing plays. Well, I guess that’s it for now. Hope this insight helps your game a little. Watch this space for analysis of the running game soon.