setherick wrote:
The game has reached a stagnation point where there are not enough plays to be innovative. There are fewer than 10 outside runs that work (really I can name 4 and all the others are variations on that play). There are offensive sets that you can only pass out of, which make it really easy to game plan against them. And defense is still limited to M2M plays unless you want destroyed by the pass and the run. When are we going to get expanded playbooks?
Yes, the plays need to be improved. i don't know what is happening with the new game engine but i am hoping it will address some of this stuff. The above quote is sadly and incredibly accurate. Recently, i have experimented with using zone defenses to try to slow down (not stop-my team is just too poor) the incredible scoring machines of the top teams. It hasn't worked, principally because the player logic is poor.
One game i tried running a bunch of dime package zones to slow down a team with several '100' receivers. All that happened was that my guys dropped back to their zones and then stopped, not covering anyone. They watched as the offensive guys ran past them and didn't move until they caught the ball well behind them - resulting, of course in one TD after another.
In real life, a player with no one near his zone wouldn't just stand there and watch the game. He would look and see that there was no one around who could enter his zone then MOVE towards where the receivers were, especially aiming to knock down or intercept passes to guys running shorter, underneath patterns. In effect, zones and guys in zones are not the totally static entities they are here - they move and rotate and try to create confusion for QBs (which works better vs younger, less experienced guys).
If guys in a zone don't use some more intelligent logic than in theses plays there will never be any reason to use anything other than man-to-man coverages and max blitzes.
