Possession is the best passing offensive book, and the worst running offensive book. Guess what you can't do in 4.6?

I would not have thought that based on the title “possession” what other playbooks are deceiving in name?

It's not about the name. It's about the sets:

113 - Shotgun: Flare, Slant, Flags (back in the day this was the best play)
113 - Slot Strong: Checkdown, TE Corner
203 - I Formation: PA FB, Post, WR Out
203 - Split Backs: WR Quick Out, WR Drag, a bunch of other plays that used to be big play potential plays
221 - I Formation Big: TE Sneak Out (only playbook with this play)

But not anymore it seems…

I’ve had some success in 4.6 with certain plays one season and then had them become ineffective the next as everyone rushes to imitate or adjust to them. On both offense and defense, especially the supposedly ultimate base 4-3 defenses that are claimed to be overpowered. It’s mostly the same personnel and if anything my play familiarity should be improved as much if not more than the league in general. I’m not sure what to believe anymore, honestly…

In my opinion, with caveat that you can manipulate a Head Coach with your Gameplan construct.

Possession: Is a risk averse Coach who wants to dominate the clock. He'll want to run up the gut and throw short safe passes to keep the chains moving. When given options, he'll be less likely to try and throw the ball deep.

Generally Balanced: Your HC ideally wants a wide mix of plays and will want to see a 50/50 split between running and passing. He is also more likely to take shots/gamble than a Possession philosopher.

Run Biased: A conservative who wants to ground and pound and wear down his opponents Defense. Generally suited to a physical, strong Offense.

Pass Biased: More likely to throw on first and second downs and will look to stretch defenses and test the other teams secondary in both coverage and pursuit. Should suit a team built with a speed kills mentality.

West Coast: I'm never really sure about what the West Coast offense is trying to do, I would say it's a similar philosophy to Possession but they want to throw more than run. Short safe passes and outside runs. I would imagine he'll be looking to run more misdirection plays, play action passes and get his playmakers into open field situations rather than being physically dominant.


Like I say though, you can push a Coach away from his preferred style with how you set up your play choices, gameplanning matrix and rules. When left to AI control they will default back towards these options (although I think they are all too risk averse in the default settings)

“Coaching attributes are now adding a boost to your player's attributes during the game. Your head coach contributes 50% of this boost, the coordinator contributes 30% of the boost, and the position coach contributes 20% of the boost. The coaching influence can increase each attribute by up to 10% (if they all have a 100 score for the attributes “

don’t really pay attention to coaches but the plays matter for sure. Get the ones that are not broken for that code. But for coordinators you can get an in game boost. Small in comparison but when schemes / ratings are well matched every little bit counts. In general, all these thing matter more in 4.6 . Not that speed matters less but everything else matters more.