The Set-Up

These are the basics settings every Madden player should set-up and save. They will save you time, help you win more often, and you won't drive everyone you play nuts waiting for you.

First a side note: Haven't posted since first getting the game because every time I think I have something worth sharing I play someone who beats me so bad I realize I have a long way to go. But, now I'm ready to share. I'm not saying I'm the #1 Madden player out there, but I can hold my own now because I developed a fundamental strategy based on playing the game without cheats, glitches or gimmicks that works for me and I believe will work for you.

All I'm going to do is tell you what I do, and I hope it helps, if you have any feedback please feel free to share, but I'm putting this stuff out there to help people improve their game and in turn, improve mine.

Alright, first set-up the game the way you want to play.

Go to MY MADDEN on the main menu, go to SETTINGS, go to GAME OPTIONS, pick a FAVORITE TEAM, OFFENSIVE PLAYBOOK, and DEFENSIVE PLAYBOOK. It doesn't really matter what team and what playbooks, just fit them with your style. (I almost exclusively use the NE Patriots Offensive Playbook, the NYJ Defensive Playbook, and play mostly with the Green Bay Packers).

Next, you must go to MY MADDEN, SETTINGS, GAME PLAN and set-up your audibles. At this point if you don't have a game plan yet then just look at them and know what they are. If you do have a game plan, set your audibles to some plays that you like out of the formations you run the most. I'll definitely talk more about audibles as this blog grows...they are a requirement for winning consistently.

Lastly, go to XBOX LIVE, go to PLAY, go down to ROSTER (make sure you have the latest roster update....if you've never played go to the quick game option and start a game, you should get a roster download once the match up screen comes up...just back out after the roster download). Now, make all the adjustments you want to your roster, and save them afterwards. Get your best kick returner, punt returner, 3rd down back, any injured guys back in the lineup, and any other adjustments you like (I'll talk more about this in future posts, but the KR, PR, 3DB, and injured guys ane the most important).

Once you have this saved, you can now start a game without wasting anytime setting this stuff up every time you play (it blows me away seeing guys with 300+ games played who have to pick their team, make roster changes, and pick playbooks every game, but when you check their profile, they play the same team and same playbooks every game).

Lastly, if you play online, which if you're reading this you should be doing, you need to go to ONLINE SETTINGS and provide your email address so you can get all the game information and your level information sent to you after each game...invaluable.

Start to building a Defense

Started where I left off with Madden 08. Multiple D playbook with audibles set-up as, 4-3 Buzz Duo, 3-4 OLB Dogs Fire, Nickle 2-4-5 Double Z Bracket, Nickle 3-3-5 Cover 1, and Quarter 2 man under. I feel this combination of D's pretty much helps cover everything that can come up and these plays make up 75% of my defensive play calls. However, in Madden 10 I was getting eaten up by short dump routes (ins, outs, slants). Usually Nickle 3-3-5 Cover 1 is great at stopping these because everyone is in man coverage and you have two LB's dropping into zone over the middle to cover these routes. If a particular route is killing me I can always call any Quarter D then audible to 4-3 Buzz Duo, control the second lineman on the left who is actually one of your corner backs that has moved down with the audible, put him in zone coverage (A + left stick back) and manually cover the routes. Neither of these was 100% effective, but in 6 games I gave an average of 15.5 points a game. Not where I want it (under 10 is where it should be) but not bad for less than 10 games played. As I work out the kinks and see new wrinkles from other players I'll keep updating Defensive Strategy

First Serious Set of Games

Sat down last night and played a few games. Only fared OK going .500 in the games. Much less than anticipated but found some good plays in the NE playbook. Both in Gun and Singleback the trips formations with the TE opposite the trips so all WR's are on one side of the field give an immidiate read if the D is in Man or Zone coverage. If the both CornerBacks are on the side with the WR, it's man, and if one stays on the side of the TE then it's zone. The only time this isn't true is if the D is in Dime or another formation with 4 or more corners because then they will line-up corners on all WR's on one side and the other corner stays over the TE or if the Corner is blitzing. If the corner is blitzing you can usually tell because they stay wider and show some pre-snap movement towards the line, if you see it, just flip the ball over the head of the blitzing Corner to your RB or TE in the open flat on that side (ideally your RB with your TE hotrouted to a slant on the same side to become a blocker). If the coverage is man, any slant, in, out, or angle route by the RB should get an easy completion. If the coverage is zone look to the flats to see if it's a drop zone or not. If no defender is in the flats, probably a lot of guys back in coverage and should be an easy short completion anywhere on the field, unless it's a blitz. If it's a blitz, look to throw the ball to the spot the blitzers are coming from (same idea as countering the CB blitz). If there are guys in the flats your looking at cover 2 or 3 most likely. Cover 2 has two deep safeties and the middle of the field deep is wide open, run a post route with a WR or go route with RB/TE. Cover three has 3 deep defenders and the middle is now blocked, but the intermediate sidlines are open. Look for flag routes (WR slants deep towards sidelines), circle routes towards sidelines, or fake slant to flag routes...all of these put your reciever 10-15 yards downfield along the sideline and the deep safety on this side is too deep to defend and the short zone is to shallow...should be a relatively easy completion.

Playbooks

If you're like me and you hate trying to find plays you like in different playbooks by either practicing or setting audibles here's a great tool...go to this website, download the ebook, and you'll be able to flip through all the offensive and defensive playbooks. Very Nice.

http://www.maddentips.com/pc

First Practice and Game

Practice for 2 hours and I can't beat the D the way I could in '08 (that's right, I don't own '09 and have only played it once...but I'm pretty decent at '08). Figured it was time to get a game in and see if I could play this version at all. Good vibes to start...returned the opening kick-off. Ended up giving the guy mercy in the 3rd up 28 - 7. Nothing special but felt good to get the first game out of the way. My main take away so far is that man defense is a breeze to beat, but zone is much more difficult. As I get more game time I'll be back with strategy and tools.

Madden in the mail

First, I'd like to admit that I'm an idiot. I've been waiting since Friday to see Madden 10 show up on my doorstep after it was preordered for me for my birthday months ago from Amazon. By Tuesday I'm starting to get a little irritated that I haven't recieved it yet and I can't access delivery info from Amazon because someone else bought it for me. Then I get home from some beers with the boys to celebrate passing the CFA level 3 exame I check the mail box...and you guessed it...Madden 10 is sitting in the mailbox instead of on the front porch because the it fit through the slot in our locking mailbox. I hadn't check the mailbox for a few days so I may have had Madden 10 the whole time. It's 11:30 at night I'd I'm going to start playing.