PLAY SELECTION means little

[GREENERRRR]

As a football coach - this part of Madden has infurated me. THERE IS NO DOUBT - FOOTBALL IS THE SPORT WHERE THE COACH HAS THE MOST DIRECT EFFECT ON THE OUTCOME OF EACH GAME - (this is through his play selection - Offensively and defensively) - no other sports compares - hockey, all u control is who goes on the ice - or maybe a set designed play of the faceoff, same with basketball, baseball - a lil more control - u can pinch hit, bunt, sac, hitnrun, pitch around, intentional walk or bean a batter - and Nascar - welll thats not a sport LOL!... Football has been compared to many as a full size chess game - and strategy plays a huge part of it.

In football u must also consider the strengths and weaknesses of your team - (which i will give credit where credit is due - Madden does a good job at recapturing this aspect of football) - if u try to run Brandon Jacobs on the Edges - u r not gonna be successful, If u have designed pass plays where Trent Edwards has to sprint out of the pocket - THIS ISNT GONNA WORK... but - if u throw on the run with Mcnabb - this is a good decision, if u r 1 n 1 and throw a ball up for Fitzgeralf to get (on a small CB) - he is gonna come down with it! and rightfully so!

How-ever Madden misses the block (pun definitely intended) is in play-selection... Examples of how Play Selelection decisions could be improved in the game....

1) Play-action - guys that dont even run the ball at all - are successful when they call play-action - what defense would honour a "play-fake" when the offense has run the ball 5% or less in the game - answer - NONE! (not even @ peewee) - but in madden - those LB always fall for it - and get themselves out of position - the critics of this post will say that QB play action skills, Defensive awareness and play recognition skills play into this - and i say - yes they r right - within normal game calling circumstance - but this doesnt occur in Madden - When a player doesnt run the ball more than 33% of the time - THE PLAY ACTION PASS SHOULD BE INAFFECTIVE (at least the players should only react as if it was a pass - ignoring the fake run aspect of the play)

2) Counters and screens Inside the 10... In the world of football fundementals - these r huge NO-NO's - why? because the are slow developing plays - and inside the 10 - the defense has less of an area to cover - making it EXTREMELY DIFFICULT - TO MAKE SUCH PLAY SUCCESSFUL... this isnt true in Madden - these plays r just as successful as they would be in any other area of the field...

3) Dime / quarter / Dollar defense being successful vs Run play - these formations are designed to defeat the pass - in real football - if u r going to try and take 1 aspect of the game away - another aspect of the game is made available - If a coach runs the ball vs these defenses - he should get an EZ 5 yards - The point of attack will be an EZ double team - and there will be only 1 LB pursuing the ball-carrier - the other defenders are DB's and should be easily blocked (or ran over by the RB)... However in Madden the defense hold the ball carrier to less than 5 yards about 33% of the time - when in reality - this % should be no more than 10%... its frusturating to make the right call (or audible) vs. a defense - and be totally screwed over by an unrealistic stop as described above...

4) of course the 4-6 is a good example of this - but this has its own message string...

is there any other plays that go against football truism's and fundementals - that annoy you in madden - i have a few more - but wanna see if any1 else mentions them...

[jmojsoski]

i agree on most of this stuff...especially with the screens being called within the 10 yard line...I watched that shit all year..My Broncos consistently ran screens within the 10 yard line at times and found themselves nowhere...I questioned Mc Daniels play calling all year..And the counters are way to effective in this game...They should really only work on Defenses( like me) who play aggressive styles( constantly blitz). However, the 4-6 zone shit has becoming increasingly annoying...they gay part about it is u need time to dissect it and ur O line consistently gets punished for no reason...And if ur O line somehow buy time it seems as if the CPU can not find an open part of the zone...at times i see them standing still...Im alwayz like what the fuck...