First Scouting report is available. Since images can't be posted here, I've created a wordpress blog so that I can post images. The report is here:
http://xarsglb2.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/glb2-scout-my-team-team-id-1058/Text is included below. However, the actual write-up should be read via the wordpress post. It's much better.
GLB2 Scout My Team – Team ID 1058
Team: Cleveland Vindicators ID: 1058
Team Owner: Schauer
First up is Schauer’s Rookie team, the Cleveland Vindicators. They are 4-3-1 as of this analysis.
A quick analysis of the Roster shows only 1 FS and only 1 SS. That’s a lack of depth on Defense. An extra OG and OT are on the roster. The Offense better be dominant with the extra allocation of roster spots.
pic:Roster_1058
Now let’s look at their Offense. We go to www.GLB2Scout.com and here’s the quick overview of Team 1058.
pic:Offense Overview_1058
Here’s the complete overview of all games to date.
pic:Offense Complete Overview
Overall, this is a 68% running / 32% passing team. Let’s see how the run/pass mix changes by formation and situation.
Here’s their First Down play selection – 95% run. Inside Runs 8% (of the 95%) and Outside Run 92% (of the 95%).
pic:First Down Plays_1058
Here’s their 3rd and 4th down and Short (under 2 yards) Play Selection – 100% run. Inside Runs of 26% and Outside Runs of 74%.
pic:Third and Short_1058
Here’s their 3rd and 4th down and Long (8 yards plus) Play Selection – 80% Pass and 20% Runs (of which 92% is Outside).
pic:Third and Long_1058
Now let’s look at how everything breaks down by formation. Defense is set first by Formation and then situation.
Goal Line Formation – First and Second Downs.
pic:GL_First Down_1058
Their Normal Goal Line play calling is 88% Outside. This is pretty normal. Additionally, their Left/Right Balance is pretty good at 92/116, though most of the Left runs are HB Off Tackle Weak instead of QB Rollout Weak. This difference can effect Defensive Play Selection. We’ll get to that later.
Here’s Goal Line Formation 3rd and Short Play Selection. It’s 82% Outside and that’s pretty typical.
pic:GL_Third and Short
Finally, here is Goal Line Third and Long. It’s 90% Outside runs with a little more skew to the Right side, but that could be a small sample bias (only 9 plays).
pic:GL_Third and Long_1058
Goal Line Defense Conclusion: Since there are limited Inside Runs being used, we don’t want any Defensive Plays where our defenders are bunched up. We have two choices: Zone plays (which are safer) and Man Blitzes that will stuff the Strong Side runs and the Off Tackle plays but leave us vulnerable to the QB Rollout Weak. I’ll show both in the Defensive writeup.
There are no plays in 2TE so the next Formation is 2WR.
For 2WR, on First and Second Downs, the play calling is 77% Pass and 23% Run. Outside Runs are 76% of the 23% Run. This is quite different than their overall play calling and allows the Defense to optimize play calling for Pass Coverage. In fact, Passing D plays aren’t bad against Outside Runs, so we’re able to have a pretty good D play against 95% of their Offense in this set. Of their Pass Plays, the main Target is the TE, so we want a great cover guy on the TE and not the standard mix build SS.
Here’s the data on their 2WR play calling:
pic:2WR_First Down_1058
Here’s 2WR for Third and Short (under 2 yards). Only 1 play, but it’s an Inside Run.
pic:2WR_Third and Short_1058
Here’s 2WR for 3rd and Long. It’s 95% Pass and 5% Runs of which all are Outside Runs. This is pretty normal for most teams.
pic:2WR_Third and Long_1058
This whole formation allows the Defense to play either heavy Pass coverage or Blitzing (in Rookie/Soph). There’s very little risk of an inside run except 3rd and Short, where we would normally do an Inside Run Blitz.
There are no 3WR plays, so it’s time for 4WR.
In 4WR, for First Down the play calling is 100% Runs and it’s 95% Outside Runs and 100% of that is to the Left Side. In short, this make our Defensive play selection very easy. Here’s the screenshot:
pic:4WR_First Down_1058
For Third and Short out of 4WR, there’s only one play, but it’s an Inside Run.
pic:4WR_Third and Short_1058
For Third and Long out of 4WR, there’s only one play an Outside Run to the Weak Side.
pic:4WR_Third and Long_1058
So our Defensive Play calling against 4WR only has to worry about an Outside Run to the Weak Side and an Inside Run in 3rd and Short.
There’s no 5WR plays, so now we build our Defensive Playbook and Tactics.
First, I’m going to show a Base Setup of Defensive Tactics. Then we’ll see if it needs customization. Here’s how you should setup your Base:
pic: D Base Tactics_1058_Definitions & D Base Tactics_1058_matrix
Let’s explain the theory behind the above settings.
First, Very Short is defined as <2 yards. This matches our scouting filters above when we were looking at play selection on 3rd and Short situations.
Next is the Medium setting at <7 yards. This matches our scouting filters above when we were looking at 3rd and Long (8+) situations. We use 7 yards here because it’s less than and equal to. The key thing is that this allows us to define 3rd and Long as 8-plus yards (by setting Medium to 7 yards).
The Short setting I keep at 4 yards and can be used if you refine the scouting filters further for certain teams and/or playoffs, but generally I don’t use it. The Long setting of 13 is used in Rookie or if you’re looking to Blitz a Passing team in the higher tiers as you have slightly more time to get to the QB in those 3rd and Long situations. The Big Lead setting is used on the next tab. If you don’t want those settings to kick in, move this input higher.
Now the Tactics Matrix. We’re going to utilize Pass Short as our Default Defense against most WR sets against First and Second down plays. This gives us the most play calling options. We’re not going to play Zone except against Goal Line and while we may Blitz we only need to adjust this Blitz setting if we have a Pass Short non-blitz play and a Pass Short Blitz play in our playbook against a particular formation. Let’s build the play book first and then see if we need to adjust this.
The most important part of this Tactics Matrix is the Third/Fourth down settings. On Third and Very Short, we’re going to use an Inside Run Play which are almost all Blitzes. On Third and Short, we’re going to use a Pass Short Play and Blitz 50% (our Playbook selection will determine this – it’s only 50% blitz and 50% non-blitz if we have blitzes and non-blitzes in the Playbook. If we only have one or the other, then it’s 100% of what we choose.) On Third and Medium, more than 4 yards we’ll use a Pass Medium play. (This depends on opponent – you could go 50/50 here with Pass Short or go 100% Pass Short.) The Third and Long setting is key as this is where out filtering of Third and Long plays (8+ yards comes into play.) We’re going to use Pass Medium plays in these situations. Finally there’s Very Long where you can go Blitzing against a Pass heavy team and go for the sack/hurry.
Finally, there are the Goal Line settings. This Base setup is to use Man D plays, but we’re going to show it both ways (Man and Zone) below.
I build my Playbooks in the order I scout while I scout, so we’ll go in the order I went above.
pic:GL_D Plays_Man_1058
The above two plays work with the Base Tactics Settings we have Pass Short 100 and Blitz 100. These are the aggressive plays against this team. They will stuff the Strong Side Runs, the Inside Runs and the HB Off Tackle Weak. The risk part is QB Rollout Weak – that can easily be a TD run. Now we’ll show the safer Play Calls – Zone.
pic:GL_D Plays_Zone_1058
We’ve selected 5-2 Zone Cat Blitz 2 Roll and Dime 3-2-6 2 Strong Corner Fire. The 5-2 play is our “Pass Short” selection and the Dime is our “Pass Medium” selection.
To call these plays, we should then adjust the Tactics Matrix in the Goal Line settings to:
pic:GL_D Tactics_Zone_1058
Note: We shouldn’t need to add in the 100 Zone Pct since we only have Zone plays, but it’s good practice for when you add in a mix of Zone and Man plays into this (though that’s an advanced/risky strategy because screw-ups happen).
Now based on these settings, we should only call the 5-2 play and never the Dime play. Yet, when you get into the “Prevent” tab settings, they can override this it seems and sometimes you’ll get the Dime play called. If you wanted them to be called evenly, you would go 50 Pass Short and 50 Pass Medium. The Blue buttons mean nothing in this playbook as everything is controlled by the Tactics Matrix, just as an FYI.
The 2WR Defense plays are based on the overwhelming Passing out of this set going to the TE. Let’s stop that 77% Pass play calling.
pic:2WR_D Plays_1058_Short_Med
We’re going to use the Quarter formation here. We chose a “Pass Short” play in Cover 1 LB Lurk and a “Pass Medium” play in 2 Man Press. They are virtually the same play. The MLB drops back into Zone. We want that because we don’t want our MLB to pick up the TE. The SS in Pass Short should play Zone and be available to double team the TE. The CB4 or CB5 should pick up the TE. Normally it’s the CB4 as the CB5 should be assigned to the HB. This gives us a CB4 build covering the TE instead of a SS build. Advantage: Defense. Additionally, the Quarter formation gives us a good chance to stop the Outside Runs to the Strong side as we have 3 CBs lined up over there. Typically, CB2 is (should be) a good run stuffing build.
A quick recap: We’ll primarily be calling the Pass Short play with the Pass Medium play reserved for Third and Long situations. Again, the Blue buttons are irrelevant.
The final part of our 2WR Defense is to add in a 3rd and Short Run Stuffing play. A typical choice is 4-3 Middle Overload. We add that now.
pic:2WR_D Plays_1058_Short_Med_Blitz
Lastly, we have the 4WR Defense to create. Based on our analysis of their play calling, we have to stop the Outside Weak runs on First and Second Down – our Pass Short play selection – and stuff the 3rd and Short Inside Run and stop the 3rd and Long Outside Weak run. We need three plays. But first, we’re going to use “Play Analyzer” to really stuff this play since it’s basically the only thing they run. Here’s the Play Analyzer data from Rookie S7 (use the prior season as it has more data).
pic:4WR_SB HB Pitch Weak_Play Analyzer_1058
We sorted by YPC to get the best play call possible. The first one listed is a Quarter formation. We’re already using the Quarter formation to stop the 2WR Passing Plays. Out of the next few plays, there’s the Dime formation that has “Dime DB Blitz” which is a Pass Short play and “Dime Man Base” which is a Pass Medium Play. They use the same formation which is a nice bonus for us. Plus it’s a formation we can tailor to these two play calls. So here they are:
pic:4WR_D Plays_Short_Med_1058
Now, we can also optimize our Defensive Depth Chart because we’re using Dime formation strictly against this 4WR Formation/play.
pic:4WR_Dime Depth Chart_1058
You should have at least one, preferably two or even three, Break Run Block (BRB) CBs. Usually, you’d have them in CB2. However, for this opponent, you go into your Defense Depth Chart, select Dime and place those 1/2/3 BRB CBs into the CB1 and CB3 slots. Set the “Use Backups” to “Infrequently” and you’ll have dedicated BRB CBs to break up the HB Pitch Weak.
We just now need to add a 3rd and Short Inside Run Blitz. A good selection is 5-2 Mike Inside Fire. And we’re done.
pic:4WR_D Plays_Short_Med_Blitz_1058
Last we have the “Prevent” tab. Generally, I use a mix because you lose specific play selection. My standard is 50 Pass Short, 50 Pass Medium and 50 Blitz. If we use that for this D playbook, the 50 Blitz doesn’t really come into effect as we’re really using the “Pass Short” and “Pass Medium” selections more than specific Blitzes. Since each D play selection has a Short and Medium pay in it, using a 50/50 mix will give us some kind of balance. Theoretically, based on First, Second and Third down typical play calling, you’d skew this more to Pass Short but with the lead you’re looking to stop big plays so more Pass Medium defenses is usually fine.
Final Review:
We adjusted our Goal Line Tactics to Pass Short / Zone / Blitz. We have a good selection of Pass Short and Pass Medium plays against each formation. While we are using Blitzes, they are more geared to Pass Short play selection than “Blitz” selection so we don’t need to use the Blitz Pct in the Tactics Matrix with the exception of 3rd and Short. Our Final Tactics Matrix will be this:
pic: D Base Tactics_1058_Final
We’ve optimized our D play calling against their Goal Line formation. We’re defending the Pass in 2WR and we’re stuffing the Pitch Weak in 4WR with specific plays and depth chart.
Thank you to Schauer for being the first man up for this. As such, I’ll give some recommendations to his Offense.
1. Use 4WR for more plays or get rid of it all together. Run Inside and/or throw.
2. Balance 2WR with some more Inside Runs.
3. In Goal Line, add QB Rollout Weak.
4. Review your roster. You’re short at least one Safety. Also, you have excess salary. Up some of those contracts to “High” or better, re-build some of the D players with Traits that cost salary. None of your CBs are Egotists. Egotist + Workhorse is an excellent combination if you have the salary. I’d look into dropping a OG and/or OT and adding a Safety plus upgrading some the CB builds to Egotist-Workhorse.
