Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Cybertron
What exactly is broken about screens?

QBs routinely miss what is one of the easiest throws in the game by 10+ yards. In this play, the HB Screen is intercepted by an LB 12 yards upfield:https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/772103/1767499

Yeah that is pretty bad.

Originally posted by Cybertron
At least they made screens a more viable play by making the QB throw the ball away instead of taking a sack.


Agree here. If screens were treated like regular passes, they wouldn't be broken and actually viable. Strangely play action passes were the opposite and worked great before they were nerfed.

Originally posted by atlbruce
QBs routinely miss what is one of the easiest throws in the game by 10+ yards. In this play, the HB Screen is intercepted by an LB 12 yards upfield:https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/772103/1767499

Some screens have WRs run defenders off the play with routes instead of blocking and it can cause the QB to check off the screen target and pass to one of the WRs instead. I think this may have been one of those cases since the pass was directed right to the WR, who seemed to have been running a route right up until the ball was thrown. The play art does call for that receiver to block from the snap, but based on what actually happened I suspect the play art may be inaccurate. Regardless, this doesn't make screens any less broken. Every screen that has a WR running routes is basically unusable because you have no control over who the QB throws to, thus defeating the point of a screen.

Originally posted by Kvothe27
Some screens have WRs run defenders off the play with routes instead of blocking and it can cause the QB to check off the screen target and pass to one of the WRs instead. I think this may have been one of those cases since the pass was directed right to the WR, who seemed to have been running a route right up until the ball was thrown. The play art does call for that receiver to block from the snap, but based on what actually happened I suspect the play art may be inaccurate. Regardless, this doesn't make screens any less broken. Every screen that has a WR running routes is basically unusable because you have no control over who the QB throws to, thus defeating the point of a screen.

Nah, known bug that's not been fixed. QB target point is way off on some screens.

Originally posted by BoDiddley
Strangely play action passes were the opposite and worked great before they were nerfed.

How were play action passes nerfed? Maybe I left before they got nerfed. I intend on basing our new offense around a great running game and play action passes.

Originally posted by Cybertron
How were play action passes nerfed? Maybe I left before they got nerfed. I intend on basing our new offense around a great running game and play action passes.
The fake chance was reduced quite a bit, so really they're just regular pass plays now, and not very good ones at that. A couple teams built their teams around PA ability and seems many didn't like that.

Originally posted by BoDiddley

The fake chance was reduced quite a bit, so really they're just regular pass plays now, and not very good ones at that. A couple teams built their teams around PA ability and seems many didn't like that.


Has anybody ran a team with a HB with high carry awareness and a QB with high Leadership? Those 2 skills directly effect play action fakes.

Originally posted by Cybertron
Has anybody ran a team with a HB with high carry awareness and a QB with high Leadership? Those 2 skills directly effect play action fakes.

Yep. I did it with my old Practice Squad team last run, and doing it on Dream Team's current run.

Originally posted by Cybertron
Has anybody ran a team with a HB with high carry awareness and a QB with high Leadership? Those 2 skills directly effect play action fakes.

Yes, but you need more than that. Per the patch notes:

Dec 12, 2017 - "Play action fakes also become more effective the more a team has run inside recently, and less effective the more they have passed"
March 24, 2018 - "Lowered base chance for play action fake so you have to call more running plays for it to apply" and "Play action fake chance lowered when 2nd+ and long"
Dec 12, 2020 - "Increased penalty to play action fake chance from down and distance. 3rd or 4th and long should now be a very low chance of fake success."
Feb 4, 2021 - "increased the bonus from previously ran rushing plays toward play action fake chance"

So, to maximize the lethality of PA in a team devoted entirely to it, I imagine you would want to run on long yardage, PA on short yardage, run inside a ton, and generally avoid passes that are not PA. Outside runs have no penalty, but they also don't contribute to the PA.

The upside: Sometimes you trick people and get a free pass completion, or maybe even a long touchdown. You'd be a unique team so opponents would lack play knowledge against you.

The downside: You become extremely predictable since you need to establish an inside run and you can only play action in certain situations. Play actions more often result in sacks, can be just be flat out resisted with pursuit rolls and are ineffective on safeties in deep zones (also in patch notes). There are not that many PAs in the game and some involve a forced rollout, further opening you up to a sack. You can still opt to sometimes run outside and pass regularly, but you will always to have weigh how much it will conflict with your gameplan and lessen the potential effectiveness of your PAs.

Doesn't seem worth it to me because you can pretty easily complete long passes without having to resort to play action. Having to cut down on outside runs and regular passes, which are statistically by far the most effective plays (YPA) in the current meta, even for power running teams, seems like a not so great tradeoff. I will admit that a power running PA team sounds fun, so if you're committed to the idea regardless I'm sure it's still "viable," but more so at higher tiers once the run game takes over.

Nice post.

And I agree with everything you say. Our #1 option will be to run inside even though we will have 2 S* pulling guards. Hoping to fool defenses with many different types of plays and hit them on PA after they have to commit to the run.

We are gonna win some ‘ships with PA just like we did zone.

Originally posted by Cybertron
Nice post.

And I agree with everything you say. Our #1 option will be to run inside even though we will have 2 S* pulling guards. Hoping to fool defenses with many different types of plays and hit them on PA after they have to commit to the run.

We are gonna win some ‘ships with PA just like we did zone.

Good luck. Dream Team did this Rook & Soph before the nerf, it worked well. But PA plays just aren't all that good when the fake chance is reduced so much.

Originally posted by BoDiddley
Good luck. Dream Team did this Rook & Soph before the nerf, it worked well. But PA plays just aren't all that good when the fake chance is reduced so much.

You ram the ball and didn’t just just spam PA?

Originally posted by vipermaw82
You ram the ball and didn’t just just spam PA?

Yeh used to setup the PA by having 90% of the runs be inside, hardly ran outside at all. That helped improve the fake chances. Both our QB & HB had 90+ carry awareness/leadership from day 1. So the PA success came from extreme builds, along with weak pursuit in teams we faced.

I did PA spam against CPU teams though, largely because I knew those builds are horrible against PA and I could avoid any surprise losses. And gave less data for human teams to gameplan

Originally posted by Kvothe27

Dec 12, 2017 - "Play action fakes also become more effective the more a team has run inside recently, and less effective the more they have passed"


What about running outside? Does this have no effect or would you lump it in with passing?

Originally posted by Kvothe27

March 24, 2018 - "Lowered base chance for play action fake so you have to call more running plays for it to apply" and "Play action fake chance lowered when 2nd+ and long"

Dec 12, 2020 - "Increased penalty to play action fake chance from down and distance. 3rd or 4th and long should now be a very low chance of fake success."


So basically don't run play action on 2nd, 3rd and 4th and long. What constitutes "long"? Is it over 8 yards? Think that is the default long in tactics.

Originally posted by Kvothe27

Feb 4, 2021 - "increased the bonus from previously ran rushing plays toward play action fake chance"


So...buffing now? This change was made this season.