Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Galactic Empire
3 league games in a row:

http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/134241/2344292

LoL at two EOTPs rolling down the field!

Originally posted by DeeVee8
LoL at two EOTPs rolling down the field!

Yeah those were really funny!

Originally posted by Absolut Zero
So both the Zone SA's are for underneath coverage. Which makes sense, given that safeties in normal man coverage could use deeper zone SA's. But what about deeper zone SA's for only corners? I mean, Zone D needs all of the help it can get.

Either that or Galactic needs to start campaigning for more zone defensive plays where there are more defenders in underneath coverage.

That is one of the issues I had with using EOTP and Zone Shark for my SAs. My play calling is limited to using those guys in only underneath zone coverages. I use to play a good amount of cover 3 with 2 CBs dropping deep, but now I just have my safeties playing 2 deep. All my coverage CBs and LBs are golding EOTP and Zone Shark. That might work out though, since the safeties are built with speed and pass coverage skills. When I reset, I will be using S* SS who will be a speed demon and hard hitting/pass coverage guy. He will support the run to a degree but I usually leave that up to Vader and my run supporting CB (who I also need to rebuild better).

Originally posted by Galactic Empire
That is one of the issues I had with using EOTP and Zone Shark for my SAs. My play calling is limited to using those guys in only underneath zone coverages. I use to play a good amount of cover 3 with 2 CBs dropping deep, but now I just have my safeties playing 2 deep. All my coverage CBs and LBs are golding EOTP and Zone Shark. That might work out though, since the safeties are built with speed and pass coverage skills. When I reset, I will be using S* SS who will be a speed demon and hard hitting/pass coverage guy. He will support the run to a degree but I usually leave that up to Vader and my run supporting CB (who I also need to rebuild better).

You can't go with straight cover 2 against the playbook I'm using on Air Raid, fwiw. You have to go at least Cover 3, really more heavily Cover 4 probably.

I'm almost always sending 4 routes beyond the underneath coverage.

Seems to me, if this does appear to be able to work out, that you'd want two lines of guys for coverage. Monster Hit, 3DS, Closing Speed type guys over the top, with the EotP, 3DS, ZS type guys underneath. Cover 4 actually will force a whole bunch of underneath targets, at which point both layers of your defense should have a decent capability to possibly force a fumble on what is otherwise a pretty uncontested catch by a HB or clearout type route from a WR.

You'd need 3 real stud DT/DE/DE guys though to run a Cover 4 like that. You wouldn't want the QB so comfortable that he can simply wait out the underneath guys completely with regularity, and then he just wins 1-on-1's way down the field with regularity. You gotta try and get 3 rushers to force the issue at least a little bit some of the time so your underneath guys have a chance to impact more plays.

Once you get down in the redzone, you can start lightening up the over the top coverage for more underneath stuff and some flats type stuff.

Those are my thoughts in general. If I were doing a full zone defense, I'd build it from scratch planning to use Cover 3-4 looks against big passing teams probably with +1 CB type formations, and the other run-blitzy stuff against rushing heavy teams and going +1 LB regularly against 3WR and 4WR rushing formations.

That's a big roster demand though. Probably looking at wanting 22 players really, and at least 3 S*'s at DE/DE/DT. 4 Safeties. 2 DTs (lots of 3 man fronts). 3 DEs. 6-7 CBs (3 for outside over the top builds, 3-4 for underneath builds). 5-6 LBs, half run stuffer/blitzy, half built for coverage (when you go Quarters or 3-2-6 type looks against all-pass type teams). Lots of 3-4, 3-3-5, 3-2-6, and Quarters type looks.

Means you'd want an 18 player offense, so you need to specialize that offense pretty heavily to eschew some roster positions. Either go no-FBs like Air Raid, or no/little WRs like Ground Assault. Zero in on either 3WR+ formations only, or 2WR or less formations only.

Originally posted by Galithor
You can't go with straight cover 2 against the playbook I'm using on Air Raid, fwiw. You have to go at least Cover 3, really more heavily Cover 4 probably.

I'm almost always sending 4 routes beyond the underneath coverage.


I counter this by blitzing 90/90 speed/quick CBs off the edge with Gold First Step, plus my 95 pass rush tech DEs.

Originally posted by Galactic Empire
I counter this by blitzing 90/90 speed/quick CBs off the edge with Gold First Step, plus my 95 pass rush tech DEs.
You're not sacking Cleveland. Air Raid's OL is too good and their WRs are too fast.

Originally posted by Kayoh

You're not sacking Cleveland. Air Raid's OL is too good and their WRs are too fast.

My CBs never get touched unless you hold in a HB and/or TE.

Originally posted by Galactic Empire
My CBs never get touched unless you hold in a HB and/or TE.

Just for the sake of this argument, let's say the HB is held in. The passing offense just lost the 5th receiving option on offense, whereas you lost a position where it's easiest to get pass defense skills built up. I think the corner blitzing will hurt the zone coverage more than the HB staying in will hurt the offense.

I think it'd be better to keep the corner in coverage, and either blitz a trash talk ILB, or have 4 d-lineman.

Originally posted by Galactic Empire
My CBs never get touched unless you hold in a HB and/or TE.

I think the 77-3 loss to Logzilla is a pretty good analog of what you can expect to happen to your defense if you were in Veteran and facing Air Raid, except maybe worse. I've got 3 more S* pass catchers than Logzilla is fielding.

CB blitzes just aren't good pass rush plays against elite competition. They can be really good run defense plays against the right rushing plays. It just takes a CB too long to reach the QB to impact the play, no matter how fast they are.

Personally for a zone defense it would make sense to me that you would want as many defenders as possible in areas of the field that can either intercept or KL a ball. Seems to be the only logical way to use that defense in this game with blitzing being so miss at the upper levels. Unless you get someone in a real 3rd and really long range.

You also don't really want the HB to be held in against someone like Air Raid because getting passes to the HB are a win for you.

Still would love to see a full field of defenders in zone coverage with Eye on the Prize and the new Zone SA with their stats all at 100 and see how they typically match up against offenses various offenses.

Granted for the sake of testing it probably wouldn't be fair to make the dline that amazing. But you would probably want a dline kinda built around pass deflecting.

Originally posted by bhall43
Personally for a zone defense it would make sense to me that you would want as many defenders as possible in areas of the field that can either intercept or KL a ball. Seems to be the only logical way to use that defense in this game with blitzing being so miss at the upper levels. Unless you get someone in a real 3rd and really long range.

You also don't really want the HB to be held in against someone like Air Raid because getting passes to the HB are a win for you.

Seems like the most amount of guys you can get in underneath coverage are 5. A few of those plays have an option for Trash Talk with a blitzing LB. It's uncommon for a safety to be involved in underneath coverage, and when they are, there are generally only 4 underneath zones.

Cover 2 Sink seems like the most common play with 5 underneath zones. The 3-3-5 and 3-2-5 versions of that features a blitzing LB.

Some of the zone plays are misleading to look at, I mean, what use is a DE in an underneath zone, such as 4-3 play Weak Slant 3? You can't put coverage skills on DE's or coverage SA's. If GE wants to improve his zone D, he'd have to figure out a way to get GLB to add new plays into the playbook.

Ya Weak Slant 3, Tri Ski Zone, Cover 2 sink, and Cover 6 all make no sense to send the DE out in weak under 3rd or 4th zones. Players just aren't fast enough in GLB2 to make any sort of use out of that and their coverage skills don't even begin to help for the case of an underneath route. Even the flat zones aren't all that helpful due to the slow nature of which players progress to their spot in GLB2. They make much more sense in GLB1.

I wouldn't put EoTP on the safeties obviously.

Would probably look something like this if I wanted to see an actual test.

Safeties - Full 100's in everything, Zone Shark Gold, 3DS Gold, whatever silver
Corners - Full 100's in everything, Zone Shark Gold, EoTP Gold, 3DS Silver
LB's - Same as corners
dlinemen - regularly built for rushing but with a pass deflecting premise.

Would want to keep most of the morale SA's independent from the study even though Zone Shark has morale abilities just for the sake of most wanting to see the best zone coverage possible against a mostly legit quarterback not being completely submerged in Trash Talk drain out.

I usually only blitz on 2nd and 3rd and long. I got destroyed by Logzilla cause of my offense sucking, not my defense. Im top 10 and making playoffs so the zone is working pretty well.