Warrior General Games

I wasn't sure if I should put this in the bugs or not. I mean, I don't think zone's bugged, I just think it's bad. So I stuck it here where I figured it would at least stop new DC's from making the mistakes I made when I first started GLB2. (As for why I run it now on my new rookie team, "No excuse, sir.")

Let's use this play for our first example. It's from my rookie's most recent game. All kinds of stuff goes wrong.

http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/38959/2923266

The first thing you should see becomes really obvious at tick 30. There are 4 guys on the right side of the defense covering two receivers while 2 guys on the left cover three.

Next, instead of actually playing a zone, the FS on the undermanned side is playing man coverage on the outside receiver. This leaves WR4 completely uncovered. The QB, obviously having at least 1 point in pass awareness, spots this and throws the ball to WR4.

Now the FS seems faster than WR4. That's the only thing that gives him a chance at the play. But he's the only one so when his misses. Game over, man. Game over.

Next example is one zone should actually be pretty good at:
http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/38959/2922210

It's a short field. Nobody on the defense should be worried about deep routes. They should happily sit in their two layers. Except that's not what happens because apparently the sim makes absolutely no adjustments to zone locations at all. So instead of two layers of coverage, there is one layer of coverage at that starts a couple yards deep in the end zone.

Like the previous play, this play starts out without any zone balancing by the defense because the sim doesn't understand pre-snap reads and zone adjustment. so there aren't enough guys on one side, and too many on the other. Also like the previous play, this wouldn't be that bad if the defenders were actually playing zones and not man coverage on the first guy to enter their zone.

But where that play totally breaks down is that no defender makes any attempt to pick up the HB out of the backfield because none of them have a zone designation that is close enough to the line of scrimmage to make that read.

So, dear newbies thinking of playing zone D, my advice to you is don't. The sim doesn't understand how zone's work. It doesn't make pre-snap reads. It doesn't make zone adjustments. Defenders don't actually play zone coverage ever. They just play man coverage on a small area of the field.

You won't kill my dreams.

Not only do they just play man coverage in a small section of the field, but they wait specifically in the very center of the zone until someone breaches that small perimeter.

The one saving grace is they will reliably break on passes better than a M2M defender. Of course, they're typically very, very out of position to make that break and do anything useful. Perhaps that's more dangerous at higher levels when the sprinting, quickness, fotwork, and interception are high enough to actually do something, but then again, perhaps increasing QB passing power will negate those greater skills too.

Originally posted by Galithor
Not only do they just play man coverage in a small section of the field, but they wait specifically in the very center of the zone until someone breaches that small perimeter.

The one saving grace is they will reliably break on passes better than a M2M defender. Of course, they're typically very, very out of position to make that break and do anything useful. Perhaps that's more dangerous at higher levels when the sprinting, quickness, fotwork, and interception are high enough to actually do something, but then again, perhaps increasing QB passing power will negate those greater skills too.

It's going to be really tough to keep convincing myself to stick with this defense long enough to find out.

This is especially true when I know that all I have to do to run the Kaiju defense Lost Lounge uses is tell my secondary to train Man Awareness to 50 or so which takes next to nothing at all in terms of SP's....

Originally posted by Xavori
It's going to be really tough to keep convincing myself to stick with this defense long enough to find out.

This is especially true when I know that all I have to do to run the Kaiju defense Lost Lounge uses is tell my secondary to train Man Awareness to 50 or so which takes next to nothing at all in terms of SP's....

You're going through precisely what Air Raid went through last season. There are interesting zone plays in the playbook. Just not for coverage purposes.

Werent YOU the one who didnt believe me and galithor that it fckin sucks? You claimed that you made it possible, lol

Originally posted by peeti
Werent YOU the one who didnt believe me and galithor that it fckin sucks? You claimed that you made it possible, lol

He still might if he's doing what I think he's doing at the end of rookie with his Ability Points on his safeties and CBs and taking Monster Hit to 2 stars.

Zones might be uniquely suited to a big forced fumble/Knocked Loose style defense precisely because of the space they leave with the defended receiver.

I'd probably run a whole bunch of Cover 3 and Cover 4 like that though. Would be waaaay to worried about letting a guy run free deep in Cover 2 type defenses. Even blitzing 6 a Cover 2 defense would make me super nervous. Nobody's tried to build a zone-focused defense yet where you attempt to turn the weakness of letting guys run free underneath into a strength by attempting to pulverize them after the catch. Closing Speed + Monster Hit CBs and Safeties. Who knows? It might work.

Originally posted by Galithor
I'd probably run a whole bunch of Cover 3 and Cover 4 like that though. Would be waaaay to worried about letting a guy run free deep in Cover 2 type defenses. Even blitzing 6 a Cover 2 defense would make me super nervous. Nobody's tried to build a zone-focused defense yet where you attempt to turn the weakness of letting guys run free underneath into a strength by attempting to pulverize them after the catch. Closing Speed + Monster Hit CBs and Safeties. Who knows? It might work.

I've run both Engage 8 (8 rush 3 coverage) and All-Out Blitz (9 rush 2 coverage) in a couple games. A couple of the Engage 8 plays actually survive for several games. 'Course, they're all gone now as too many rookie QB's are at the point where they will throw the ball to one of the many wide open WR's before anyone could possibly get to them.

Looks to me like those players just don't have a clue how to play zone....meaning they need to get their zone awareness and coverage tech up.

Originally posted by nortobc
Looks to me like those players just don't have a clue how to play zone....meaning they need to get their zone awareness and coverage tech up.

To bad it doesn't work that way.

I think at the higher levels, when players have their skills raised, zone would be a great defense.

Originally posted by nortobc
I think at the higher levels, when players have their skills raised, zone would be a great defense.


possibly, but they don't change their approach with higher skills. They still sit in the middle of the zone until a receiver enters the zone. Bigger skills would give them a bigger range for reaction upon throw, but offense skills are increasing too the whole time.

I created all my back 7 with the Flex Coverage trait hoping one day to be able to run a mix of the 2, I think I have one more respec on each of my guys so I may give it a shot at the end of this season to see if it'll work at a higher level.

Originally posted by Galithor
possibly, but they don't change their approach with higher skills. They still sit in the middle of the zone until a receiver enters the zone. Bigger skills would give them a bigger range for reaction upon throw, but offense skills are increasing too the whole time.

And therein lies the biggest problem.

A fast WR blows through a zone. The CB starts to the front of the zone where the WR entered. He's running exactly the wrong way to cover the WR which means he'll have to stop, turn, and accelerate in a totally new direction to keep up. But with some of the speed WR's, that never happens.

So the trick there becomes making sure the QB doesn't have enough time to wait for a WR to blow through the deep zone. In rookie ball, that's doable as near constant blitzing isn't a disaster. But next season I'm way worried given that constant blitzing gets riskier and riskier.

Originally posted by Xavori
And therein lies the biggest problem.

A fast WR blows through a zone. The CB starts to the front of the zone where the WR entered. He's running exactly the wrong way to cover the WR which means he'll have to stop, turn, and accelerate in a totally new direction to keep up. But with some of the speed WR's, that never happens.

So the trick there becomes making sure the QB doesn't have enough time to wait for a WR to blow through the deep zone. In rookie ball, that's doable as near constant blitzing isn't a disaster. But next season I'm way worried given that constant blitzing gets riskier and riskier.

That's why I think you'll want 7-8 zones on the field instead of 5 with a 6 man rush at higher levels. More bodies means smaller responsibility areas, and the increased reaction range with higher skill defenders should mean smaller windows.

A good Defensive line with some solid spin cycle investment ought to be able to create nearly as much pressure as a 6 man blitz occasionally. If you had 8 in coverage with 60+ sprinting, quickness, footwork, etc... it may be feasible to actually get interceptions reliably when the DEs put the hurry on.

That's the hope anyhow. Frankly, I don't see zone blitzes with only 5-6 guys in zone ever being all that great outside specific rushing defenses. Too many big holes that top flight QBs will certainly abuse. Sure stuff like the CB zone blitzes are great against the power sweep teams, but you're not running that crap against Air Raid without Cleveland murdering you.