Warrior General Games

After looking at how things are shaping up in our league it's going to be a highly competitive end of the season for about 3/4 of the teams. Thoughts?

I predict Doge misses the playoffs. Our team design is too far off the meta, and I feel like our builds aren't perfect enough to overcome that fact anymore.

Originally posted by Ratphlegm
I predict Doge misses the playoffs. Our team design is too far off the meta, and I feel like our builds aren't perfect enough to overcome that fact anymore.

What does that mean, far off the meta? You team has been a constant contender since Rookie Ball.

Originally posted by Nigerian Nightmare
What does that mean, far off the meta? You team has been a constant contender since Rookie Ball.

Has been, yes. We were able to overcome 100% zone defense failures early on via heavy blitz spam being able to reach the QB before he realized people were open, but that is no longer the case, and our 100% pass offense is entirely reliant on winning catch vs. pass defense rolls, which from what I can see, is only going to get worse for us moving forward.

The meta clearly is man defense and run-heavy offense... for good reason on both counts. It's quite possible what we're doing now could be done better late game, but given this was our first experiment with it, mistakes were made that are going to hurt us the rest of the way.

It would seem though that one dimensional teams in either direction are becoming weaker and weaker... looks like the balanced teams are having a slight resurgence or at least a ratio of 60 40 run pass vice versa. Does anyone know what has happened with teams that favored zone players over man players (with builds of course as well)

Originally posted by Ratphlegm
Has been, yes. We were able to overcome 100% zone defense failures early on via heavy blitz spam being able to reach the QB before he realized people were open, but that is no longer the case, and our 100% pass offense is entirely reliant on winning catch vs. pass defense rolls, which from what I can see, is only going to get worse for us moving forward.

The meta clearly is man defense and run-heavy offense... for good reason on both counts. It's quite possible what we're doing now could be done better late game, but given this was our first experiment with it, mistakes were made that are going to hurt us the rest of the way.

You haven't changed your playbook since rookie ball. Those who don't adjust get left behind.

Originally posted by Rob.
You haven't changed your playbook since rookie ball. Those who don't adjust get left behind.

The truth is that zone defense cannot defend effectively vs the pass. Players in zone coverage do not have good enough AI to play usefully - they leave receivers open a good portion of the time, they don't move to useful places inside of their zone when noone is inside their zone (for example, if a player is about to come into my zone, I should be moving toward them already even though they aren't in my zone yet) and also don't realize when staying in their short zone has become completely ineffective. One of the biggest problems with zone coverage is the extremely bad positioning of the corners zones in most plays.

Given the above, even though blitzing isn't nearly as effective anymore, it is still more effective to blitz passing teams than to rely on zone pass coverage.

Originally posted by Vir
The truth is that zone defense cannot defend effectively vs the pass. Players in zone coverage do not have good enough AI to play usefully - they leave receivers open a good portion of the time, they don't move to useful places inside of their zone when noone is inside their zone (for example, if a player is about to come into my zone, I should be moving toward them already even though they aren't in my zone yet) and also don't realize when staying in their short zone has become completely ineffective. One of the biggest problems with zone coverage is the extremely bad positioning of the corners zones in most plays.

Given the above, even though blitzing isn't nearly as effective anymore, it is still more effective to blitz passing teams than to rely on zone pass coverage.

Sorry, I should have specified. You haven't changed your offensive playbook since rookie ball. The zone D is a whole other issue.

Originally posted by millr
It would seem though that one dimensional teams in either direction are becoming weaker and weaker... looks like the balanced teams are having a slight resurgence or at least a ratio of 60 40 run pass vice versa. Does anyone know what has happened with teams that favored zone players over man players (with builds of course as well)

What has happened? I don't really pay much attention to teams in other tiers, so I can only describe what I see our team do regarding zone defense. Most of our DB's and some LB's have had their zone awareness capped for a season or two now, and have close to capped coverage tech now, but still usually wait to move towards an incoming pass until it's already been caught, this is more frequent on longer passes. That is when the guy in zone actually decides to cover the guy he should be covering. It's so easy for whatever zone defense you're using to get crossed up by routes, or for half your guys in coverage to not actually cover anyone, or to just stop covering to return to their zone that has 0 chance of any other receiver entering it.

Basically, zone is a reactive defense while man is an active defense, and reactions in this game are terrible. Admittedly when preparing our roster, we did not figure out which plays we wanted to use beforehand, just that we were going to try 3-4 zone... turns out the play selection is, imho, garbage: full of flat zones and awkward short/medium designations, but the latter may be the case for any defense.

Regarding run defense... I really don't know, I feel like zone is pretty similar to man, but also think man has a few stronger anti-run plays. Our record vs. 100% run teams is terrible, though most losses have been close. Running is strong right now, not gonna blame zone for our lack of success rushing teams.

Originally posted by Rob.
You haven't changed your playbook since rookie ball. Those who don't adjust get left behind.

Heh, I can't speak for our offense, but I edit the defense for every game. Engage eight had worked for us against passing teams until this season, and honestly I haven't found anything useful in passing situations now. As a 3-4 built team, fat DE's made sense, so we missed the boat on the Spin to win D-line that creates pressure even when rushing 3, and even if we had them, QB's seem to have no trouble picking apart our zone when we run full coverage for the reasons stated above. If there were better zone plays in the book for the situations I need to defend, I'd use them.

Probably the best evidence of zone hilarity was our league game against The Boogie Men last season... a 100% run team, who "accidentally" used their passing scrimmage offense against us and trashed us with it. I dunno maybe they've secretly been training catching and passing skills... but the handicap they must've been at vs. legit passing teams is massive. We did not engage eight that game at all.

I was going to say... run the same playbook for 2-3 games and see what Rob will do to you... our Alaska game was ugly. Haha

Originally posted by Ratphlegm
The meta clearly is man defense and run-heavy offense... for good reason on both counts. It's quite possible what we're doing now could be done better late game, but given this was our first experiment with it, mistakes were made that are going to hurt us the rest of the way.

An all out passing attack is very effective as well. You guys just are running the "best" or most effective plays on that end of the ball.

Defensively, I agree you guys are screwed, unless some drastic change occurs.

Tezed, how do you feel the Aces will close the season out?

Originally posted by Couchduck
Tezed, how do you feel the Aces will close the season out?

I expect us to finish 4-1, but we could drop both to Doge and the Rappers.

Originally posted by Ratphlegm
Heh, I can't speak for our offense, but I edit the defense for every game. Engage eight had worked for us against passing teams until this season, and honestly I haven't found anything useful in passing situations now. As a 3-4 built team, fat DE's made sense, so we missed the boat on the Spin to win D-line that creates pressure even when rushing 3, and even if we had them, QB's seem to have no trouble picking apart our zone when we run full coverage for the reasons stated above. If there were better zone plays in the book for the situations I need to defend, I'd use them.

Probably the best evidence of zone hilarity was our league game against The Boogie Men last season... a 100% run team, who "accidentally" used their passing scrimmage offense against us and trashed us with it. I dunno maybe they've secretly been training catching and passing skills... but the handicap they must've been at vs. legit passing teams is massive. We did not engage eight that game at all.

I was only citing that run only teams used to mop up, and I've been seeing less and less of that... I haven't really encountered a whole lot of pass only teams. Those teams sometimes make me laugh, b/c when it's 3rd and 1, and they pass and its batted at the line I'm just sitting there laughing about it.

You have seen less of that? Are u kidding?

Air Raid, Stunners, Queen City, Hawaii, Cobra Kai...All of them are 90-95% one dimensional and own this game in every aspect^^