Warrior General Games

This is a discussion about what I see as a potential problem that could potentially be fixed now or may (will?) need to be down the road. This is not a recommendation, yet. I’m posting a long, detailed observation in the hopes that others post long, detailed observations so we can have a true picture instead of a biased one. Is that clear enough?

Currently, while Zone has a higher YPA than Man coverage in the Passing game, the difference is more than offset by the much higher INT rate. Going through Vet plays on GLB2Scout, there’s about a 1-yard difference in effective YPA between Man and Zone. The site doesn’t total up INT rate currently, so you must go play-by-play to calculate it. You can calculate it easier by Team (comparing Zone D teams to Man D Teams) but that’s not Global data. The problem is the INT rate. If an INT is worth 45 yards (it’s effectively a punt with a large runback), then the difference between the Man INT rate and the Zone INT rate has a maximum value of 2.5%, to make up for the 1-yard difference in YPA. Across multiple Offensive formations, there is much more than that. The fix is either to lower the INT rate for Zone defenders (which may also lower the Man INT rate) or to increase the completion % against it. The basic formula is [Difference in YPA] = [Difference in INT rate].

With LogZilla this past season, I focused on running balanced Offensive sets (ie No Big I, No 3WR Trips) so that my Offense would line up properly against Zone teams. What I’ve seen with the data is disturbing. Everyone knows I have a low Pass Power QB but with High Pass Tech, High Pass Accuracy (this season), High Consistency, etc. While my Offensive builds could be optimized more for the Short Passing game, I added Short Passes and found some questionable game balance results.

I ran 30 scrims against BSB and Gliwice (Church of the Holy Zone) – the 2 Top Zone Defense teams – and my overall Short Passing YPA was 3.5. Now, again before everyone goes nuts, I’ll state that my QB and my WRs/TEs could be better optimized for the Short Passing game. And it’s quite possible that both BSB and Gliwice are built to stop the Short passing game (but I’ll address that in a second). Even so, the YPA is poor. We’re talking a Yards per Catch (YPC) of 6.4 yards. The low YPA could be lived with however except that’s before the 8.95% INT rate I experienced. Again, while my QB has a low Pass Power, High Tech, High Accuracy build, he can’t do better than an 8.95% INT rate against on 6.5 yard passes???? For comparison, his INT rate on Medium passes was 7.866% on a YPC of 11.0 yards. His INT Rate on Long passes was 6.64% on a YPC of 11.7 yards. These numbers are reversed from what you’d expect. His completion % was 55% for Short and 44% Medium and 43% Long. Those are expected, the INT rate isn’t.

In clearer terms: The "tilt" is wrong.

Now if BSB and Church are optimized for the Short Pass INT, then they should get killed over-the-top because you can’t be strong against everything. Man is a neutral setup. If Zone wants strengths, then it needs weaknesses. If you build and play call to stop Short passes, then you should be exposed to Long passes. But where they? The GLB2Scout data through the first 24 games suggests they weren’t. (That’s when I did the analysis.) Church had a YPA against of 4.8 yards and BSB had a YPA against of 2.3 on Long Passing plays. This data is before the 8.15% INT rate of Church and 6.56% INT rate of BSB on Long Passing plays. Either the Sack rate is too high (depressing the YPA numbers), the Completion rate is too low (depressing the YPA numbers) and/or the INT rate is too high. Now, we’ve just had the QB Pass Power buff and Offenses haven’t responded with edge burners that can stretch the field and attack the deep zones like they will. I’m not advocating for any changes yet. But this all goes to Myrik’s posts: Zone will be exposed over the top. And that may be true. However, in the current environment it should happen because Zone seems overly strong against shallow passes. My guess is that people playing Zone are going to want better over the top help. Thus, shallow passes will probably need a buff against Zone at some point in the future.

BSB plays a lot of Cover 1/2 while Church plays more Cover 3. If the argument is that both Teams are optimized against Passing, then both should be suffering more in the Running game. Both teams have a Rushing YPC against of 3.9 yards. Hardly enough to offset the Passing YPA against of 2.6 (BSB) and 3.9 (Church) before INTs. My run-orientated LogZilla team with Gimli only averaged 5.1 against them in 30 scrims. Hardly world beating when the Passing game is at 4.5 YPA before the 7.62% INT rate (which is a 3.43 negative YPA adjustment).

Is the game code accurate and we all just need to adjust WR builds and play calling? Or once we do adjust WR builds and play calling for edge/deep Passing, will the game code need to be adjusted? Are we running the wrong routes?

We’re currently in the unknown, though it could be that Zone has been over-buffed against Passing (or some elements of Passing) and needs an adjustment. Or is it that Short Passing is just too weak overall - because it's numbers against Man, while better, are hardly world beating.

Please post your data and analysis so we can try to see the complete picture on this important topic. I know this will attract a ton of "opinions". Those should be ignored. I've collected an entire season worth of data and presented it to everyone. All of the data for these 30 games are available on GLB2Scout. Just scout LogZilla and go from there. If you want to have standing (ie. the legal definition) on this issue, please do the same.

Church is made to stop the pass both short mid and long. Thus I did not met any long pass team - as there are none in vet. I struggle mighty vs run as this D was made to play with score advantage ( superior OFF ).

I just improved my playbook during this test to stop this damn gimli

Also it is hard to compare man with zone as there are no zone team run by weaker players. Zone is mainly chosen by old school guys with an idea.

i think the first thing we should do is unpack the 75 INT's and see where that leads us

Ok dokie i scouted all 30 games and this is what i came up with

705 plays were in zone
279 plays were in man

Zone had a total of 62 Interceptions leading to an INT Rate of 8.7%
Man had a total of 16 Interceptions leading to an INT Rate of 5.7%

78 Total Interceptions

I've looked at each play and have some observations on the 62 zone interceptions as they are the focus of this thread.


So the metric i used on each play was a simple one Contested, Non Contested and Error

Contested zone plays are any play where the ball hits the receiver and its an effective 50/50 ball or the receiver CAN make the catch.
This is and example of a contested play https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/818407/482426

Non-Contested Zone plays are your Zone INTS that involve a defender jumping the route OR staying underneath to make the pick.
This is an example of a non contested INT https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/819043/644559

Error Plays are obvious drops, over and under throws
Here are a couple examples. https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/818053/413299 and https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/replay/818560/530501

of the 62 zone interceptions

36 were Non-Contested Interceptions
16 were contested Interceptions Functioning like Man coverage
10 were Wild throws or drops.



Watched a lot of picks and its almost like your team is designed to generate picks for zone defenses. With low pass power and even lower quickness multiple short routes involved your Receivers not turning quick enough during routes to give them a chance at turning contested interceptions into contested catches. Low pass power also contributed to you throwing a higher number of non-contested picks several passes could have been completions if the ball was there 4-5 full ticks earlier. Several plays forced targeting a TE with coverage underneath despite having more open targets elsewhere on the field. Your short passing being underwhelming is no surprise after looking at your quickness numbers. short passing has a lot more cuts during their routes and generally more adjustment when the ball is thrown. coupled with the fact your against very solid pass rush against most zone teams and your short routes wont develop with enough speed to be a reliable option. More often than not your players were just barely getting turned in time to catch. Basically its a complete reliance on Pass Tech and CIT combined with a lack of quickness leading to a larger proportion of INT's against faster zone teams.

Your in vet now so there's no actual way you can fix it now but you could look at popular zone plays and change some targets around to suit that matchup better. try to limit the amount of turning your players need to do that sort of thing.

https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/game/822305

https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/game/820219

Don’t fail to recognize the impact their defensive lines plays. QBs don’t have time available to properly make those throws. The teams that beat them beat them on the ground. They’re extremely good at disrupting the pocket. Teams that are pass first will still struggle against them.

Man has its perks against the pass as well.

https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/player/342644
https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/player/342309
https://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/player/342311

For a man blitz team I think these are great coverage numbers. Zone will always have the interception perk considering players are sitting on routes instead of covering them. If they added play ball tendencies we’d probably see higher man ints and less zone ints. Missing an aggressive int in zone coverage would leave a gap in the defense while aggressive man int would make better use of coverage tech and physical skills (and play knowledge) causing more man ints.

I think the latest change is going to balance out offenses a bit more, hopefully we see stars more spread out across positions. Especially S* Linemen; be able to run offenses with more time.

High tech, accuracy, and low power is interesting to me. That’s a recipe for nice balls, but straight to the defense.

does anyone want the full list of 62 zone Interceptions?

GLB2 short passing plays aren't designed well, that's the real issue. People have brought this up before

Passing overall looks good right now.

Originally posted by Xars
I know this will attract a ton of "opinions". Those should be ignored.


lol

Well..for starters...you are not playing the correct formations to beat zone. You said you are deliberately not running any WR trips or Big I. That is how you beat a zone in running and passing. You have said as much. You are wanting to beat a zone straight up. That is not how you beat a zone. You need to overload it.

Originally posted by ThePh33P

Watched a lot of picks and its almost like your team is designed to generate picks for zone defenses. With low pass power and even lower quickness multiple short routes involved your Receivers not turning quick enough during routes to give them a chance at turning contested interceptions into contested catches. Low pass power also contributed to you throwing a higher number of non-contested picks several passes could have been completions if the ball was there 4-5 full ticks earlier. Several plays forced targeting a TE with coverage underneath despite having more open targets elsewhere on the field. Your short passing being underwhelming is no surprise after looking at your quickness numbers. short passing has a lot more cuts during their routes and generally more adjustment when the ball is thrown. coupled with the fact your against very solid pass rush against most zone teams and your short routes wont develop with enough speed to be a reliable option. More often than not your players were just barely getting turned in time to catch. Basically its a complete reliance on Pass Tech and CIT combined with a lack of quickness leading to a larger proportion of INT's against faster zone teams.

Your in vet now so there's no actual way you can fix it now but you could look at popular zone plays and change some targets around to suit that matchup better. try to limit the amount of turning your players need to do that sort of thing.

That is a great observation. Xars is alway blaming the game mechanics on his lack of player building skills.

Originally posted by Cybertron
That is a great observation. Xars is alway blaming the game mechanics on his lack of player building skills.

i wouldn't go that far with it but the team design is clearly designed to take advantage of man cit rolls

Originally posted by ThePh33P
i wouldn't go that far with it but the team design is clearly designed to take advantage of man cit rolls

Yup. Make sure all your receivers just max CIT to the exclusion of everything else to beat Man teams. With that complete, complain on the forums about Zone who exposes the sacrifices you chose to make.

Originally posted by ellix
Yup. Make sure all your receivers just max CIT to the exclusion of everything else to beat Man teams. With that complete, complain on the forums about Zone who exposes the sacrifices you chose to make.

Wouldn’t even say that, a noodle arm QB is an actual liability now. Defenses that sit are going to eat them up. Especially if he's being blitzed all game.

Any1 - I am waiting for Xars' next team. Adapt improve overcome !