Issues With Defense in MADDEN '11

     Defense in this year's Madden is nonextistent. I have a passion for the Madden franchise and have owned every game since I was about 5 years old. It is my one true video game love and I will never miss a year or a competition. I grew up as a defensive minded person, so it comes naturally that I am extra critical of the defense. This year, I think that Madden took an astronomical step back in the defensive abilities of regular and online game play They worked so hard to make the big plays happen on offense that it has become practically ipossible to stop the ball on defense.

     First off is man coverage. Plain and simple, if you are running a man coverage and the opponent runs a crossing pattern then you are basically screwed. It really doesn’t matter where the receivers cross but contact will be made and people will lose their assignment.  One of your defenders will either run into the opponents receiver or your own defender and one or both of the receivers will become open. When, in real life, does this happen? It’s an awareness thing and it should not be that difficult to navigate around other players to stay among your defensive assignment.  It should be an easy fix and needs to be fixed promptly.

     Secondly, bringing pressure through your regular line.  Unless you constantly nano blitz ( to be blogged about later) or blitzing linebackers off the edge and especially in a 3-4 defense then it is getting harder and harder to get anywhere near the quarterback unless your bringing someone like James Harrison or Demarcus Ware off the edge.  Power moves constantly get you thrown to the ground and brushed off into double teams and finesse moves only go the way you want them to go half the time. If you want to speed rush off the edge and press the right stick to the outside, for some reason it spins you to the inside and straight into a double team. It gives the quarterback an unrealistic amount of time on every play to throw the ball and something needs to be done about it.

     Next on the list are at the safety position. This is the problem that bugs me the most because I played Safety back in my high school days. Any real Madden player knows about the problem that I am talking about. They will not attack the ball. No matter what, if you do not switch over and manually control the safety, they will always attack the player instead of knocking away the ball or going for the pick. This drives me up a wall because that’s just not what safeties do. They are that far back to break up completions, to knock the ball down, to jar the ball out, or to go for the interception. What safety in the NFL have you seen just go for a simple tackle on a deep duck? It goes back to awareness and having the players in the game do what the players in the league would do. If you want the game to be as realistic as possible, then get back to safeties going for the big interception over the top or delivering a jarring hit to cause the 3^rd down incompletion. Something has to be done about this for the game to achieve that realism.

     It is next to impossible to stop anybody when using Zone Coverage because of both the lack of pressure off the line and the inability of the Safety position to attack the ball. When a quarterback has all day to throw the ball and the zone defense plays really soft without that attack mentality then eventually someone is going to get open. It happens on every play. Someone somewhere is going to get open. Cover 2 defenses are supposed to cause turnovers. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, even when struggling, are one of the highest in the league in interceptions.  This cannot happen if pressure is nonexistent and the rest of the defense would rather go for a tackle than play real defense. 

     The last problem that I have noticed about the gameplay on Madden is this random speed burst that receivers have at the end of a pass that the corners, and especially the linebackers, do not have. Nobody has a turbo button so when did players like Larry Fitzgerald get so fast? Terrence Newman (you will notice I use a lot of Cowboys references because I am a cowboys fan for life) should not be outran on a streak route by Mike Wallace on every down. Mike Wallace (no offense because he is one amazing receiver), although extremely fast, is not so fast that he just blows by the best and fastest corners in the league. How often does that actually happen in real life? And how often does Ben Roethlisberger actually complete that pass? Once every couple of games? I know for a fact that it’s not a minimum of 3 times a game. The extra boost needs to be taken away from the receivers or give the turbo button back to the defense. Make it fair on both sides of the ball.

     What happened to the 3-4 causing constant havoc towards a quarterback.  The cover 2 defense being one of the strongest pass coverage defense in the league.  I completely understand why the Madden franchise decided to go this route. Offense sells tickets. It is what the people like. But real fans know that defense wins championships and if you want to be a champion game franchise again then these defensive problems need to be extinguished and the game needs to become more about who is the better player on either side of the ball and not a game of who makes less mistakes on offense.


Ryan Stufflebean
PSN ID: youngsavage21