Strategy Guide Cover

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Sub Zero Defensive Guide. It’s about that time in the Madden season where most players have seen everything, and have an offense to beat most things. That means it is time to change it up on defense. This guide will be from the Cleveland Brown’s defensive playbook and focuses on the flexibility that using sub packages (Big Dime) can give us. In this guide we will go over how to run a functional base defense from the Big Dime and Dollar sets, how to contain the run from those sets, and how to dial up the heat from those sets as well…….including an occasional DT a-gap.

Below you will find information not only about the setup of specific plays and concepts, but also how to modify that concept for the situation through the use of packages. Using packages is a feature in Madden often overlooked, we can tell from the 300 questions we receive a day about personnel, and a feature that when used properly can put your players in the right positions to make plays. We will also include a section dedicated to re-covering some of the more effective things you can run from the 3-4 formations. So let’s get into the Sub Zero Defensive Guide.

Dollar 3-2-6

Bend But Don't Break Defense

Dollar is a great formation to increase the flexibility of your defense. We can play max coverage, hybrid coverage, send passive pressure blitzes or send true overloads. On top of that the packages offer us a great deal of flexibility and the formation does a fairly decent job of containing the run. Below we will go over the packages available to you as well as the setups for the formation.

Packages are a useful feature that have been in Madden for years. They can add that extra little punch to your scheme when used correctly. Unfortunately many players, especially casual players, ignore them and worry more about their depth chart setup. We have listed the useful packages and given descriptions on what they do and when to use them, just click the tab to read about a particular package.

How to Select Packages: To select a package in game simply flick the right stick in either direction to cycle through them at the formation call screen.

What This Package Does: This package moves your number one and number two cornerbacks to the same side of the field. In turn it moves your number 3 and number 4 cornerbacks to the opposite side.

Why is it Useful: This package can be useful if you notice that your opponent has an offense that is heavy to one side of the field. For example, if your opponent runs a lot of plays with crossers to the right side of the field, you may want to use the package CB Strong RT. That way, when he throws to that side, he is throwing at your best players….and most likely your best hitters.

What This Package Does: This package replaces your slot cornerbacks with your starting safeties. In turn this moves your backup safeties to the deep safety spots.

Why is it Useful: You can use this package on downs where a run is more likely to provide added run support, as well as on downs where you are blitzing from zone coverage to get a better pass rusher coming on the blitz and bigger hitter in the underneath zone.

What This Package Does: This package moves your starting cornerbacks into the slot positions, and in turn, moves your number 3 and 4 cornerbacks to the outside positions.

Why is it Useful: This package can be useful in a few different ways. The first being, if you have your depth chart set like our recommendation then your best hitters would be moving to the inside. This can be great when running something other than a cover 2 shell. Alternatively, if you run mostly DB Fire 2 Press with the cross man strategy, you could have hard hitting safeties at your number 3 and 4 cornerback positions and move them outside to the flat, and increase your hit power on the field with your hardest hitting corners in the slots.

What This Package Does: This package places your second string LDE at the nose tackle position, replacing the DT.

Why is it Useful: Assuming you have a good pass rusher at your second LDE spot on your depth chart, this can be helpful in passing situations because having a high finesse move pass rusher on the inside can result in very quick swim moves on the inside. This can also be helpful if you are rushing two defenders a lot (always remember to place your user controlled player on a blitz assignment when doing this). With three players on the defensive line who have good speed you can be more flexible with who you drop into a spy, zone, or man coverage.

DB Fire 2 Press (Base Coverage D)

  1. Base Align and Press
  2. Pinch DL and Crash Out
  3. Adjust Slot DB’s (See Video)
  4. Shade Coverage as Needed (See Video)

Cover 2 Man LB Blitz (Alternate Base Coverage)

  1. Base Align (Press Optional)
  2. Pinch DL and Crash Out
  3. Globally Zone LB’s
  4. Make Coverage Adjustments (See Video)
  5. Shade Coverage Overtop

Cover 2 Sink LB Blitz (Passive Pressure Base)

  1. Base Align and Press
  2. Pinch DL
  3. Shift LB’s Left
  4. Adjust ROS DE (See Video)
  5. Shade and Adjust Coverage as Needed (See Video)
  6. Blitz LOS Slot DB (Optional)

DB Fire 2 Press (Base Blitz)

  1. Base Align and Press
  2. Pinch DL
  3. Crash DL as Needed (See Video)
  4. Shift LBs as Needed (See Video)
  5. Hot Blitz OLB (See Video)
  6. Adjust Backside DE
  7. Adjust Backside Slot CB

Universal Looper/A-Gap

  1. Base Align
  2. Shift DL Right and Crash Right
  3. Blitz Right Slot DB
  4. Move Slot DB to Position (See Video)
  5. Adjust Coverage as Needed

Big Dime 1-4-6

Defense For Opponents That Run More

Big Dime 1-4-6 is a formation that a lot of people tend to ignore, but it is one of the better run stopping formations with 6 defensive backs on the field. It does not however do a good job of stopping runs from a two back set, and can struggle with runs like HB Base that have a lead blocker pulling, so please keep that in mind. We also break down how to get simple pressure from the formation below.

Packages are a useful feature that have been in Madden for years. They can add that extra little punch to your scheme when used correctly. Unfortunately many players, especially casual players, ignore them and worry more about their depth chart setup. We have listed the useful packages and given descriptions on what they do and when to use them, just click the tab to read about a particular package.

How to Select Packages: To select a package in game simply flick the right stick in either direction to cycle through them at the formation call screen.

What This Package Does: This package moves your starting FS to the left of screen slot position and your second string FS to the deep safety spot.

Why is it Useful: This formation is mostly zone coverage being ran, so we really have no reason not to use this package to get our stronger hitters on the field to help in run support.

Cover 3 Sky (Base Coverage/Run Support D)

  1. Base Align and Show Blitz
  2. Shift DL to Right and Crash Left
  3. Zone or Man up right Slot DB
  4. Adjust Coverage as Needed (See Video)

Tampa 2 (Alternate Base D)

  1. Flip Play at Call Screen If Needed (See Video)
  2. Shift and Crash DL as Needed (See Video)
  3. Adjust Corner and Safety (See Video)
  4. Adjust Blitzing LB as Needed (See Video)
  5. Shade Coverage as Needed

Cover 3 Sky (Base Blitz)

  1. Base Align
  2. Shift DL Right and Crash Right
  3. Bring MLB Over Center and Hold LT (See Video)
  4. Adjust Coverage as Needed

Spinner Dog 3 (Left Side Blitz)

  1. Base Align and Press
  2. Pinch DL
  3. Crash DL Down
  4. Bluff Blitz LOS MLB
  5. Adjust Zones as Needed

Big Dime 2-3-6

Commitment Defense: Like a Marriage

Big Dime 2-3-6 is essentially Nickel 2-4-5 minus a linebacker. If you want that linebacker back out there tho you can have him by using packages. This formation is very solid because we have the option to run a very aggressive max coverage defense as well as send some edge heat from either side, and a monster of a two way pressure for those third and plenty situations.

Packages are a useful feature that have been in Madden for years. They can add that extra little punch to your scheme when used correctly. Unfortunately many players, especially casual players, ignore them and worry more about their depth chart setup. We have listed the useful packages and given descriptions on what they do and when to use them, just click the tab to read about a particular package.

How to Select Packages: To select a package in game simply flick the right stick in either direction to cycle through them at the formation call screen.

What This Package Does: This package moves your starting FS to the left of screen slot position and your second string FS to the deep safety spot.

Why is it Useful: This can be useful when running zone coverage plays because of the added hit power being on the field.

What This Package Does: This package moves your number 1 cornerback into the slot position and your number 3 cornerback to the outside.

Why is it Useful: When running man coverage, one of the biggest threats to your defense would be corner routes. By moving a better coverage player to the inside you take a step in helping to prevent getting beat by slot breaking routes.

What This Package Does: This package makes this formation Nickel 2-4-5 by replacing the safety near the line of scrimmage with a LB.

Why is it Useful: There won’t be many times that this package will be useful to us considering that we will be stopping the run from a Max Coverage defense, but on downs where running is a possibility you may want to run zone coverage and use this package to get more blockshedding on the field.

Universal Max Coverage Concept

  1. Base Align
  2. Crash DL in either Direction (See Video)
  3. Adjust OLB’s (See Video)
  4. Shade Coverage as Needed (See Video)

Slant Zone 2 (Right Side Pressure)

  1. Base Align
  2. Shift DL Right and Crash Out
  3. Adjust Left Slot DB
  4. Adjust LOS OLB
  5. Spy DE (Optional)
  6. Shade Coverage as Needed

Slant Zone 2 (Two Way Pressure)

  1. Base Align
  2. Shift DL Right and Crash Out
  3. Hot blitz LOS OLB
  4. Move Left Slot DB to Line (See Video)
  5. Shade Coverage as Needed

Buck Slant 3 (Left Side Pressure)

  1. Base Align and Press
  2. Shift LB’s Left
  3. Crash DL Out
  4. Adjust Backside DE (See Video)
  5. Adjust Blitz Side LB (See Video)

3-4 Formations

Happy Blitzing!

While the focus of this guide is the Sub formations, we also don’t want anyone to forget how good the 3-4 formations can be as well, so we have included the very best of the 3-4 Odd, and 3-4 Over formations. Below you will learn the blitzes from both as well as a good run/base defense from Over and lock up defense against tight formations.