Well. What the heck. I thought I'd write up something about the passing attack - just for the hell of it. Again, this is only relevant to PC version, and I cannot guarantee its effectiveness on consoles, so take the advice with a grain of salt. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Obviously, if you are having hard time beating computer opponent, you'll find this useful (or so I hope.) Rule of thumb: Never throw into double-coverage. It's so obvious that it hurts - I doubt anyone throwing into double or triple coverage anyway. With RoT 1 settled, let me start: What's important in passing is, not to pre-occupy the landing spot of the ball (which the AI usually does.) What's really important is that, you must pre-occupy the flight path of the ball - so that when the ball is in the vicinity of you, you should attempt to catch it. Standing in the landing spot when the ball isn't even there is hardly a commendable attempt to fight for the ball. This is the reason computers can beat your coverages even when you are calling cover 3. Really, the best way to fight for the ball is to run your route toward the destination of the ball, and not to stand in the landing spot when the ball is flying 50 ft above the ground. This means that, you don't have to have a Speed rating of 95+ to make use of Go route. Let me elaborate on this: For instance, if you have Coles streaking down the sideline, it makes a lot of sense to "lob" the ball, since when you lob the ball, it will have higher trajectory angle than when you fire it off with bullet throw. This in turn means that any defender following behind will have to jump that much higher to snatch the ball away. But what if you are trying to throw to Cotchery? He is not known for his blazing speed (or on Madden, to say the very least.) If you lob the ball on him, more often than not, his defender will be running ahead of him, occupying the better place to fight for the trajectory path. This means that you need to fire bullet at him - bullet passes have lower trajectory angle, so if your receiver has "inside", then the defender has no possible way to physically knock the ball away (or else; he draws Pass Interference.) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, not all pass routes are created equal; some are more effective than the other. From my experience, the most effective were: 1. Go 2. Out 3. Slant - but you want the receiver to go OUT to the sideline, not IN to the middle of the field. You can audible them with specific direction. Though not included, crossing patterns generally work fine, but you do want some safety valve when you attempt that - when the D is calling zone blitz, you'd want to throw the ball away. Also effective is hook pattern. (I usually called them on audible.) One caveat with hook pattern is that, if you throw too early, the defender will intercept your pass almost certainly. So use with caution. Least effective were: 1. Post 2. Post Out 3. Quick Slant (toward the middle of the field.) They are THE interception machine of passing routes. NEVER try these. Because of my preference (from above), I found PA TE Leak (or Play-action Tight-End Leak, for those who can't understand) particularly effective. That play has just about everything I would love in a passing play; go-route running WR, a crossing-pattern WR, slant-out running TE and, of course, two safety valves in RB and FB. When I call this play, I usually sub Leon for FB. It's very effective with long, medium and short passing threat all packed in one play.
