In this Madden Guides post, we take a look at defending vertical passing concepts.. Defending vertical passing concepts has always been a trouble spot for football video games for years, even in Madden. Although there have been defensive improvements, nothing has been overly consistent when it comes to defending vertical passing concepts. There have been more defensive animations added to the games over the year’s that allow defensive backs to defend against the deep pass. Plus several tools that have been added, but yet the players on offense still are able to throw deep effectively. The problem is all it takes is just one deep throw out of four tries and its first down or worse yet a touchdown. Often if your opponent has a stud receiver, he will get behind a defender and make some type of spectacular catch, especially if your opponent has any type of stick control. This often leads to frustration, because you called the right defense, but yet a receiver some how comes up with the ball for a big play. Trust us, we know as we have been on the same end more times that we want to count.
In this Madden Tips breakdown, we are going to show one of the most common deep pass passing concepts in the game, and give an example on how we like to defend vertical passing concepts. Please keep in mind, we can’t promise this defensive set up will always work, but at least it will give you a fighting chance.
Four Verticals Passing Concept
One of the harder passing plays to defend in football video games over the last few seasons has been the Four Verticals passing concept, especially when it is ran from a trey, trio, or trips formation. A lot of times the inside receiver gets open as he goes towards the middle of the field. In the breakdown below, we want to take a look at a defense that we like to run that does a solid at defending this vertical passing concept.
Plays Used For Breakdown
Below is an image of each offensive and defensive play diagram used for this breakdown.
Tips for Defending Vertical Passing Concepts
- Be sure to check your opponent’s receiver ratings and your own defensive backs ratings. If any of your defensive backs are slower than the receivers they are covering, try not to leave them in one-on-one coverage. Instead look to have defenders playing over the top such as Cover 2, Cover 4, Cover 4, or Cover 6.
- As we already stated make sure you have a safety playing over the top. A lot of players find it easier to defend the deep pass by controlling a safety before the snap. A good reason for this is if their opponent uses the pump fake, their safeties don’t bite on it.
- Consider taking control of a safety with lowest awareness rating. That way you control him, effectively negating his low awareness rating and he won’t be susceptible to the pump fake.
- Players may also take control of the fastest safety on the field. Sub in a fast cornerback at safety. The reason they do this is so they cover ground quickly when the ball is in the air.
- If you have stick control and can pick the pass off or at least knock the pass down while in control of a fast safety.
- Use the ball hawk feature to get defender into position to pick the pass off.
- The most important tip we can give when it comes to defending the deep pass is to spend quality time labbing. Use the Hail Marry pass play against the CPU if you don’t have a lab partner. This way the CPU controlled quarterback won’t be able to throw any underneath receivers. This will allow more time to learn how defend the deep pass.
Final Thoughts
This is just one example of how defending vertical passing concepts can be beneficial to overall defensive scheme . In future Madden Guides breakdowns, you can be sure we will show how to defend other deep passing plays.