Hey everybody, this is Craig again brining you another issue of the Madden Newsletter! Broncos and the Dirty Byrds this Sunday!!!! Hold on to your weaves! Man, get the chip, get the dips, bring the Pepsi, bring the food cuz we gonna party on Sunday like its 1999! I can't wait for that 4 hour pre-game show and 2 hour half time show, can you? Anyway, let's get down to business.

An act of piracy

Play Scripting

Make them Account

Zone Defense

Quick tip

Play of the Month

Some of you may know, some of you may not, but I thought that I had to put it out there in the open and let people know. About a couple of weeks ago, somebody gave me a heads up that they saw something on the internet that looked exactly like "Thinking Man's Guide". To my shock and horror, somebody had lifted key excerpts from the guide and posted it on another guide somewhere else. I did some research and noticed that this author of this guide (a Mr. Shane Mooney) had gotten some other material from some other sources (such as Electronic Gaming Monthly and Da Birks NCAA 99 site.) I emailed the Editors at CNET (where the guide was posted) and they agreed to take it off upon further investigation. Whoop dee doo. You know what, it ain't about the strategy or the plays or the tips. Who can claim a tip or strategy as someone pointed out to me? I didn't invent the West Coast Offense. I don't give a damn about that. They are free to use that is why it has been posted on the net. What pissed me the most was that someone stole my words. Mr. Mooney should have had enough common sense to at least change the words. I don't get paid for this. I do this because I am a Maddenaholic. A fan. Madden is my drug and I can't get enough of this. I have no animosity towards Mr. Mooney. He was just trying to get paid. He just went about it the lazy way. I just want to put this to rest and move on so we can look foward to bigger and better things in 1999 and Madden 2000!!!!

Play Scripting

I got the idea from a posting on the message board. Someone asked did anyone script plays. To go over what the idea behind play scripting is, is well, a script of pre-selected plays that you would run in a certain order. The advantages are instead of fumbling around looking or trying to guess which play that you want to run, it is right there at your finger tips. Your strategy is already pre-selected. Each play progresses to build upon each other play and sets up more plays further down the script. Example, you run single back (BIG) dive, three plays later you run single back (BIG) HB Belly, then three plays leter you run single back (BIG) Play Action. Do you get my drift? By having a pre-determined plan of attack you set your opponent up and keep them off balance. You may pass out of the Pro 3 wide reciever, but later on you may run a full back dive and bust a big gain, why? Because they are waiting for you to pass out of that formation. I experimented with play scripting (48 plays, New York Giants, Madden Level, Stentor rules). The results after 5 games.

Total Yards-450 Yards (average)

Third Down Conversion: 51%

QB Rating 136.7 TDs-24 Ints-3 Completion:65%

The last game I played (vs the Packers) I had four straight drives for scores. Here is how they went

Plays-8 Yards-72 Time of Possesion-2:56

Plays-13 Yards-65 Time of Possesion-5:24

Plays-11 Yards-39 Time of Possesion-5:13

Plays-14 Yards-70 Time of Possesion-7:14

Pretty hard to get the ball to Brooks and Freeman if Favre ain't got the ball. Of course, their will be times when you may have to deviate from your script. Third and 35 may not be the best time to call a Full Back Dive and 1st and Goal may not be the best time to call Pro All Streaks. For those situations you should have special plays for short yardage, long yardage etc, third down conversions, etc.

Make them Account

Ok, lets say that you have two stud recievers that you like to go deep to all the time. Then one game they just get shut down and you can't complete as pass to anyone. What is a Maddenaholic to do? Ok, on every play, you have five (5) count them one, two, three, four, five, recievers. Keep them off balance by throwing to everybody! You should have a couple of plays designed to be throw to specific postions. If you don't here is a few

FB Pro 3 WR FB Deep, Fl Clearout

TE I FB Under, TE Out

I could go on, but my point is, to free up those wideouts, don't always throw to them. Make them cover your TE and RBs. If they don't make them pay for it!

Stentor emailed me again with an idea for about zone defense. How many of us really pay attention to defense? The offense has dozen of plays,so why don't we use more plays on defense? Ok I promise, to put more emphasise on defense because, hey, if they can't score, you can't lose, right?

My obeservations: Ok I am a 4-3 Man Lock Nickle Man person. Always played that. But aren't those pesky little running backs always open underneath and don't you get burned sometimes bad with that man to man. While using those new franchise rules, I basically recruited a bunch of scrubs for my team. No superstars, no nothing. In fact in my second franchise year with the Giants I opted on not signing any free agents and just taking first year players and developing them in their place. (Radical!) Now, with that lack of talent, Man to Man just ain't gonna work. So, I started doing some experiments with zone defenses.

4-3 Pinch: A pretty good pass defense. The corners bump the wide outs at the line of scrimmage and the short pass to the running backs is covered

4-3 Under 2 Man: Another good pass defense with man/zone coverage.

4-3 Cover 2 Also can shut down the short to medium pass.

4-3 Base: Believe it or not, this is also a good zone defense.

4-3 cover 4: What i like about zone defenses is that they are good at shuting down the deep passing game. This defense gives you an extra pass rush with the stunting linemen.

Nickle Quarters: Here is the key. Press bump and run to give you some tight zone coverage.

Nickle Cover 4: same as the quarters but a different look

Ok, if you know they are going to pass, (3rd down, you have the lead) and they are not yet at your 50 yard line, use a zone. Once they get past, tighten up with Man or Man/Zone defenses. If they have to go 80 yards, pretty soon they may make a mistake. Oh yeah, by the way, during that same five game period, I had a plus 15 turnover ratio and didn't allow any more than 10 points.

Quick Tip

On passing plays, check your tight end. If he is jammed at the line of scrimmage, then it is man coverage. If the defender runs with him, then it is zone.

Play of the Month

I Flats

This pass is the zone busting, man beating pass that can get big yardage. Your target is your flanker. He is usally underneath the cornerback in Man coverage and is wide open in zone coverage. Just don't hold the ball to long waiting for him to get open. Usually good for about 40 yards and a quick score.