Pacific South America League

[nmleague]

Wow 2nd half was more of the same. Avengers move down the field missed a FG. Next possession got the ball in good field position, ended up with a FG, up 10-7. Kicked off, stuff the Jaguars, short punt, the Avengers moved in and scored a TD up 17-7. Jaguars marched right down the field and scored a TD, score 17-14. The Avengers moved the ball in the 4th quarter but only managed to miss another field goal. With about 5 min left the Jags got the ball, got a first down then ended up with a 3rd and about 12. THe Avengers went into a 43zone, the Jags ran an I formation FB lead play that broke for a TD, below is the begining of the play, the HB just got the ball from the QB, you can see the blocking setting up. After about 15 yards the HB flew straight up the field, the SA never got over to him. Jags take the lead 21-17.

[nmleague]

Looked like curtains for the Avengers, the only unbeaten team left in the league. THey got the ball back with about 2 and half min. left. Moved the ball into scoring position, and with about 1 min on the clock the QB hits the WR for a TD. THe Avengers hold on the win 24-21.

[nmleague]

Big game this week in the PSAL, the 6-0 Avengers take on the 4-2 Anchorage Polar Bears, both the in same division. The 1st quarter was back and forth with the Polar Bears getting the better of it, but ends 0-0. Below is a nice sweep by the Bears, OGs are circled. The Polar Bears are using the 2 back offense playbook.

[nmleague]

The Avengers controlled the 2nd quarter starting with a 69 yard run by the leagues leading rusher, the start of the play is shown below.

[nmleague]

Avengers pull out to a 14-0 lead at half by getting a second TD with 17 sec left in the half. First half stats below.

[nmleague]

Avengers dominated the 2nd half, scored two TDs in the 3rd period. Below is their 3rd string RB getting some great blocking as he scores in the 4th quarter.

[nmleague]

Here are the game stats.

[nmleague]

The LA Extreme visit the Avengers for a division game. Avengers recieved and couldn't pick up a first down. The Extreme complete 5 straight passes and moved the ball down the field, but the drive stalled and they settled for a FG. Here the teams are lined up for the first play of the Avengers next possession.

[nmleague]

The Avengers run a 1 back counter and catch the Extreme in a SA blitz. You dont give #45 or he takes it all the way as he does here while following his pulling OL. #45 has a speed rating of 90. Avengers to up 7-3.

[nmleague]

On the Avengers next possession they move the ball upfield then use a trips formation to spread the defense, the QB from the shotgun makes a handoff to #45 who takes it up the middle down to the 3 yard line. Two plays later the Avengers score to take a 14-3 lead.

[nmleague]

The Extreme again were stopped and punted to the Avengers. From about 63 yards out the Avengers 2nd RB ran a sweep and broke a tackle near the LOS and then with some nice blocks went down the sideline to give the Avengers a 21-3 lead. The Extreme came right back and moved the ball upfield. This SS shows the Extreme running a trap play from the FS formation, the HB takes it down to about the 8 yard line.

[nmleague]

The Extreme complete a pass to about the 3 and then the from the trips formation the QB has two receivers open and hits the WR in the corner of the endzone to bring the score to 21-10 at halftime.

[quixian]

You're murdering the competition, league!  Hope those CPU opponents give you some game later this season [;)]

[redwolf1]

ORIGINAL: quixian

You're murdering the competition, league!  Hope those CPU opponents give you some game later this season [;)]

Yes, that is my worry too. I haven't started my league yet (waiting for 2.1), but it is not going to be too much fun if I win all or most of my games all the time...worried...

[nmleague]

I agree, so far out of 7-8 games only 2 have been competitive.  That said there have been moments when the other teams have marched right down the field on my team and there have been full quarters or more when my team has not been able to get moving.  Im using the playbooks that I created that shipped with the game, maybe slightly later versions.  I hadnt play tested them as extensively as they are in this league.  Im seeing a number of areas that I need to change in the defenses. There are alot of very agressive defensive plays in these playbooks, which works real well vs many things.  But I see now that I have to some how have SA back in each defense that can make the tackle on RB that could brake a long run. The main thing that is killing the other teams is the fact the Avengers have probably at least 3 long (50-80yard) runs for TDs each game, there are many times they have 3 and outs, but then bang the long TD run. The Avengers are using the one back offense that I created, it does a good job of attacking outside with sweeps and counters.  Many of the defenses work pretty good vs them, but with some all the defenders end up to close to the LOS and if the back gets good blocking and gets outside they are gone.  I like the running game and always draft the fastest RB available, the 3 avengers RB have speed ratings of 90, 87 and 85, all 3 have the potential to break long runs.

So Im going to work on the defenses to try to offset the long run capablitity of th offense.  Overall the defenses have been pretty effective vs the passing game, the blitzs the LB, CB and SA cause problems for the offense, but then again create some openings vs the run.

One other thing I have seen for awhile, zone defenses are pretty good vs outside runs, but weak vs inside runs.  On the other hand m2m defenses are good vs the inside runs, but are more likely to give up the long run outside.

[nmleague]

Another thing I may do is to lower the max of the RB speed range in the maindata file.  I lobbied David to increase the speed of LB, DL and RB, which he did, but maybe the RB is about 2 to high.
 
But even then the more proper fix is to have defenses with defenders in position to elimiate or cut down on the long runs.

[22sec]

nm,
I've almost got a playbook ready to post. The defenses save for a couple of plays all have at least one Safety back in some sort of zone coverage. The other thing I've done is on zone plays the defenders in underneath coverage have a Read assignment instead of zone. It seems to work to make a more realistic run defense, as well as allowing for a more realistic zone coverage.

[nmleague]

Giving ILB a read instead of a zone may be just the thing, think I will try it! 
 
Another thing I might try.  In the 42 defense, to stop runs in many of the plays I have the SA reading.  Problem is if they read to quick the run up toward the middle, if the play is a counter or sweep they then get caught up inside instead of being outside were they are needed.  So I may give them a wait for logic followed by the read, also I think I will reposition them a little further outside.

[JasonnTN]

I'm still a noob in MaxFB. But made tons of plays back in the FBPro days. So I don't know for sure how they will convert. But it always seemed to me the best bet was like 21SEC said to have the LBs do a read and have the DBs in deep zone coverage. The best overall defense I ever made looked something like this:


CB FS CB
(these 3 in deep zones)


OLB SS MLB OLB
(these 4 reading)

And 4 DL either run rushing or usually pass rushing


I'm not sure if this one translates well to MaxFB yet. But I'll be testing it out soon.

[JasonnTN]

I tried to draw that out, but it took away the spaces between the players. I usually had the 3 deep guys lined up deep and the SS up in an ILB type position with the OLBs fairly wide. Very vanilla in concept, but it always seemed to be solid and rarely ever gave up big plays.