Well it isn't a in depth faq, but here are some tips for madden 2005. more tips will be continually added so check back often and let annyone you happen to know that plays madden know about this page. Also these tips were written with updated rosters in mind.without further ado lets get started.
WHO TO USE
Like last year almost any team can be used in this game, however there are a few teams, imho, that stand out from the rest.
Tennessee: That have to be the most balanced team in the game. Their offensive line is maybe the third best overall. they get great blocks and give mcnair great protection. Speaking of mcnair, he is very good. He has great power and accuracy. Think of a slower but more accurate Culpepper. He has enough power to break tackles and speed to scramble away to make plays. he hardly gets injured as well. very good QB. The RB position has Chris brown who plays way better than his ratings show. He constantly breaks tackles and has enough speed to bounce runs to the outside.
The TE's are in great shape with kinney , a fantastic blocker, and troupe a very fast recieving TE. Great balance there as well. The WR have Mason who makes great catches, berlin and bennet do a great job of getting open. Calico is a speed WR but drops one every once in a while.
The defense has a great line with 2 quick ends and 2 domionant tackles. The lb's are all in the mid 80's except bullock who is in the 90's. The secondary is fantastic. Even in the quarter the lowest db is rated 67 overall. Rolles is a shutdown CB, dyson is a great compliment on the otherside. The safeties are fatastic as well with tank williams and lance holdin the fort down.
Whew i wrote so much on them, but i firmly believe that they are the most balance team in the game. They got a great D and O. You can pound the rock or sling the ball all over the place.
Here are the rest of the teams i like, not in order, but summaries on them are gonna come later on:
Denver
I like denver a lot because of their balanced attack. their playbook is nifty too!. Plummer is a quick qb with nice accuracy and strength. Nothing blows you away with him, but he can still make plays. Mike Anderson is a very good RB at their disposal, but there are a couple of speed backs in bell and griffin, that can bounce runs to the outside if necessary, although griffin can catch better than bell.The FB is more of a running back. a lot like Holcombe for the titans droughns is more suited for carrying the football than blocking.
The WR's have nice speed with lelie and smith as well as luke, however once you get past watts, the wr's have low cth for WR's which means you might encounter some dropped balls. Carswell, the TE, has good speed, but only servicable hands, however he is a great blocker, I'd keep him in to block unless you are looking to flood a zone coverage. The oline is suited for the run. Their pass blocking is average at best with their highest rated member rating in at a paltry 88.
The dline has some good speed at the ends, but the tackles are marginal at best. None have outstanding strength, as evidenced by the fact that price,a end, has more strength than all except eliss. Wilson anchors the MLB position, but the others are only average, although williams has great speed.CB's have the best corner in bailey which means half the field shut down. the other starter is a nice compliment, as well as the nickel.lynch is a fantastic safety which adds on to the solid secondary of denver. Elam has plenty of strength to kick long field goals, adn knorr is a serviceable punter. Overall a very solid team with a few standouts. Not my first choice to use, but a solid pick either way.
Minnesota
Culpepper is a beast except for two problems, he has a tendancy to fumble and he sometimes overthrows a open Moss. However if you need a strong armed qb to get the ball to a far off place look no further. The rb's are solid with bennett the speed back leading the way. Williams is blanced with nice speed and strength while smith is more like bennett.wiggins is a very good FB with good spee for a FB.
As for the WR they are loaded. You should know about moss by now, but burleson and robinson provide other solid targets. Campbell is very quick, much like moss, and best of all is the fact that they all have fantastic hands.The TE is solid with great catching abilities and blocking abilities. The Oline is very good at pass blocking, but their run blocking ain't too shabby either.
Defense is anchored by a solid line.The ends got plenty of speed with the tackles very quick as well adding a speed element to their pass rush. The only drawback is the fact that the strength is not really high, for tackles at least, which in turn means they might get lit up by a good run game. Claiborne anchors the average group of LB's. The secondary is very gooed with Winfield and williams as a fantastic duo of cb's able to shut down WR's. Irvin is a very good nickel back. The dime and quarter backs are solid as well. The safeties are very solid also with Chavous leading the way. An explosive offense and a very much improved defense make the vikings a legitimate powerhouse. Just be weary if you go up against someone who likes to pound the rock.
Green Bay
KC
Houston
Buffalo
Philly
Detroit
Jets
Cleveland
Pretty much anyone.
GENERAL TIPS
Offense
1)Run the ball when you cant get the pass game going. Some people are hell bent on their 2 money plays that they forget other dimensions of the game. Run the ball if you are struggling or if your defense is struggling. It keeps the clock moving which keeps the other offense off the field. Eventually youll pop one loose.
2)Speaking of money plays, its cool to have some, but try to get 7 or 8. Don't use them all the time either, save them for third down so your opponent won't be able to key in on them.The less often you use them the more successful they will be.
3)When you run the football run the ball to the strong area of your line. Why run behind a olinemen ranked 76 overall when you can run behind one ranked 96?
4)Dont ever take points off the board. Take 3 points when you can.
5)Corner routes work very good on this game. If you can get protection the rouites will shred man and cover 2's all day long for TD's
6)If someone blitzes you look in the flats. Someones uncovered in a blitz and its usually the HB, FB or TE.
7) Don't forget your TE's. Now they are so fast thast they can get good separation on a lb.
8)This year with the new crash option for the dline lots of people like to psread the d line and crash them to the outsides. This gets a lot of pressure, especially if you roll to the outside. A simple small step up the in the pocket screws up the rush and gets you time to find a WR. Something i like to do is come out passing in a 4 or 5 WR set and do a few passes over the course of a drive. when i find myself in a 3rd and 3 or 4 situation i call a qb draw up the gut for a easy first down. Then after a while they will shrink their line and let you roll to the outsides.
More tips soon.
How to stop Vick and other scrambling QB's
Stopping Vick can be such a chore. He can be pesky and he has speed at all offensive positions to help him out. Crumpler is one of the best and speediest TE's in the entire game. He's got great awareness and hands. Dunn is a great reciever out of the backfield and can be used as a slot WR and not miss a beat. Dez White and Price both have got speed as well. So how do you slow down a offense like this?
Sorry to say, but some teams will have a much easier time stopping Vick. You need great corners, preferably at least one of them ranked in the 90's. Miami is a good example with 2 ranked in the 90's. however they are slower overall than some defenses in the league. So this goes into the next necessity. You need speed. Especially at the ends, if they have at least 70 speed you should be fine. You also need at least one quick LB. If you have these things then you should be alright.
The following teams are really good choices to pick, updated rosters in mind, as they provide speed and great corners.
Baltimore, Tennessee,Buffalo, Denver, minnesota, Green Bay, Detroit,Tampa, New England, and the Giants.
Of the teams I just mentioned, I believe the Ravens have the best matchups on defense. Their ends are not very quick, but everyone else is, especially the corners. Reed will also make plays at the safety position. Anyway once you pick your team you need to call certain plays.
Personally I have shut down plenty of people with Tampa. They seem to stick with their recievers and the ends are fantastic. Brooks is a monster lb and constantly makes plays. They are my first choice.
Anyway the first thing you need to understand about users is that they will run with vick period. Be prepared. The formation i love is the nickel 3-3-5. It works great. I don't run zones at all. Thats why you need a team that can cover. If the opponent is smart then they will scramble to the left since vick is lefthanded. They will also do plenty of QB draws. What i run out of the Nickel 3-3-5 is the DE contain. I shrink the line so it will deter any QB Draws. Now the question you have is " If I do that won't he just run to the outside?" Well thats the beauty of this play. You have a spy for that and the DE's loop out far containing vick to the inside.
You also have to modify it a little as well. I usually control the slower end and let the fast one be controlled by the CPU. If my fast end is on the left side then i spy him before the snap so he won't get tangled up in a block.With the end i control i wait for vick to move. I pursue him carefully by going near him but not commiting too early. When i see help from the other side then i chase. Don't let him beat you to the outside.let him dance around and he will be toast. Yes this gives him time to find WR's, but you can do the delayed bump and run which works wonders. To do it do bump and run the press the audible button and flip it. It will jam them and smother the WR's. This stops even those pesky 5wr flat routes.
Now if Vick drops back 20 yards pursue him but not too far. You don't want him to loop around you and pick up a lot of yards.Lastly on your intial rush don't get tangled with the linemen. lots of players wait until this happens then when it does they dart for the outside. be patient. Step upfield after he leaves the pocket and contain him.
Now for the recievers. They need to be covered very well. Call a jam and then flip the play and realign the coverage, the coverage audible that makes the defensive backs line up directly over their assignment. This is a delayed bump and run. Your corners will appear to be playing their recievers normally, but instead at the snap of the ball they will get a monster jam. This method works much better than the regular bump and run. It takes longer for the WR to get free and the corners stay glued on their assignment more often.
Now that you have that situated follow the containment steps. Now if you are concerned about Vick having too much time to throw, don't be. If you have good corners they will keep up with everyone, also if you have a couple of good linebackers as well. Well thats basically it in a nutshell. It really is all about matchups. You might get burned every once in a long while, but your d will be much better and eventually youll get to getting in your own tendencies and shut him down. The beginning is the hardest since you have to get a feel of what he does, but after you do you should have success.
Defense
Yeah your offense is great and averaging over 35 points a game. But your D stinks. In fact you are struggling to win games because your D is terrible. Well here is a little something to get ou D back in gear and into the heads of QB's, where it belongs.
First thing is first though, we have to pick the right formations at the right times. When a opponent pick their play the timer comes up, but in addition to that, information pops up that has to do with the type of personel that is about to line up on offense. Make sure to utilize this and pixk the right FORMATION!
If you see 2 WR's then a 4-3 is fine, but even if that number jumps only to 3 WRs then you might just be in trouble. As most of you know in a 4-3 you have only 2 corners and 3 linebackers. If they come out with 3 WR's you have only to CBs to cover 3 fast wrs. Yes safeties could cover a wr, but they usually get burned since they are usually only slightly quicker than lb's usually in the 87 spd range. Herein lies another problem. A lot of teams tend to have a very speedy slot WR. KC has Hall, NE has Bethel Jhonson, Steelers have Randle El and the Cowboys have Morgan. And those are only a couple of examples.
So in that type of situation guess who gets to cover speedy gonzales? Thats right your slow but linebacker. If your opponent runs a play where the slot runs a corner route then you're toast. "Well I'll just double him." Not so fast. You see that pesky corner route will still kill the double team. Problem 1: even if you double him he still has enough speed to get away. Instead of torching a slow linebacker he is now torching a slow safety as well. Problem #2: You have to remember that the safeties are in the middle to begein with and have the inside play on the double. Guess who has the outside coverage ? You guessed it. It's the slow ass LB. Now every once in a while they will stop him but the majority of the time you will be left still smoking. If you have specific questions please email me. That way i can try to solve specific problems way faster and easier.Ill update soon.
