Skip links

Madden 12 Base Defense

I will not be holding anything back in today’s free madden 12 tip.  You will be seeing my very own base defense that if you were to play me in a game you would see me running 30% of the time.  Be forewarned, this defense requires a lot of pre-snap adjustments but if you are decently quick with the sticks it won’t be too hard to pull off.  This defense is designed to confuse your opponent and completely shutdown your opponents #1 and #2 receivers forcing him to look to his 3rd, 4th and 5th receiving targets causing easy interceptions.

Formation: 46 Normal

Play: 2 Man Under

Setup:

  1. Hot route your linebackers to zone (right on the D-pad + Up on the right joystick)
  2. Hot rotue your DE on the right side of the screen to a purple buzz zone
  3. Hot route your OLB on the left side of the screen to a purple buzz zone
  4. (optional) If you are facing a scrambling qb, hot route your DE on the right side of the screen to a qb spy

Addtional Information:  You can hot route your linebackers into any zones you want based on your opponents tendancies.  We just prefer 2 safeties deep, 2 linebackers in the middle and 2 defenders in purple zones.

madden 12 base defense

Why this works:

This play is designed to fool your opponent.  From the looks of the defense it is man to man coverage, but in reality it is only a combo defense.  You will not get beat deep because you have 2 safeties in deep blue zones.  You will have the sidelines covered (recall from yesterday’s free madden tip how effective the purple zones are) and you will have the middle patrolled with 2 linebackers.  Control one of the safties and room the field for user picks.  This defense also has 8 men in the box which discourages your opponent from wanting to run the ball.

If you enjoy our free madden 12 tips, make sure to check out our Defensive eBook for Madden 12 and instantly become a dominant defense.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

16 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
jjj
jjj
12 years ago

FYI, drag routes are wide open in this tip

Eric
Eric
12 years ago

The problem with this though is your tightend is open on the in, granted that is one person, but it is for a good 5-10 yards. I wonder how it does with 3wr sets?

IASI Desperado
IASI Desperado
12 years ago

i like it using purples to help with the flats also 🙂

KSG265
KSG265
12 years ago

How do you hot route your specific player to a purple zone? I can't seem to figure it out.

anton
anton
12 years ago
Reply to  KSG265

cycle through your players, when you see the zone you want to have that player assign to press either the directional pad or the right analog stick…

Cade Fuller
Cade Fuller
12 years ago

How do I hot route different defensive players?! I simply cannot find the button on xbox 360 and it’s making this defense less effective than it should be! Please help!

mike
mike
12 years ago

i need a good run stopping defense it seems to me its too easy for people to run every play. ps i hate rushing, its checkers

sososhibby
sososhibby
12 years ago

Good thought, but there will be boat loads of time for recievers to get open, which will kill any zone
I usually run cover 2 buc and manually switch corners to play man on 1st and 2nd reciever
Then the side with more room to run, play with that de, rush and bump out if running back goes out

jimmy
jimmy
12 years ago

Keep in mind this actually looks like a zone not man. It looks like a zone because the corners are looking in, which is your first read. Now its a great disguise of a cover 2 because pre-snap it looks like a cover 3 since the 2 safeties are not lined up showing equal spacing something that is indicative of cover 3. Now obviously the corners are have man coverage but having you 3-4 defensive ends play the flats is asinine sorry.

jimmy
jimmy
12 years ago

Excuse me I am looking at this on my phone so I thought defensive ends were covering the flat didn’t realize that it was your outside linebackers. Disregard that but everything still holds.