Getting The Most Out Of Bad Wide Receivers

As a Jacksonville Jaguar user for as long as I can remember, passing has never came easy to me in the Madden NFL games.  Sure I could establish a dominant run game with Maurice Jones-Drew but I haven’t been able to throw to a legit #1 or even #2 receiver for a few years now (Hopefully that will change with Laurent Robinson and Justin Blackmon).  Nonetheless, passing is a huge part of the game and doing it well in Madden 13 will lead to success.  So today I am going to take you through a few ways that I get the most out of poor wide receivers.  For the sake of this article, I am going to use the Jaguars as a reference since they have had poor receivers and a great running back the last few years but the same concepts can and should be applied to any similiar team.

1. I’m going to start with something counter-intuitive and that is to open up the game with short, quick, and effective passes.  Imagine if you were going into an online game against the Jaguars.  What is the first thing you would try to do?  If you are smart it would be to stop the running game early and force your opponent to pass.  And that is what any logical opponent would do.  So if you come out with high percentage passes even if they are only in chunks of 4 to 7 yards, then your opponent has to rethink his strategy and will be on the lookout for passes the rest of the game.  This opens up the run game and the pass game.
2. Don’t try to use big play routes.  Streaks and other deep pass routes generally don’t work when you ave below average receivers.  You will want to stick to basic routes like drags, curls, in/out routes and whip routes.  The only exception to this is if you have a speedy wide receiver.  After abunch of bruising run plays, feel free to throw in a play action streak pass to your fast receiver.
3. Know your matchups.  Sure maybe your opponent’s starting cornerbacks are much better than your starting receivers. However, you might have an advantage with your slot receiver against a linebacker or maybe you have a good tight end that you underutilize.  You should be aware of where the opposing team’s weaknesses lie and take advantage of them.
4. Building on #3 a little bit, another great tip is to move your receivers around.  Maybe your best receiver is an 82 overall and he is going up against Darelle Revis.  Choose a package like strong slots to move your top 2 receivers into the slot matching them up against either a 3rd or 4th string cornerback or a linebacker.  Now you will have mismatches in your favor on the inside while your 4th wide receiver (likely some random 65 overall) is going against Revis. But who really cares since you wouldn’t throw his way anyway.

The point of this article is to get you thinking in your opponents shoes and to think creatively.  Sure it sucks to play with a team that doesn’t have much talent at wide receiver, but it is definitely doable.  If you have any questions or other tips, feel free to leave them in the comments section.