How To Read The Defense In Madden 17

This mini ebook is dedicated exclusively to learning how to read defenses before the ball is snapped.  If you can properly diagnose what coverage your opponent is in before you snap the ball, it makes everything much easier after you snap it.

There is no sure fire way to always know exactly what defense your opponent is in.  However, there are a few things you can key in on if you are playing someone who doesn’t go to great lengths to disguise their coverage.  We are going to cover that all below.

Cover 3 Defenses

Against cover 3 defenses, we are looking for one of the safeties to come down towards the line of scrimmage and the other one to move towards the middle of the field.  This will generally mean the defense is either in a cover 3 defense or a cover 1 defense.  Most of the time, it will be a cover 3 defense.

Cover 2 Zone Defense

If there are 2 deep safeties lined up 13-15 yards off the line of scrimmage, that usually means it is either a cover 2 zone defense or a cover 2 man defense.  You can tell it is a cover 2 defense because of the cornerbacks’ positioning.  In a cover 2 zone, for the most part they will not be pressed up against the receivers.  Instead they will be 3-5 yards off.

Cover 2 Man Defense

Again we see 2 deep safeties lined up 13-15 yards off the line of scrimmage.  This usually means that the defense is either in cover 2 man or cover 2 zone defense.  We can see that it is cover 2 man defense because of the positioning of our cornerbacks.  They are all pressed up against the receivers at the line of scrimmage.

Cover 4 Defense

The big giveaway when your opponent is in cover 4 defenses is that the 2 deep safeties are 9-11 yards off the line of scrimmage instead of 12-15 yards off the line of scrimmage.  This is an easy giveaway.

Man to Man Blitzes

Man to man blitzes can vary but often times, the safeties will have to shift to directly over your receivers before you snap the ball.  If you see a defense where the safeties look to be completely out of position, this will usually mean it is a heavy man to man blitz.

Summary

Remember, there are a lot of things that an experienced opponent can do to disguise his coverage but if you can catch him giving away his coverage just once or twice per game, you could be looking at a few really big plays.

Here is a quick screenshot summary of what to look for before the snap.

A look like the one above with one safety in the middle of the field and the other one up closer to the line of scrimmage usually means a cover 3 defense or a cover 1 defense.

The screenshot above shows a cover 2 zone (Tampa 2, Cover 2 Sink, Etc).  Notice the 2 deep safeties 12-15 yards off the line of scrimmage.  That tells you it is either a cover 2 man or a cover 2 zone defense.  The cornerbacks being off 3-5 yards from their receivers then tells you that it is likely a cover 2 zone.

In the screenshot above, the safeties are still 12-15 yards off the line of scrimmage so we know it is either a cover 2 zone or cover 2 man.  We then turn our attention to the cornerbacks.  We see they are pressed up against the receivers.  This usually means that it is a cover 2 man defense.

In the screenshot above, we notice that the 2 deep safeties are only 9-11 yards off the line of scrimmage.  That is a dead giveaway that the defense is in cover 4.

Remember that there are a lot of things an experienced opponent can do to disguise his defense and there are even certain defenses in the game designed to throw off these simple reads.  For the most part, however, if you see the defense lined up in any of the ways that we covered above, you should have a decent idea of what coverage they are in before you even snap the ball.

If you have any questions about how to read defenses in Madden 17 or if anything above was unclear, feel free to leave a comment.