More Rules clarication: Moving the LB

"Linebackers - is allowed, but limited. You may only move linebackers horizontally; you are not allowed to manually bring them up tighter into the box on the edge, or into a gap. Once you move your linebacker, you must stick with them; you may not change to another player to move."

Need rules clarification on this one. So I am reading this as you can not move an LB closer to the line of scrimmage AT ALL. The rule states no moving the LB in between the gaps or even close to the line of scrimmage as this would cause potential stacking, but also says that they can only move horizontally.

What i need clarifcation on is what if I move my LB back one year from his original spot. For example:

-I choose a 4-3 normal defense and i want to move my MLB back one yard to cover the deep middle, can i do that?

- Or lets say i move him back one yard to cover the middle deep, but i change my mind and move him up up to the normal spot or even one yard closer to the line of scrimmage, but not close to the DL, can i do that?

- Does this rule strictly enforce a rule that you may not ever move an LB vertical to the screen, but only horizontal?

Thanks

Linebackers can only be moved left or right manually. Once you take control of a player on defense and move them, you must remain that player until the ball is snapped. This mean you cannot move them up or back at all manually. The only exception I can see is if you needed to move the linebacker right or left to line them up and they are getting tangled up on a defensive lineman.

Any defensive audible that moves /player/players forward is allowed.



Thanks for taking time to read the rules. If you need further clarification let me know.

To piggy back this question, I thought under the rules you were allowed to move linebackers horizontally to line them up to their man if they are in man to man and this wouldn't enforce you to user that defender the rest of the play. So say you come out in 43 2 Man under and your MLB is lined up w/ the TE, can I not line him up over top of that TE and then switch to the Safety or DL or whoever? If the answer is no you can not then I kind of have a hard time understanding this rule, the rule of moving linebackers should strictly be to avoid cheating the AI with positioning LBs into gaps for nanos, it should not in my opinion be a rule that restricts you from manning up defenders. Manning up your defender is not exploiting the AI and it hinders defense and this is Madden defense doesn't need any extra hindrances that aren't exploits. I don't feel you should have to choose the lesser of 2 evils if you call 43 2 man under do I not man align my MLB to the TE and pray he doesn't do an out or slant out and thus be wide open or do I man align my MLB on the TE and then am forced to user a man to man defender. Unfortunately this year the man align audible this year seems to be broken so I hope this rule doesn't disallow users from playing proper man to man alignments.

The whole being able to line up your man come from your player being on the opposite side of the guy he is covering. When this happens it you have to move him either left or right or he will be on the opposite side of the field trying to cover his guy. This exception is not meant for you to line your LB right over the TE in the formation you listed. That is how that formation lines up in real life and it is part of disguising coverage.

You may move you LB right or left but you cannot move more than one player. Doing this changes up the entire coverage and does not go along with what was intended to be fixed by allowing you line up a player that is lined up on the opposite side of who he is covering. After moving that LB or S (left or right only) you may switch to the player you want to control. Keep in mind this does not happen a lot during the game so do not be doing this the whole game. Also this only pertains to Man coverage. If you think this rule needs further clarification let us know and we will work on it.

"This exception is not meant for you to line your LB right over the TE in the formation you listed. That is how that formation lines up in real life and it is part of disguising coverage."
True but in real life if you run an out route or a slant out to your TE 10 times it isn't going to work 10 out of 10 times in this game if the TE is lined up in the middle vs. a TE that has outside position if he runs an out route or slant out he will be successful close to 10 out of 10 times. So while I get your point I think not allowing man alignment just gives too much of an edge to the offense and like I said giving more of an edge to offenses than they already have in Madden is a change for the worse in my opinion.

You can accomplish what you are trying to do by using defensive hot routes and audibles.

Again that is probably true but in doing that it now means you are forced to shift every LB to the right simply to guard 1 TE and thus compromising your run defense to the left side. Seems highly counter productive to disallow 1 simple man alignment movement from your MLB and force work arounds just to properly guard a TE with man. I mean I feel like the spirit of the rule was to stop nanos or nano set ups with LBs. I don't think the rule was intended to compromise coverage which is what it does if their is no exception for man aligning players which by the way is how BecomeTheBest described this rule to me when I played him "no moving LBs pre snap unless it is to put them on their man." Also can we bring safeties that are in man to man vs. a slot WR down and close to the WR he is guarding or are we forced to have a safety defend giving a 12 yard cushion?

I am going to chime in on this topic. Here is what i am gathering from reading the thread, you can move an LB/S left or right. It also sounds like to me that you can move your LB/S left or right to cover their man and then switch off? Which means you can potentially move two defenders. Here is the issue I have, you leave a gray area where people can pretty much move two defenders and use the excuse that they were lining them up. In my few games i've played, i've seen defenders manually moved back to their original position and then the user takes control of another defender presnap. Due to the Gray area, you will see a lot of violations unless you do not move anybody at all. I've already seen in most of my games users moving their defenders up, down, left, right, b, a depending on what they expect. They were not setting up nanos or anything and it did not affect the AI so it wasn't an issue to me.

Regarding shifts to cover TEs on one side, yes you can do that , but that changes up the defense on the other side as vandal said. Many times, i've shifted and then they run tosses/counters on other side or have the slot man on the other side open. The defense is adversely affected if you want to focus on covering a TE, but have to shift your whole LB unit to do so. TE slants are tough to stop so to cover it you also have to take2 LBS out of position which leaves wholes elsewhere.

Moral of the story, it would be simple if you are allowed to control one guy and move them as your please as long its not on the line of scrimmage, in the gaps, or rubbing against dlineman. If somebody wants to take his safety up next to a LB to cheat a little against the run, shouldnt mess up AI at all. This should eliminate all the gray areas of being allowed to move a guy to cover a guy and switch off to another. One guy and that is it. Again, as long as the player is not in the gaps, at the LOS, stacking on dlineman, or in a blitzing route, the user should be able to use their defender as they please. I have yet to hear or see AI being taking advantage of if you take a lb and move him deeper. I've have only seen AI taken advantage of when somebody does the the things mentioned above especially controlling a blitzing player but pulling them up to cover.

I don't think their should be a gray area; I think it should be pretty simple actually if you see your opponent manually move a player and that player plays man he is fine. If you see a player move a man manually and he blitzes he violates rules simple end of story. Gives defense the ability to play correct coverage while leaving no gray area on setting up blitzes which again is what the rule isintrnded to stop I believe.

We are going to revisit this rule during this game week. We will re-read everything that has been said and will try to clarify the rule without having a gray area.

VideoVandal wrote:I don't think their should be a gray area; I think it should be pretty simple actually if you see your opponent manually move a player and that player plays man he is fine. If you see a player move a man manually and he blitzes he violates rules simple end of story. Gives defense the ability to play correct coverage while leaving no gray area on setting up blitzes which again is what the rule isintrnded to stop I believe.

The issue i have with this is that people run their safety up into the box and stuff the run because the madden oline never sees this guy, to me this is a cheap way to play defense.

twosilk76 wrote:

The issue i have with this is that people run their safety up into the box and stuff the run because the madden oline never sees this guy, to me this is a cheap way to play defense.

Well this statement only holds true when talking about safeties which isn't really what we are discussing though I brought up the scenario of safeties gaurding slot WRs which a safety guarding the slot is not technically in the box. The box is defined as the area with in 8 yards of LOS between the tackle box or extended tackle box if a TE is lined up so the safety playing the slot WR shouldn't be making many "in the box" tackles he might make tackles if you toss it his way, but tosses should be limited more anyways. What we are mostly discussing is LBs being able to move horizontally to defend correctly in man to man situations.

VideoVandal wrote:I don't think their should be a gray area; I think it should be pretty simple actually if you see your opponent manually move a player and that player plays man he is fine. If you see a player move a man manually and he blitzes he violates rules simple end of story. Gives defense the ability to play correct coverage while leaving no gray area on setting up blitzes which again is what the rule isintrnded to stop I believe.

This is exactly what creates the gray area. Who is to say somebody will move his safety down for the purpose to stuff the run and switch off and make it look like he is covering a slot receiver? Not saying people will do this, but it opens up to be taken advantage of and for the most part, it has been taken advantage of. I've seen this conversation one too many times where people make moving a player with the explanation it was to line them up, but really it was for another purpose and then switch off to another defender. You can eliminate this by simply allowing only one player to move freely (except to stack/nano/ fake blitz).

YOu can make a rule simply as saying you can move your linebackers horizontally and deeper, but you cant move him closer to the line. The rule can apply for safeties too where you can move them up to the LB level or let them drop deeper.

Food for thought

kidofcrash23 wrote:

VideoVandal wrote:I don't think their should be a gray area; I think it should be pretty simple actually if you see your opponent manually move a player and that player plays man he is fine. If you see a player move a man manually and he blitzes he violates rules simple end of story. Gives defense the ability to play correct coverage while leaving no gray area on setting up blitzes which again is what the rule isintrnded to stop I believe.

This is exactly what creates the gray area. Who is to say somebody will move his safety down for the purpose to stuff the run and switch off and make it look like he is covering a slot receiver? Not saying people will do this, but it opens up to be taken advantage of and for the most part, it has been taken advantage of. I've seen this conversation one too many times where people make moving a player with the explanation it was to line them up, but really it was for another purpose and then switch off to another defender. You can eliminate this by simply allowing only one player to move freely (except to stack/nano/ fake blitz).


YOu can make a rule simply as saying you can move your linebackers horizontally and deeper, but you cant move him closer to the line. The rule can apply for safeties too where you can move them up to the LB level or let them drop deeper.

Food for thought

At no point was anyone supposed to bring any player up or back at all. The rule states left or right not backward or forwards. This is not a gray area. The problem is that people are trying to convert their favorite defenses into a defense it is not meant to be. Everything you mentioned can be found in a defensive call that accomplish what people are wanting. The rule of moving a safety or LB to the left or right was intended to fix a problem with the AI when a person calls an audible and find that your player is on the right hash manned up on the guy on the left hash. It was not meant to move quys that are in their correct coverage. That was supposed to be done with an audible or defensive hot route.

When MLB stays in the middle of the line and he is actually covering the TE in man, this is meant to be a disguise. It is not a flaw in the game, it is meant throw off the offense. If you were to move him to where you wanted (other than using a hot route) this changes the entire play and you begin creating you own defenses which the AI will fail to recognize. If you want your LB to line up on a WR or TE call the right play and not one that is meant for a disguise and then make it what it is not.

We will review this rule and post what we decide by the end of this game week. Another thing people have to consider when looking at gray areas is, people who do that and try to exploit those gray areas are not the type of people we want in the league. The rules set fourth in this league are fair and prevent most AI exploits. We only have to visit rules like this when people are looking for that extra edge and are more interested in winning than have a good, straight, well played game. So if someone is using gray areas or you find you self looking for gray areas you may want to rethink your approach.

One thing here that is a concern for me is the fact that we have guys posting issues with the rules in the forums like this, these issues should be and from now on need to be kept PRIVATE, these forums were not set up for people to "debate" the rules and to clarify things even further, these rules were not set up on the fly they have been tested extensively to help set up a league with minimal AI exploits, some of the rules will seem excessive at first but if you embrace them and practice playing with them then you will truly understand their purpose. If you call the right type of play for the situation and utilize the defensive adjustments that can be made there should be no reason why this rule is an issue. I'm not saying that you guys shouldn't ask questions if you have them, but I will say that there is a reason why we set up a thread for you all to accept the rules as you read them.