Pass Defense with Man Coverage

If you want to be great at defense in 2010, you need to have a plan of attack to counter any offense you might face. You need to find the defenses that work best against whatever your opponent is running. I like to switch up man and zone defenses to keep my opponent guessing, but for this post I will just talk about some basic man coverage strategy. When I run a man defense I make sure to not have any mismatches like a WR on one of my backers, this is how big plays happen leading to the breakdown of your defense. Man is all about the match-ups, your LB's or even safeties cannot cover in man as well as corners, look at your player attributes for speed and man coverage ability. Wait to see the personnel of the offense, if they are coming out in a 4 WR set, put 4 corners on the field, make sure your corners are good and fast (90 speed is as low as I go). So your opponent has 4 WR's on the field and you have 4 corners on the field in man coverage, now what? I like to do a couple different things depending on down and distance. I will user a safety or backer and take away first receiver I feel that is going to come open from the defender. When your defender has recovered and the receiver is no longer a threat, take away the next open route you see. I will also control a defender and try to get after the QB via user blitz. When user blitzing, I like to speed rush around the outside of the tackle and force the opponent's QB up in pocket. If I do not get the sack myself, I usually force the QB into getting sacked by another defender. Even if you do not sack the QB, you opponent is still weary of your presence and will worry on not getting sacked instead of focusing downfield at his receivers. If you want to play man effectively, make sure to choose teams that have good overall defensive speed, especially in the corner and safety position. Take away open routes or get to the quarterback with your user controlled player, this should lead to a consistent, bend but don't break pass defense.