Fixing Pass Trajectory

Today guest columnist Kushmir, tackles how to Madden Gameplay can finally do away with the LB Superleap in Madden, and replace it with realistic defensive reactions/counters that are just as effective.


Watch this Larry Fitzgerald highlight film.Other than showing us how he can flat out go up and get the ball, its slow-motion replays also give us a hint at the velocity and height from which the football is released. Here's the problem: In Madden, there are too many instances defenders who are at the wrong field depth are able to affect downfield passes, this is is often referred to as the infamous linebacker superleap (although DBs do it as well). You'll notice in the video that the "leap" is real, except that in most instances its done with one flailing hand as a last gasp effort, and has little to no chance of affecting a pass because of its velocity and height.

Here's the thing that many people don't want to hear. That play that so many Madden fans hate? IS NECESSARY. Why? Because catching is too high, as is QB accuracy. If the "leap" didn't exist, the amount of abuse up the seams and in the 12-20 yard midrange area would know no bounds. To prevent this; shallow defenders are able to make plays on the ball; its very simple. They've essentially put a band-aid on the problem, which I SUPPORT. The thing is: Gameplay has actually evolved to to the point where its time for this band-aid to be removed.

There are essentially three field levels when it comes to football. The short area within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage, the midrange area from about 12-20 yards downfield, and the deep area 20+ yards downfield behind the safeties. A safety essentially plays on the edge of two field levels and so can break on a post/flag or deep in in front of him, or rush back to defend a go route into the deep area. The simple thing to understand is this; defenders really can't make plays outside of their field level. A Deep In, for instance; can only be defended by two kinds of people, a lineman who bats the ball down at the line of scrimmage and/or defender at the area where the ball arrives. This might be asking alot, but if more off-target passes, db deflections, pass break-ups due to big hits and DL batdowns were included on the default settings, the linebacker superleap would simply not even be necessary. Yes, you read that correctly: the tools that are needed to properly address a too-powerful passing game because of proper pass trajectory are ALREADY IN THE GAME.

Well that's my breakdown. Hopefully we'll see the ability to tweak settings like this in our Communities (best feature ever, btw) in the future, but hopefully we can see a much better representation of pass trajectory on the default settings, in future versions of Madden NFL.