Roster Update # 1 – Release Day (Through 8/4)

Transactions

HB Cedric Benson – Released to Free Agents

HB Kevin Jones – Signs with Bears

CB Blue Adams – Released by Bengals (Removed)

HB Kenny Irons – Released by Bengals

HB DeDe Dorsey – Added to Bengals

LT Demetrius Bell – Released to Free Agents

LB Donnie Spragan – Signs with Bills

HB Mike Bell – Released by Broncos

DT Carlton Powell – Released to Free Agents (IR)

DT Kenny Peterson – Added to Broncos

FB Peyton Hillis – Added to Broncos

FS John Lynch – Released by Broncos

C LeCharles Bentley – Released by Browns

QB Ken Dorsey – Released to Free Agents

C Marvin Philip – Added to Browns

WR Kevin Kasper – Added to Browns

LB Ryan Nece – Added to Bucs

TE Troy Bienemann – Released by Cardinals

RT Kelly Butler – Signs with Cardinals

LG Jasper Harvey – Added to Cardinals

LG Scott Peters – Removed (IR)

HB Marcel Shipp – Released by Cardinals

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You need to be able to disguise your pass coverage if you plan on having a successful attack against your opponent’s offense. We don’t want the offense to be able to pre-read our defensive coverage and determine if we are in man or zone. We also need to be able to hide if we are in press coverage or not. This year in Madden 09, we can call defenses that have our men in press coverage without having to call press. This is like an auto delay bump-n-run. We will take a look at disguising coverage in general by going over some things we noticed that defensive players do when in man or zone coverage, and finding ways to use those tells to confuse our opponent’s pre-read. 

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The best way to expose four man fronts is by working the outside. You have way too many people in the middle to work that hard. You can pound with the FB Dive, but you need an outside run game to help open up FB running plays.

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Probably not quite what EA SPORTS had in mind when they put Brett Favre on the cover of Madden NFL 09.  No matter what team he is one though, Favre is worthy of a Madden cover.  Here’s a couple of screens of Favre from Madden 09 in his new team’s gear.

Here’s Favre’s key stats for Madden 09:

OVR - 95
SPD - 60
AWR - 88
THP - 98
THA - 92 

The key to buliding a solid running game is knowing how run to against all fronts. A Front is the setup of the line and linebackers in front of your offensive line. Each front has a weakness. The key here is knowning what running plays take advanage of these weakness. This is a 3 man front. The key to beating this is counters, traps, and “A” gap running plays. The 3 man fronts are good against outside running plays. The key is to beat the middle up and use misdirection.

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From Phil with EA SPORTS:

There’s been a lot of discussion around rosters and patches so I wanted to go ahead and post an update.

Rosters
For those that manged to get an early copy, you may have noticed that a roster update was recently made available. Many of you also noticed that Brett Favre was listed as the 2nd QB for the Packers. This roster was posted up as a final test of our roster update capability. We’re actually prepping a more final roster update that should be available on 8/11.

As for our roster update frequency… Our current plan is to update rosters about every two weeks. This could change based on major roster movement but expect us to drop rosters on an average of twice a month through the Super Bowl.
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A number of the guys on the team have retail copies of the game in hand, so it’s time to begin the Madden 09 strategy season in earnest!  In this breakdown, we’ll take a look at one of the best passing concepts in the game: the Corner Flats High Low concept.

Concept:

The Gun Split Y Flex Corner Strike is an excellent play to use to attack just about any pass pass coverage in the game. With both the SE (X) and FL (B) running corner routes and the HB (Y) and HB2 (LB) running flat routes, you have a Corner Flats High Low Isolation passing concept.

Offensive Play Used:

Pass Routes:

FL (B) - Corner with inside release
SE (X) - Corner with inside release
TE (A) - Dig ( but we hot route him on a streak)
HB (Y) - Flat
HB2 (LB) - Flat

Click here for the full breakdown of the Gun Split Y Flex Corner Strike

Here is a list of the dates for EA SPORTS Madden Challenge:

September 5 and 6, 2008 - Los Angeles - Universal City Walk

September 7, 2008 - San Diego - Horton Plaza Gas Light District

September 12 and 13, 2008 - Dallas - Grapevine Mills

September 14, 2008 - Houston - Houston Galleria

September 19, 2008 - Minneapolis - Mall of America

September 20, 2008 - Indianapolis - Castleton Square

September 21, 2008 - Chicago - Navy Pier

September 26 and 27, 2008 - Philadelphia - Gallery at Market Street

September 28, 2008 - Baltimore - Inner Harbor

October 2, 2008 - Mexico City - Azteca Stadium

October 3 and 4, 2008 - New York City - South Street Seaport

October 5, 2008 - Boston - Government Center/The Commons

October 10 and 11, 2008 - Atlanta - Lenox Square

October 12, 2008 - Orlando - Florida Mall

October 26, 2008 - London - Wembley Stadium

One of the biggest topics we have noticed this year regarding NCAA 09 Football is that players are struggling on play defense. With man coverage not being very effective underneath, players are finding it hard to stop the short passing game. I’m sure you’ve been victimized by dink and dunk offenses that just nickel and dime you up and down the field. Defending in NCAA Football 09 will require a completely different approach than normal.


Slants, curls, drags, outs, digs and other short pass routes rip man coverage apart. The best chance to defend these types of pass routes is to call zone coverage with multiple players playing zone coverage underneath. This year we like to call Cover 2 and Cover 3 zone coverages. Cover 2 does a better job at defending the underneath pass routes because there are 5 or 6 defenders playing underneath pass coverage. With more defenders covering underneath, they create less throwing Read the rest of this entry »

EA Sports has started posting playbooks that you can download for NCAA Football 09.  They should all be up by now.

Air Force : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…ir%20Force.pdf
Akron : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…kron/Akron.pdf
Alabama : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…ma/Alabama.pdf
Arizona : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…na/Arizona.pdf
Arizona State : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…na%20State.pdf
Arkansas : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…s/Arkansas.pdf
Arkansas State : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…as%20State.pdf
Army : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…/Army/Army.pdf
Auburn : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…urn/Auburn.pdf
Ball State : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…ll%20State.pdf
Baylor : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…lor/Baylor.pdf
Boise State : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…se%20State.pdf
Boston College : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…%20College.pdf
Bowling Green : http://ll-100.ea.com/cem/u/f/GPO/eas…ng%20Green.pdf
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