Madden 08 Lead Blocking Control

Last year I had the opportunity to put together some videos for EA Sports for the Xbox Live Marketplace. Honestly, they were more feature marketing pieces than strategy guides, but I did get in a ton of reps while putting them together.

One of the sections that I spent a great deal of time with was the Lead Blocking control. It worked pretty well last year, but since the blocking itself had issues it was wasn't as good as it could have been.

The EA Sports team added an engineer who was also an offensive lineman. Coupling his strengths with that of some of the other producers, the line blocking mechanics have greatly improved.

In this little clip, I am going to show several different running plays with isolations on different blockers. I used the run blocking controls and controlled these players up until they made they first block. At that point I let it autoswitch and took control of LT myself.

The beginning of the clip starts with a simple HB Dive where I take the LT and wreck up the defensive end.

Next I run the same play, but take Neal up the middle like a wrecking ball to wipe out the linebacker.

After that I run a toss play, taking the RG out to cut block the defender. Lastly I run a series of stretch plays where I switch up the lead blocker I control each time.

You will notice on the stretch plays that different holes open up each time and that the cutback lanes can be huge.

You will also notice that LT is a freak in Madden 08. With several 100 ratings in the move categories, he is very shifty and hard to bring down.