Madden NFL 10 - Filling Bubbles

In the Running vs. Different Fronts section, we broke down how to attack different defensive fronts. We mentioned that every defensive front has bubbles to be attacked. Unfortunately this will always be the case. That’s the bad news. The good news is the offense cannot attack all the bubbles at once. And, there are ways we can fill some bubbles through the use of line crashes and stunts.

Filling Bubbles in the 3–4 Defense

The 3–4 Normal front has two primary bubbles—the uncovered offensive guards. This is a weak area that allows the guards to get out on the inside linebackers and create a big running lane for the HB on the slam play.

As a defense, this is not acceptable. The back gets into the secondary and punishes the safety.

The first strategy is to call a line crash. We crash our defensive line in.

When we crash our defensive line in, we defend the slam play successfully. The idea here is to have the defensive linemen crash to the inside where they can get inside position on the man blocking. If they can do that, then they can get to the running back before he ever gets on the track.

The defensive end makes a play on the HB in the backfield for no gain.

The next option would be to bring the safeties down near the line of scrimmage and have them line up just outside of the tackles. This changes the way the offensive linemen block. For instance, while practicing this, run an inside run play against a 3–4 Normal defense. Don’t make pre-snap adjustments. Watch who the guards fire at once the ball is snapped. They should go after the inside linebackers. Now this time move safeties down as we just instructed.

This time the tackles should go out after the safeties, meaning the guards will look to block the defensive ends. This leaves the inside linebackers unblocked.

Now, this may not always happen. It depends on the offensive formation as well as the run play called. In the screen shot, you can see that the left inside linebacker is unblocked.

He now has a clean shot at stopping the running back in his tracks.

We also have the option to call a run blitz that sends two or more linebackers on a blitz, such as the 3–4 Normal—MLB Blitz. This sends both inside linebackers into the backfield. Notice that they cross each other. This often allows one of them to get in unblocked.

Defenders that are in man or zone coverage or that have blitz assignments react differently. For instance, if a defender’s assignment is zone coverage, he won’t get as quickly into the gap as he would if he were blitzing. Even though this doesn’t sound like a big deal, seconds count. If the defender is slow getting to the gap, the running back may have already gone through the hole. When you blitz the linebacker, he goes to the hole as soon as the ball is snapped. He more than likely will be in position to blow up the run as opposed to if he were playing zone coverage.

Here we see the right inside linebacker shooting through the A gap between the center and right guard after being unblocked.

He gets to the ball carrier before he can get to the line of scrimmage.