Through some sort of coincidence, I faced excessive overuse of a particular defensive play in two different leagues on the same night. In addition these are the two most conscientiously played leagues I am in (75 and 86) and my clear favorites.

I really think the owners in each case just sort of 'lost the plot' and had a too-rigid rule in place for certain formations. I haven't made a big deal about these in the respective league forums but wanted to bring it to your (JDB) attention.

In league 75 (I lost this game) Nickle Strong 1 Deep Man Under was called by my count 35 times. https://private75.myfootballnow.com/log/1456

In league 86 (I won this game) Nickle Normal Double LB Blitz was called again by my count an astounding 49 times. https://agent86.myfootballnow.com/log/462

The defenses themselves and the wisdom of these particular choices can be discussed somewhere else, however the AI did seem to pick up on their overuse in both cases around the 12th time they were used.

My points are these:

I honestly think the 'trigger' for overuse should be a bit lower ad perhaps scaled to what quarter the game is in. 6 for first, 9 for second, 12, 15.... something like that. That is more a tweak than anything and just my opinion.

The second and major point is that if the offense is running the ball, there is NO PENALTY to use these defenses to your hearts content. The tacklers still tackle. Additionally it does not seem to affect a pass rush at all.

The idea behind the no overuse adjustment as I understood it is that after a certain point it would be counter productive to use a defense repeatedly.

However, and this was certainly the case in my league 75 game, the eventual net BENEFIT from the play design overwhelmed the FEW times that the use of the defense resulted in a net gain for the offense.

The conclusion I came to after watching these two games was that if you have an effective blitz, it would be a prudent strategy to ONLY CALL THAT SINGLE DEFENSE against teams that primarily run, and even if they are 50/50 run pass you would still likely come out ahead in the long run with the negative plays you could generate.

I wont do this. I employ a number of 'soft' defenses throughout my gameplan at least partially to keep the use of any single call down and avoid an 'AI penalty'. But others will, or do.

Every hole eventually gets exploited to its fullest extent. I would respectfully recommend trying to get ahead of this one.

A far better 'fix' for this issue in my view would be to make non-blitzes more attractive options in stopping the run. As it stands, running a non-blitz with safeties in zone is almost a guaranteed 8-10 yard gain if your opponent rushes the ball. There's a slight chance one of the d-lineman in the intended run gap will shake his block at the snap, but if he doesn't the RB is completely free and the safeties take forever to react, even in run key.

I always prefer to incentivize rather than penalize. Blitzing the run gap is currently the only way to consistently counter the run, so people are naturally going to lean towards calling more blitzes, some even to an extreme. However I reckon most of those folk would love to have more expansive playbooks if those plays actually had a decent chance to function effectively.

Concur completely. That is a better solution.

I still feel however that every play that isn't just 'base' (and really I mean blitzes) should have a downside. Most have none.

It is my understanding that a defensive play is based on the formation and personnel of the offensive play at the time. If this is true, then why would a defense get the "I think the defense is using that play too often" message when the offense is clearly the one exploiting the play to get the defense in that situation. In my last game, I got that message in the second quarter. After doing research, yes, I did call the same play 4 times in a short period of time, but my opponent ALSO called the same offensive play 4 times in the short period. Why, as a defensive player, am I penalized when I have scouted, as recommended, and possibly found the "I Dare Ya to run that" play for that situation while the offense is not penalized for over using the play that forces me into the "overused" defensive play.

The message only shows up if there's a negative result on a play in which an overuse penalty was applied. So in your situation it's very possible they were receiving an equal penalty, but since the result of the play was positive for the offense it only showed the message about the defensive overuse. If instead you had gotten a sack on that play, it would have then displaying a message saying the offense was overusing.

Also that would be the case if the offense only ran a single play out of certain formation. I see this a lot in my gameplanning, particularly in the 'heavy' formations, where there will be one really popular run or pass and that's the only play from say Power-I. If I set a defense to stop it, like you are saying Booger, I just make sure its a type of defense (Blitz-1, Man) of which I will have three or four active in my playbook.

"What was the average Defensive Hurries for all players in the NFL 2016 season?

The average Hurries in the in the NFL 2016 season was 12.55"


That is over 200 players , 75 is on a pace that is at least double that. If not triple .


The highest total for a nfl DB was 8 all season long . CB Hill had 5 in that game in 75. The team had 27 in that game alone .

The point which it has always been is that qbs are playing under pressure way too often. The window has narrowed but the code is basically the same . Penalty or not blitzes are way too effective.

The recievers would just catch the ball at the rate we blitz here, but for some reason that doesn't happen with enough regularity . Perhaps it's because he doesn't throw it to the right guy enough . While being under pressure .

Shrink the pressure circle.

Keep in mind these are Nickel defenses. They are primarily used to combat 3 WR sets (2RB/3WR and 1RB/3WR/1TE). In this game I believe they are strictly used to combat 3 WR sets. I looked at both films. In each instance a 3 WR set was used 35 times in league 75 and 49 times in league 86. Now that being said, drogers used different plays out of those sets.

I acknowledge the fact that my playcalling had a fault in it. It was unintentional as drogers and I discussed privately. I had more than enough Nickel plays to choose from and was quite disappointed when I found that none were called. I went in and looked at my gameplanning strategies and believe I found the issue. In fact, I had already eliminated quite a few of my blitz plays from my strategy due to hot reads before this season in 75 even started. I actually believe that had something to do with the unbalanced playcalling in this game.

I support the desires and efforts to make this game as balanced and fair as it can possibly be to all players and hope that these situations become less frequent. It's been an issue for a long, long time.