shauma_llama wrote:
The offenses are using goal line formations from any point on the field, the defense obligingly responds with a goal line defense they're being penalized for overuse on (offense never penalized for overuse), and if a back or receiver gets to the second level, there's nobody there, long touchdown.
So a few things here.
1) You don't actually incur overuse penalties when you run a GL defense against a GL offense. There is a bug that causes it to show up in the play-by-play text, but no penalty is actually incurred.
2) As everyone has said, you can build good rules to switch to normal defenses against the GL to battle most of this. It's incredibly effective and doesn't take much time to do.
3) If you want to use GL defenses effective, you're going to have to sink a lot of time into overrides and figuring out what player should go where. The GL defense are a default 5-3-3, which is just dumb. I end up playing them like a 3-4 with the LBs close on the line. This allows you to get better cover players on most of the positions.
4) Scouting an opponents offense allows you to determine, quickly, whether you need to pull your GL defenses or which ones to call. If a team primarily throws out of the 221, the 3 Deep, Cover 5 GL defense with proper overrides shuts those passes down. If a team runs the 311 bomb, I still recommend the normal double WR1 defense against it though.
BUT THAT'S NOT WHY I'M POSTING
Why I'm posting is the accusation above that GL offenses or GL defenses should only be used near the goal line. All the 221 and 230 do is bring players closer to the ball at the time of the snap. With overrides, you can play those sets just as you would a 212.
Do you complain a lot during an NFL game when the team runs the flexbone 60% of the time? Probably not. Because no team actually runs it like a flexbone. Instead, they run it like a spread with the WRs tight to the ends.
How about the Wing T that has gotten to be so popular again. Again, probably not because no one plays it like a Wing T.
Point is a formation is just a formation. You have to defend it how a team runs it.
This of course is designed to exploit the default defensive calls. (Just like the 113 Counter offense - is it still called the Setherick or Infinity offense since neither one of us has run it in years - was designed to exploit the nickle defenses.)
If I know my opponent is going to run a lot of the GL Attack #3, I load up on 221 passes. Why? Because of hot reads to the FB or RB.
If I know my opponent is going to run a lot of the 3 Deep, Cover 5 GL defense, then I pitch the outside pitches all day to exploit the edge.
