Mastery of zone drops is the best defense for current gen (ps4 and xbox one).
If you are confused on how to use them, it will cause you a lot of unnecessary frustration on defense.
Zone drops allow you to defend any route in the game.
Also, incase you and me haven’t met, I go by “Manu” in the competitive Madden scene and am a 3x Carolina Panthers Club Champion.
I’ll warn you you’ll come across a lot of “pro” madden sites who fear to release their competitive names so they aren’t exposed.
Anyways, make sure you stay till the end where I’ll reveal my $37,600 tourney winning secrets for free.
And for now here’s your Madden 24 defensive tips as promised:
Your 5 Step Tip Guide To Madden 24 Current Gen Defense:
- Go to your coaching adjustments
- Set flat zones to 25 or 30
- Put curl flats on 5
- Set hook zones to 5
- Make sure you have flat zones, curl flats, and hook zones on the field.
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Let’s say your opponent is at midfield. If you set your flat zones to “25” your flat zones will drop back to the 25-yard line. Or hooks to “5”, they will drop to the 45.
If you know your opponent is about to run a certain route that runs “x” yards, you can counter by “dropping” a zone in that same area.
The Science
The key to zone drops is on any route over 5 yards, put your zone drops “5” yards above the primary route you want to stop. So if your opponent is spamming a 10-yard corner route to the sidelines, set your zone drops to “15”.
Then make sure to have an outside cornerback in a flat zone. If you put the zone drops at the same depth of the route, with a pass lead up the route will get over the zone sometimes.
Hook Zones – Yellow
The most used zone drop for hooks is “5”. Before zone drops were introduced, it was very difficult to defend underneath drag passes. Even if you shaded your coverage down, the hooks would still not play low enough to smother a drag route.
Now if your opponent is spamming the short middle with drags, hitches, or slants, you can set your hooks to “5” to defend those routes.
Flat Zones – Light Blue
For the most important zone drop, flat zones, I usually start a game with them on “30”.
The last thing you want to do on defense is give up big chunk plays on the first drive.
Having your flat zones set to “30” will bring death to the ever-so-popular crosser routes.
If your opponent rolls out, crossers can still get over 30 flats. I would recommend our other blog “Never Lose Your Mind Over Defending Crossing Routes Again” if that gives you problems.
Remember it is important to adjust the flat zones throughout the game based on the primary routes your opponent uses.
It would not make sense to keep your flats on “30” if your opponent never throws deep crossers or corners.
Curl Flats – Dark Purple
Now, what about curl flats? Most pros will commonly have their curl flats set to “5” or “10”.
The curl flats are a great compliment to flat zones that are most commonly set to 10+.
The reason curl flats do not go on 30 but flat zones do is curl flats are slower to get to the sideline compared to flats.
A concept pros like to do is “stack zones.” Meaning having two defenders dedicated towards the sideline at different depths.
This allows for the defense to guard a crossing route with flat zones on 30 while not giving up a huge gain underneath.
A combo of a 5 yard purple and a 30 yard flat on one side of the field is called mable coverage and is a very popular concept in high-level Madden.
Your Next Step To Becoming A Competitive Player Even If You Work 70 Hour Weeks Or Barely Know The Controls
(Skipping This WILL Set You Back 20 Years)
You and me have a lot in common.
Like you, 12 years ago I was on Youtube and Google searching for tips.
I was made to believe learning money plays was the best way to go to become competitive.
sh*t, that was all you saw on Youtube back then was “UNSTOPABBLE 1 PLAY TD GLITCH VS. EVERY COVERAGE.”
And sadly, that is all creators post now yet its not teaching you the strategic aspects of Madden.
It wasn’t until I met my mentor “AthleticCedes” (who ACTUALLY knew Madden) that my entire view of Madden shifted.
This guy was winning cold hard cash off the game.
And I wasn’t no slouch myself at the time (Madden 25). I was consistently ranked top 5 on the head to head leaderboards for 3 years.
From my shortsighted view then, I thought I was the best player ever.
Then in Madden 25, I matched up with the gamertag “AthleticCedes”…
He was different from everyone else I ever matched up with.
And when I say different, I mean I had to be playing the forthcoming of jesus.
What Your Game Will Look Like If You Learn The 12 Fundamentals From A Credible Competitive Player
His reads were superhuman. 20/20 laser vision like a fictional superhero from a movie.
His receivers parted like the 7 seas rendering my user useless as each receiver was perfectly spaced out (great route combinations).
His pocket presence, impeccable. Enough time back there for a calm relaxing family picnic.
His defensive schemes were so beautifully engineered and disguised that a prophet from 2050 couldn’t predict what he was doing next.
His defenders came in multiples. All his db’s stalked my wr’s like a crazy ex gf.
His user defender moved so eloquently and freely that it could have passed for a figure skater in the Olympics.
His adjustments were so precisely timed and lockdown that he might as well have been living in my head.
I was so puzzled. I just had to speak to this guy. I didn’t know it was possible for someone to be that good.
I wanted to be that good.
I wanted to have those 45 minutes of fame where the game starts and every exterior thought unrelated to Madden vanished like a ghost.
I wanted to have those experiences where for those 45 minutes, I am transported to a seemingly different dimension where I am just untouchable.
What if it was possible to erase the personal hardships of reality and be transcended into a mode of invincibility?
Why Listening To Random Youtubers And Sites Is Handicapping Your Madden Game
Luckily, Athletic accepted my party invite so we could chat.
What he told me overrode all 4 years of previous knowledge that I accumulated from all my favorite Madden Youtubers.
I realized everything I had ever learned from any Madden Youtuber was as useless as Shaquille O’Neal at the free throw line.
“Manu get to the f*cking point!!”
Sorry guys, I have ADHD.
Anyways, he told me there was an entire undercover world of competitive players.
So more guys like him with the superhuman reads, playcalls, and adjustments.
But what was most alarming, none of those competitive players he mentioned do Youtube so I had no one credible to learn from.
Even worse, the few competitive players I later found were teaching the game the same damn way everyone on Youtube did.
The difference was the competitive players knew that the money plays was not their secret to success…
However the last thing they wanted to do was reveal their strategic fundamental secrets to the public.
They knew it was the fundamentals separating them from the rest of the world.
So releasing e-book money plays were the feasible option because they still got paid without releasing their secrets to success.
They were afraid of getting passed up.
Plus, the money plays change every month.
So if I were to have bought 4 e-books per year for the next 10 years to keep pace with the everchanging metas, it would of cost me $1000 to not even strategically learn the game.
Will they sometimes give you a quick boost in confidence for a couple games? Sure.
But to me, buying e-books to fix a problem with losing games would be like leaning on hardcore drugs to overcome the loss of a best friend.
You may get a short high but at what cost? Does it actually solve your problem or does it mask it?
I may have gotten a couple more wins with an e-book but what would’ve happened when I played another AthleticCedes?
I knew ebooks would completely impair my ability to think for myself so I wasn’t go to step foot down that treacherous path.
Athletic wasn’t going to teach me step-by-step how to master the fundamentals either…
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However he got me headed in the right direction and I learned from him what I needed to focus on:
Basic knowledge of what each zone defenders
Conceptually understanding how to attack every coverage
Building a solid base scheme to start games with on defense
Correctly reading defenses before and after snaps to determine my upcoming playcalls
Pocket presence mastery to buy more time
On-the-fly adjustments
And best believe there was much, much, more…
I knew it was not going to be easy trying to figure everything out on my own but I was still a young kid at the time with loads of free time.
My plan was to throw myself into the fire and just start playing money games vs. everyone.
Fast forward a decade or so… It didn’t turn out to be too bad of a plan…
(This is not to brag or boast but to show you have I have the proven track record to coach you up to be the next big competitive player)
I became a well-respected 3x professional champion…
Pioneer and Inventor of 5 of the hottest offensive and defensive schemes including Trips TE
Featured On EA’s Livestream in front of over 60,000 viewers
Co-Star of the CW’s (popular TV network) documentary for Madden
Head Madden Gameplay Expert Writer For SportsGamersOnline (The Biggest Sports Gaming Organization)
Mentor of over 210 beginners and Madden vets including now mega-superstars like Chibatti Mitch (world’s biggest Madden streamer) and several of the world’s top players
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The best part is I documented my entire journey step-by-step for you.
So you no longer have to guess and be unsure on…
What it takes for you to transform into that Madden killer that is locked inside of you.
So you can finally experience those transitions into “invincibility mode” to escape the stress of real life.
So for those 1 or 2 hours of downtime per night your thoughts to the world around you are cut off…
And it’s just you focused on kicking the absolute dog sh*t out of that braindead money play spammer who used to kick your sh*t in…
Imagine how satisfying it would be to do that on a nightly basis every time.
Now it’s your choice…
You can attempt to figure out everything on your own, continuing to guess at what actually works or not…
You can ignore this guaranteed to work camp with a treasure trove of step-by-step strategic fundamental systems that has worked for even the most beginner level players who work 70 hour weeks time and time again…
You can attempt to figure out everything on your own but won
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See you on the inside.
