Imagine you could score every single time you had possession of the football in Madden. That seems like a tall task to even consider, but the best players in the world have no trouble doing so. You’re then left to wonder why are they always getting 7 while you’re getting stopped or are forced to settle for a field goal. The difference between you and them is only 20 yards. What do I mean by “only 20 yards?” 80% of the difference between an elite offensive player and a mediocre one is 20 yards. Those 20 yards I’m referring to are the 20 yards leading to the end zone, often called the red zone. Chances are at least 90% of your drives get stopped in this part of the field. The windows get smaller and the coverage gets tighter. This is also the only part of the field where your opponent can run man coverage shaded down with no over-the-top help. In this article, I’m going to introduce two techniques that you can use to make sure you get 7 on every single drive.
Madden 23: How to Score on EVERY Drive
Let’s start with concept one. We’ll refer to this concept as “Hitches on the Numbers.” It’s called hitches on the numbers because that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a hitch is, it’s basically a 5-yard curl route in which your receiver runs 5 yards up the field and then turns around for a quick pass. These hitches are pivotal in manipulating zones to open up windows for us to “dot up” our opponents. The reason we use the team on the numbers is that we want our hitches to be aligned with the numbers on the field.
Here is a diagram to illustrate that location:
Do you see where those two red lines are? That’s the general area we want our receivers on hitches to be in order for them to properly manipulate zones. Take a look at Chris Godwin (#14) in the image below. His position is a perfect example of being on or “close to” the numbers.
Now, how do we utilize this technique to create good route combos? The best way to use these hitches in my opinion is to have 2 short crossing routes (ex. slants, posts) crossing the middle of the field and passing about 5 yards over these hitches. The hitches will pull any zones down and inside, allowing you to throw over or to the outside of every single zone in the game and score easy touchdowns in the red zone. Check out the exemplar combo below:
Concept 2
Concept 2 is actually even simpler than concept 1. We’ve named this concept the “zig flat combo.” Now if you remember the play dig return out of the formation gun bunch than you are already familiar with this concept. Basically, we are using a flat route on an outside receiver to pull any flat zones as far outside as possible and a zig on our interior receiver to take advantage of that open space. Check out the example below:
The zig is a slow-breaking route that appears to attack the same spot in the play art but in reality when it first breaks it actually attacks the interior of the field. This allows us to really stress the user and beat any sort of man/zone coverage your opponent puts out there.
Feel free to combine these as much as you want. You can very easily have a zig flat combo on one side and a “hitches on the numbers” concept on the other, which basically ensures you score every time you’re in the red zone. Check out the exemplar combo below:
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