Who Do You Have on Your Offensive Line?

During Zero Chill, my Ghosts of MUT Champions quintet with 0 AP abilities and 30/30 GoM Chemistry boosts was getting the job done. They’ve been a sieve since Thursday; the pass-rush and run-stop super-wins have been incessant and drive-killing.

Fearless is the one thing protecting me from random pressure-picks, but owing to that ability selection, I can’t run Gift Wrapped (same ability bucket), and I’m continuing to suffer from terrible wide-open dropped passes.

Can I do better?

phatalerror said:

During Zero Chill, my Ghosts of MUT Champions quintet with 0 AP abilities and 30/30 GoM Chemistry boosts was getting the job done. They’ve been a sieve since Thursday; the pass-rush and run-stop super-wins have been incessant and drive-killing.

Fearless is the one thing protecting me from random pressure-picks, but owing to that ability selection, I can’t run Gift Wrapped (same ability bucket), and I’m continuing to suffer from terrible wide-open dropped passes.

Can I do better?

Wait, really?  There's so much to unpack here, but first and foremost -- what game mode(s) are you primarily playing?  In the past I would have basically told everyone that Gift-Wrapped is an absolutely essential ability and one of the best uses of 1AP we'll find on offense, year after year after year, no matter if it's September or April, May and June.  However, during M26 i've almost never used GW, with the Zero Chill House Rules event (in the snow, with all that "impactful" weather) that was the first time all season i felt as if we needed an ability to help catch passes.  Doesn't really make much sense to me, as the game really hasn't changed or evolved all that much, so unsure how or why I feel completely different from prior game years, in terms of GW.

I've also seen some folks mention how they regard Fearless as an absolutely essential ability as well.  This is where you guys lose me -- assuming we're all using Placement & Accuracy type passing mechanic, i've come to rely on being able to control my accuracies through timing and ensuring a quick button press.  It can often take days, if not a full week to adjust to a new QB and their specific QB Release motion, especially with the ultra fast signal callers, that ball can come out QUICK.  Random overthrows still happen, even on perfect releases.  I don't think that's something that can be resolved through abilities, although i completely understand the school of thought here.  The game is just a buggy ass, inconsistent mess... with or without Fearless.

Now to your original question -- O-line.  I'm back to running full 60/60 49ers theme team.  Don't even have 20/30 Playoffs cards (yet), but perhaps i'll get there.  As such, i'm running primarily theme team linemen; Mailata (LT), Edwards (LG), Brendell (C), Puni (RG) and McKivitz (RT).  None have ideal stats (ideally, we'd want 90+ across the board for; PBP, PBF & RBK), but two out of three ain't bad.  I spend the majority of my AP on the quarterback, so not really room to run much else, as of this moment in time i've got 1AP Identifier (O-line), 2AP HJS (RB) and the rest on my QB.  Perhaps you could swap out Fearless for a couple Pass/Secure Protectors.  SOME cards were still getting discounted frozen buckets, unsure if this is still feasible, but you may be able to find some 2AP Secure Protector players to fit in there.

I honestly do not know if you can do better, but what a fantastic topic for discussion.  Love to hear how everyone else is approaching things.

I’m with @peatrick on this one, I haven’t felt the need to run Gift Wrapped or Fearless. It is very rare for my guys to drop a wide open pass and even more rare for me to throw a random pressure pick.

As for my o-line I’m relying solely on the free players as of now with the Team Captains LT and C, Season Mailata at RT, ZC Kittle at RG, and Season Edwards at LG (only upgraded to 92 I believe). The only o-line ability I’m using is Identifier. 

I have only been playing the H2H playoffs event and I don’t feel like I’m losing games because of my o-line.

SlowAndSteady said:

I’m with @peatrick on this one, I haven’t felt the need to run Gift Wrapped or Fearless. It is very rare for my guys to drop a wide open pass and even more rare for me to throw a random pressure pick.

As for my o-line I’m relying solely on the free players as of now with the Team Captains LT and C, Season Mailata at RT, ZC Kittle at RG, and Season Edwards at LG (only upgraded to 92 I believe). The only o-line ability I’m using is Identifier. 

I have only been playing the H2H playoffs event and I don’t feel like I’m losing games because of my o-line.

My pass-rush doesn't always get home, but I force a lot of sailed passes and dirt-balls in games (especially on fourth-and-long, which is gratifying, and the way football is in the league), and I'm fairly certain this is due to pressure. Ever since I started running Fearless, the incidence of such passes is way down on my end.

My most recent experience spans the Playoff H2H Event (which is an All-Pro feature, yuck) and Ranked.

More background information: My personal schedule means I play at times where I'm frequently pitted against the sweatiest of users, so it's non-stop Mid Blitz. It's always quick passes and incremental games, and I have to be flawless. I frequently record and replay the prior play between downs on offense to make sure I'm not missing protection calls when I take a quick sack or hit, and most often, it's just EA awarding my opponent a super-win on a coin flip. (More pass rushers means more coin-flips, and more chances to get a super-win, which is frustrating when it feels like the Flat- and Mid-Zone KO's also light up on nearly every pass attempt.) When protection holds and I get a guy loose somewhere, I'm amazed at how frequently my ball carrier gets chased down from behind, and I don't even get to experience that frustration when my player just drops the pass outright.

I really have to wonder at times why my H2H experience is so fundamentally different from what I read about here. I so rarely get a cake matchup, and when I play against a sweat where their abilities selections are largely irrelevant against my scheme and games should be easier, I'm not able to leverage tactics that should be working. It's like I'm playing with dice loaded to roll snake eyes, and I'm playing against users with dice loaded to roll box cars.

SlowAndSteady said:

I’m with @peatrick on this one, I haven’t felt the need to run Gift Wrapped or Fearless. It is very rare for my guys to drop a wide open pass and even more rare for me to throw a random pressure pick.

As for my o-line I’m relying solely on the free players as of now with the Team Captains LT and C, Season Mailata at RT, ZC Kittle at RG, and Season Edwards at LG (only upgraded to 92 I believe). The only o-line ability I’m using is Identifier. 

I have only been playing the H2H playoffs event and I don’t feel like I’m losing games because of my o-line.

I wish they would take identifier outta the game. It is such bs in my opinion. I like to be able to shake up my users and can't with it.

Woodysky said:

I wish they would take identifier outta the game. It is such bs in my opinion. I like to be able to shake up my users and can't with it.

I hope they don’t it’s a great ability to help mark  the user cuz people rarely ever manually blitz which helps pick up that free rusher since people try to run the same free blitz or stunt all game

ApolloZ said:

I hope they don’t it’s a great ability to help mark  the user cuz people rarely ever manually blitz which helps pick up that free rusher since people try to run the same free blitz or stunt all game

People are basically forced to user the same position. That's what I'm saying. If we remove it it will give people more flexibility to user other positions. We can't user a d linemen cuz the opponent will just double team him. If you user a safety the opponent will know the middle is open or an easier run play. I think it would make for more fun game play. Or at the very least bump the ap way up on it.

phatalerror said:

My pass-rush doesn't always get home, but I force a lot of sailed passes and dirt-balls in games (especially on fourth-and-long, which is gratifying, and the way football is in the league), and I'm fairly certain this is due to pressure. Ever since I started running Fearless, the incidence of such passes is way down on my end.

My most recent experience spans the Playoff H2H Event (which is an All-Pro feature, yuck) and Ranked.

More background information: My personal schedule means I play at times where I'm frequently pitted against the sweatiest of users, so it's non-stop Mid Blitz. It's always quick passes and incremental games, and I have to be flawless. I frequently record and replay the prior play between downs on offense to make sure I'm not missing protection calls when I take a quick sack or hit, and most often, it's just EA awarding my opponent a super-win on a coin flip. (More pass rushers means more coin-flips, and more chances to get a super-win, which is frustrating when it feels like the Flat- and Mid-Zone KO's also light up on nearly every pass attempt.) When protection holds and I get a guy loose somewhere, I'm amazed at how frequently my ball carrier gets chased down from behind, and I don't even get to experience that frustration when my player just drops the pass outright.

I really have to wonder at times why my H2H experience is so fundamentally different from what I read about here. I so rarely get a cake matchup, and when I play against a sweat where their abilities selections are largely irrelevant against my scheme and games should be easier, I'm not able to leverage tactics that should be working. It's like I'm playing with dice loaded to roll snake eyes, and I'm playing against users with dice loaded to roll box cars.

I understand your perspective and I would urge you to continue using whichever abilities you feel are giving you the best chance to win.

The H2H experience you are describing is exactly the same as I am experiencing. I rarely get a “cupcake” matchup and the majority of my games are against sweats running mid blitz and even a few loop blitzers lately. I too have errant pressure throws flying into the dirt or completely missing, I just don’t have too many that have resulted in costly INT’s.

My personal opinion is with the amount of blitzes coming in I don’t think having an upgraded o-line will make much of a difference for me. The blitz will still get home, I just have to be smart with my play calling, hot routing, and blocking adjustments.

Good luck out there!

LT: Mailata LG:David Edwards C:Alex Mack RG:Zach Martin  RT:Mike Mcglinchey 

so far they're putting really good work in

Woodysky said:

I wish they would take identifier outta the game. It is such bs in my opinion. I like to be able to shake up my users and can't with it.

I actually like the ability on offense and defense. I bait my opponent a lot by moving my user pre snap.

Woodysky said:

People are basically forced to user the same position. That's what I'm saying. If we remove it it will give people more flexibility to user other positions. We can't user a d linemen cuz the opponent will just double team him. If you user a safety the opponent will know the middle is open or an easier run play. I think it would make for more fun game play. Or at the very least bump the ap way up on it.

So it’s doing its job. If they can let the same stunt and loop blitz in then it is needed.