Tutorial Main Index

If you are new, you can follow these steps to be on your way to a new custom playbook. If you know that you are looking for, select a topic from the left.

• Choose an offensive style
  • Run/pass? Zone/man coverage?
  • Personnel? 3WR/1TE/1RB? 1WR/1TE/3RB? 2TE/3RB? 4WR/1RB? Great cover CBs/Strong LB corps? 3-4/4-3/5-2/4-4?
  • Play style? Deep passing/short playaction? Power running/misdirection? Blitz/Cover?
• Map out formations/playbook
  • Don't create formations/plays from scratch - you can do so much more if you add formations and plays.
    • Choose a formation as your "base" formation
    • Add the play(s) you want from that formation
    • Edit the formation in the formation editor to your liking
  • Make a dummy playbook, plan out your custom formations
  • Important: Decide which formations you will "base" your custom formations off of
  • Very important for motion/shifts, espeically on defense.
  • Take into account the plays in each formation, but remember: you can combine plays from different formations, so not as important - ex. you can use "Full House-Normal" as your base formation, but still add "I Form-Normal: Boss Sweep" to it, you are not only limited to the Full House plays
  • Defense
    • You are able to add any play in any defensive playbook to your custom formation, I believe (or very close to any play)
    • Use the dummy playbook to see how LB/DL shifts and Bump-and-Run work with your custom formation.
  • Offense: try to begin with base formations "Singleback-Normal", Full House-Normal, Singleback-Trips Bunch, if possible, if you plan to use plays from these formations (subtract plays from Singleback-Dice from Singleback-Normal)
• Adding and modify plays
  • Remember formations are organized in the playbook by the order they are added; keep this in mind before you start.
  • For convenience: Plays are sorted alphabetically, when working on a specific play, I like to temporarily name it "1" so it always is at the top of the list
  • Pointer: You can just double-click (PC) on a player to give him an assignment, you don't need to click on the Edit Route button.
  • View the tutorial on Combining Plays From Different Formations
  • View the List of Unique Plays
  • View the tutorials listed under "Basics".
• Playtesting
  • The "Test Arena" in the play editor is very forgiving, I believe the difficulty is always set to "Rookie".
  • Testing defensive plays, the cpu chooses to run the ball a large amount of the time (for me, at least), making it hard to see how your defensive pass coverages are working. If you run into this problem, select a pass-happy team (The Raiders seem to pass the most) in the play editor.
  • Be sure to use your playbook in a real game situation, or practice mode at the least.
• Organizing
  • Whatever fits your style, in the "Preview Playbook" page, moving plays around.
  • Offensively, I like to put my base runs/playaction passes at the top, and work down to outside runs and deep passes, and finally putting "special" plays at the bottom.
  • Defensively, I like to put my base coverages at the top, working down through more and more risky blitzes.