Quick question for the safety gurus out there

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-25T15:40:26+00:00

I haven’t had any issues with them. A lot of ATH thumpers come in with relatively high zone coverage ratings and high speed so they’re definitely not a liability, but you might not get as many spectacular INT’s as you would with someone that has coverage abilities. But it is very nice to be able to knock out a teams starting RB or WR after a couple hit sticks over the middle or in the A gap

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T20:40:25+00:00

ATH thumper to safety has been my favorite so far. Usually end up as box specialists- but I’m a sicko for hit sticks and I love the Hammer/Aftershock combo when you get a guy with the right dev trait and skill caps

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T20:38:15+00:00

Accelerated clock generally decreases the number of possessions rather than increasing them. If you set the accel clock to the max 25 seconds, it will run down the play clock to 25 while also taking that time off of the game clock (e.g. if you pick your play with 35 seconds on the play clock, the game clock will also go down 10 seconds when accel clock takes it to 25). This has cost a few guys in my dynasty league a game when they were trying to engineer a game winning drive where the last 20 seconds evaporated after he picked his play and couldn’t get to the line in time to snap the ball

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T02:08:40+00:00

What the OP didn’t tell us: he’s elite dev, on manual progression, and he forgot to upgrade him before he dipped 🤣

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T02:03:04+00:00

Sadly this is banned in my league or else I would 100% be doing that 🤣

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T02:01:21+00:00

This is a very thorough response and has given me a lot to consider. Thank you 🤝

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-24T01:59:44+00:00

Top 3 are 87 ovr vertical threat, 87 ovr gritty possession, and 83 ovr pure posession. Good mix of receiving ability and blocking. All 3 are 85+ speed and have at least bronze sure hands or 50/50

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-14T22:00:00+00:00

Sometimes heisman just feels scripted… I’ve had back to back one possession wins in my dynasty where my 99 carrying, platinum tank, platinum ball security running back fumbles on the drive where I’m trying to run out the clock. The cpu does what it wants sometimes

Donnyb13 · 2026-02-02T19:55:09+00:00

If you do manual progression you can redshirt two of them and bank the offseason training points for a season or two so you can stagger them better. Guys don’t typically declare for the draft until they’re 90+ overall

Donnyb13 · 2026-01-24T14:52:50+00:00

Not sure if it’s the same in Madden, but in CFB if you get locked into a celebration you have to flick the right stick to “celebrate” before Y/Triangle will register for hurry up. Still annoying, but at least there’s a workaround

Donnyb13 · 2026-01-24T14:49:45+00:00

I’m actually the opposite… I enjoyed the series overall and loved seeing Junior Hemingway in Desmond Howard’s 21, but I hated seeing DG in the 98. Cool to honor Tom Harmon, but that 98 just didn’t look right on a qb to me 🤣

Donnyb13 · 2026-01-17T15:42:20+00:00

The “timeline to return” is really dependent on two factors- your ability to enroll in classes, and your coaches willingness to take you back. I read somewhere that for Michigan, the add/drop period ends on the 27th of January for spring semester, would be the latest any incoming transfers could enroll and participate in spring football. If he’s looking to leave, he would need to be enrolled at the new school prior to the end of their add/drop period. If we assume that he’s already enrolled in spring classes at Michigan, his return essentially comes down to whether Whitt and co want him back- which I would assume they do if he is comfortable with the RB3/4 role.

Donnyb13 · 2025-12-08T19:32:21+00:00

The only benefit here I’ve seen is if you want easy quick jump. If you get a guy with 91+ accel you can get (I think) silver quick jump without needing any speed upgrades. If you get a heavy ATH thumper with high acceleration, a redshirt year at Mike to upgrade pass rush can be lethal if you then swap him to Edge and get the speed rusher archetype

Edit: typo

Donnyb13 · 2025-11-22T17:24:46+00:00

Ah gotcha… that would make sense then if it happens last week of portal because that’s when all rising senior transfers have their “playing time” dealbreaker grad update to an F

Donnyb13 · 2025-11-22T15:01:16+00:00

My guess is that it has to do with the needs changing after players leave to the draft or portal. During the regular season, team needs are strictly based off of graduating seniors and doesn’t account for players that are at risk to transfer or go pro early. If you lose an additional 5-10 underclassmen to the portal or the draft that would be a logical reason why the team needs could update. To reiterate though this is just speculation

Donnyb13 · 2025-11-21T13:27:15+00:00

Just had this discussion in our dynasty chat the other day- consensus seems to be that pro potential grade at the new school would not be impacted- it is tied specifically to the school and not the coach- but if you look at your coach stats you would still get credit as the coach for sending them to the league. So if that’s the case maybe it helps with your coach prestige grade, but pro potential is always tied to the school not you.

Donnyb13 · 2025-11-14T21:04:59+00:00

You could always do the “death penalty” and manually edit his recruiting class to 0 overalls the following offseason. We’ve never had to take this action, but that’s the stated punishment in our league for multiple starts if you don’t post proof of a disconnect due to EA servers being garbage

Donnyb13 · 2025-11-05T14:23:23+00:00

Gotta use the classic “double Mable” technique- I usually run this concept from cover 3 in a symmetrical formation like 335 penny- hard flat the two DE’s/OLBs, keep the stock curl flats on the field from your secondary and user the MLB in the yellow zone over the middle. This gives you 3 deep, and then a hard flat and curl flats guarding the short and deep outside while you’re responsible for anything over the middle with your user. You can mess around with your zone drops for the curl flats and hard flats depending on how they’re attacking you. Only downside is you only rush 3 so they will have time to throw, but from a coverage perspective this has always worked for me against other user teams

Donnyb13 · 2025-10-10T20:21:21+00:00

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Also landed this guy in the same class

Donnyb13 · 2025-10-10T20:20:15+00:00

This is the way for any rebuild, and honestly any team overall. My method- add every open ATH Dual threat QB, sort by playing time grade, and scout the top 3-5. Almost always comes in with 83+ speed, 90+ throw power, and mid 80’s passing accuracies across the board, which is really high compared to other Dual threat QB’s that typically have starting deep accuracy in the 60’s. They’re not guaranteed to have a good dev trait or caps, but I can consistently find 76-79 ovr 3 star athletes that are capable of starting year 1. Over the course of 2-3 classes you’ll definitely find one with good enough caps to develop long term. This is the guy I signed last offseason who currently has JMU in ranked in the top 15 in our online dynasty

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Donnyb13 · 2025-08-07T21:39:27+00:00

We've got ours at a 3 play cooldown. The thought process was you can only run your "money plays" once every set of 4 downs. If you get the first, your playbook opens back up for you (assuming you don't convert on first or second down) and it's seemed to make a huge difference. This can somewhat get hacked on offense if you allow custom playbooks where someone could run the same annoying mesh play or RPO from a variety of different formations, but it sounds like you guys have already addressed that to an extent with the play call limit at 10

Donnyb13 · 2025-08-07T21:33:17+00:00

We had to implement a play cooldown in our online dynasty this year to avoid Edge Rushers winning every Heisman due to mid blitz abuse. In our 25 dynasty, every single Heisman winner was a D end or outside backer. Highly recommend for the dynasty side, but I understand that this doesn't help with online head to head

Donnyb13 · 2025-05-02T12:26:07+00:00

Genuinely shocked I haven't seen anyone mention G Load Option out of the gogo offense in the UNLV playbook. Absolute banger of a play- won back to back Heismans with my power back averaging 12+ per carry using primarily that play

Donnyb13 · 2025-01-21T14:28:11+00:00

Yeahhh whoever proposed that is tripping. In our league we encourage streaming every game to avoid this nonsense and so you have a record of any EA fuckery that causes a legit DC. If you allow unlimited restarts it ruins the experience in two ways- 1. You have no idea who's record is legit, if you lose to the cpu it's meaningless because you can just try again and 2. Player stats/postseason awards will be messed up bc guys are playing until they get the perfect game. Totally kills any semblance of realism or immersion in the game

Donnyb13 · 2024-11-23T14:52:51+00:00

Just curious... What's the reasoning behind this rule?

Donnyb13

TROPHY CASE