As a Madden 24 player, my approach revolves around coverage strategies. Each year, certain metas such as corner routes and bunch trips tight formations tend to trouble many players online. I take immense pride in effectively countering these prevalent metas through strategic coverage adjustments. In this guide, I will dissect 5 tips, catering to players ranging from beginners to those seeking super-advanced techniques. These insights are designed to elevate your coverage skills swiftly.

Tip 5: Base Align

Let’s start it off with the number 5 tip. You should be playing the game of base align auto-alignment. If you don’t play with base align, every coverage that you could call is going to come with tells. Let’s come out on Cover 1. First things first, you see that we have a single high alignment. Notice the alignment of our 2 safeties, 2 high Cover 2 Man. Now let’s audible to Tampa 2. Notice the width change in the outside corners. Now it’s audible to Cover 3, single high, but kind of looks like Cover 1.

Let’s take a look back at Cover 1. Notice the depth change of the outside corners. Let’s look at Cover 4, which just like 2-man under. Different alignment by the outside corners. The point that I’m trying to make here with this is that if you are playing anyone who knows anything about this game, you need to make sure your coaching suggestion is set to baseline.

This is going to make sure that your players are locked into a position no matter what play call you have as soon as you break the huddle. So now we can come out in that Cover 1, audible to the 2-man under, audible into the Cover 3, and audible into the Cover 2, and you’re going to see that we have the same alignment from all of our defensive backs. This is going to make it so much easier to set up more consistent blitz pressures, as well as disguising your coverage behind those blitzes as well.

Tip 4: Mable Coverage

Mable coverage is your friend. So many players are afraid to attack the user in the middle of the field in Madden 24 for that matter. To make sure that your opponent has to attack your user, the coverage known as Mable is very prominent. In which players will set 30 yard flats, 5 yard Curl Flats, and they will come out in some sort of Cover 2 or Cover 4 and make these adjustments. By having 2 5 yard purples and 2 30 yard blues on both sides of the field, your opponent will have to throw into the middle because the sidelines are going to be covered. You’ll note that if you actually look at this coverage, it still can be thrown to the sideline.

Tip 3: Back Up 30-Yard Flats

Then comes for our number 3 tip. Your 30 yard blues must be backed up. So whether you want to do this individually or globally, you will want to make sure that they are in an off alignment by backing them up to 12 yards off the ball. They will play the correct depth that is necessary to defend a corner route. Now, in this situation, you’re looking at interceptions instead of wondering why your coverage broke down.

Tip 2: Deep Out Zone KO

A lot of players do not know the grid that deep out knockout works in this game. In fact, a lot of players in Madden 24 will actually use deep in KO when running a Cover 3 base defense after all they think that middle third defender should have that ability. The deep out KO works on the field from the hash marks all the way to the sideline on either side of the field.

So even if you are using a middle third defender, it’s better to have the deep out KO because you’re going to run more coverages in which that player can actually impact throws like corner routes to the sideline, for instance. After all, if the only area in the middle of the field that a deep out KO doesn’t work is basically roughly 10 yards between the hash marks.

Tip 1: Break The Huddle

Keep the play that you break the huddle in on defense in your audibles. Let’s take, for instance, that I have zone drops active. I’m coming out in Tampa 2. Maybe I fear that corner route we were just talking about, but I have that zone drop set to 30, and I’ve backed it up. But then suddenly, my opponent decides that they want to maybe audible. Now, I’m put in a spot where I don’t want that 30 yard blue anymore. So I reset my play, resetting the play when you have zone drops on changes your zones back to default setting.

As a result, I can actually be in a spot where if my opponent were to try something, maybe like an out a route from the slot, I won’t have a player in a 30-yard setting. And then they’ll audible or motion into something where you want those zone drops back. But then I want them back on.

I have covered 2 already in the audibles. Choose it from the audible menu, and your zone drops go back to where they were. So now if you want that 30-yard setting, it’s all the way reset, and you’re going to be in a spot where you can defend that route for you once again. Keep the play in your audibles. That does it for today’s list of tips that will help you in coverage, no matter your skill level.