In other words, it would be nice if I could call plays based on the offensive personnel on the field for that play. This is how it is done at just about every level of football. Certainly, it's more complicated... but it's better than having my base defense out against 4 WRs on 1st and 10, or Dime defense against the TwoTE set, or Nickel against Jumbo... In PF20 now, you have to have plays in your playbook that can cover all circumstances... so, at the least, you have to have a base, nickel (Nickel or 335) and Dime set in your playbook. What this causes is, often times, bad matchups which could be easily avoided if you could pick a defense based, in part, by what offensive personnel are out on the field. This sometimes happens in pro football, but it's the CHOICE of the DC to put the guys out there that may be mismatched.
With this, you'd also need to be able to be more accurate in assigning coverage in man coverage. For example, Spread vs a base 43 defense... I'd like my best cover safety covering the 3rd WR in this defense. If that's my SS, this won't happen because he's on the far side of the field. But, if we could choose who covers whom, and we can choose to 'Move Players to their Coverage Target', then that SS would move over to line up over the 3rd WR. Better, though, would be that I can have my nickel defense in as much or little as I'd like against the Spread formation, which is much better than me seeing the 43 or dime out there against the Spread.
I know this would be a long term thing to put into the game, and require some extra work... but it would make the game a lot more manageable on the defensive end. Part of the problem I think you have, stat-wise, is that you have to keep dumbing down the offensive top end... the reason is that defense in this game is not set up to do what it's supposed to do... defend efficiently. Better defensive controls means more strategy. More strategy means more reasonable long term statistics. As I said in another thread, if a guy wants to run the ball 90% of the time and try to get his RB 3000 yards rushing, it'll be tough if the defense has the ability to build something to stop that... then you don't need to adjust settings. Right now, you feel you need that simply because the offense can easily dominate any defense, because of lack of ability for the defense to properly adjust to different offensive strategies.
Yes, I know, I talk a lot about defense. I love defense. I've read books on defenses from Tom Landry's 'Flex' defense, to the Tampa Two defense, to Bill Belichick's 34 defense, to Buddy Ryan's 46 defense, to the current defensive craze, the Under Defense. I love it, and I'd love to see more of it. In FOF, I found a scheme that no one else used, or tried to use, in the game and was always a top 5 defense. In Goalline Blitz, I was a championship defensive coordinator for many seasons, before the game started dying out from disinterest and Goalline Blitz 2. It's so hard to find a game that gives defense a fair shake, and I'd really like to see more ability to actually gameplan the defense.
