Anybody have any thoughts on this? Thinking about trying it with my Washington Huskies team.. I was using a 4-4 ,Nickle package but was thinking about a total 4-4. Any thoughts on how to run this ?

If you had some athletic/fast LBs you might be able to get away with it. You'd have to have excellent DBs too. But if you're only playing 3 DBs at a time, you could allocate more recruiting effort/money to make sure you got studs

I agree with bigpoppa that you'd need to have some LBs that could fill in as crossover DBs. But seeing how many teams throw to the RBs these days, it would be interesting to see how this would work out. I don't know if many have really tried this.

It seems like you'd gain the ability to run an 8 man front and lose the ability to put 8 guys in coverage. Unless you plan to use the 8 man front, the 3-4 would seem to be a better option.

I remember way back when deandg used to run 4-4 against everything, including shotgun, and he stopped almost everyone he played. Getting really fast LB's was a big part of it. Of course, that was in an earlier version of the game so not sure if it still works or not.

Posted by vhoward415 on 9/6/2017 1:04:00 PM (view original):
I remember way back when deandg used to run 4-4 against everything, including shotgun, and he stopped almost everyone he played. Getting really fast LB's was a big part of it. Of course, that was in an earlier version of the game so not sure if it still works or not.

I welcome everyone to try it.

Should work still, right?

Always thinking Gt. :)
Ive thought bout it myself. What stopped me is a large number of coaches still run Trips and I thought trips might be deadly vs the 4-4 .
But there's only way to find out.........

I'll jump in, but always defer to the better coaches here...

I have always thought of defenses this way.... If you have two "Hero" or "Monster" style OLBs on your roster (Think Ronnie Lott / Rod Woodson types),

Pos	Name	A	SPD	D	WE	ST	STR	BLK	TKL	H	GI	E	T	OVR	Miles	Considering

DB

Kenneth Flores

63

85

50

57

42

62

23

83

64

74

87

49

71.0

1067

undecided

LB

Jason Spivey

71

80

35

48

41

90

32

90

31

67

90

53

75.4

1422

undecided

There is no real difference between the 3-4 and Dime formation with the exception of WHO these two OLB/ CB3/4 cover in the simulation. Same thing with the 4-3 and Nickel (only one OLB / CB3 though). What I would give to run the "Dime" formation and have CB3/CB4 cover the RB/TE instead of having to fight over Speedy LBs!. Alas, it will probably never be...

These guys can be recruited (Good luck on getting them though given the way recruiting is set up). If the SIM didn;t make such draconian drops in ratings when you switch DBs to LBs (or visa versa) and treated them like tweeners as they should be, the 4-4 would also start to look like the Nickel of today. Until then, I would stay away from the 4-4 only because it offers the least amount of personnel flexibility

The 4-4 works wonders against an offense with only one WR (a.k.a my Wishbone and the ND Box) since you need more LB's to cover the 3RBs/2TEs. Vs Trips , shotgun, pro and I formations, it would be much harder. The 5-2 works well, against most formations (except shotgun), IF you have two Stud Hero types each at LB AND CB.. This is why positional recruiting to fit the scheme combined with FIQ and game planning is paramount to winning. Given the current incarnation of the engine (No/Low QB INTs, 60 touches for a RB, Isolations versus "slow" LBs), running the 4-4 offers the least amount of speed (again, unless you have Heros) on the field to cover the "Air Raid" offenses that are prevalent in all the worlds.

Namaste.

dalailama - That is one of the better posts on this forum. +1.

nitros (James)