Posted by realist9900 on 11/1/2017 2:45:00 PM (view original):
Posted by nitros on 11/1/2017 2:24:00 PM (view original):
SPD is a critical factor (offense and defense) in the "open or not" portion of the passing tree. Please note that all defense is zone and the defenders in that zone are considered as a group, modified by the next closest group.
nitros (James)
Funny that in real football speed means squat for either offense or defense vs a zone defense.
I'm pretty new to the game and understand that real football != gridiron engine all the time, but this was what I thought of too when I started browsing through the forums a month ago looking for linebacker advice. I'm not saying speed isn't important, especially in the scenario where I want to play only a 3-4. But if we're talking a zone defense, I'm thinking that GI and even ATH are arguable more important than raw speed (of course, I'm using real life logic here). I see speed mentioned as one of the top two most important attributes almost every time I see someone talking about linebackers...not only does that go against what I would consider intuitive, but if you go by the default role ranking for the position, speed is literally tied with TECH for the 5th most important attribute and is significantly under STR, GI, TKL, and ATH.
I value the experience of players that have been here way longer than me, but I'd like to hear a solid argument for prioritizing speed for your linebackers. For example, referring to "SPD is a critical factor (offense and defense) in the "open or not" portion of the passing tree"...does anyone have any good examples over a sample size of games where, say, a much faster running back or TE that was otherwise statistically comparable to the linebackers burning the defense for a ton more passes then they did normally against faster defenses? Is there an example where a RB much faster than the LBs burned them a lot on outside runs compared to how he usually does against other faster defenses?