Madden 12 PA Slot Drag

Tight formations have been popular in football video games since Madden 05.  They are just as effective in Madden 12 so we decided to breakdown a great play to call out of the singleback tight slots formation when you need a few yards.

Play: PA Slot Drag

Setup:

1. Hot route your L1/LB receiver to a streak
2. Hot route your square/X receiver to a slant out
3. Block your running back

Reads:

1. Your first read is a quick pass to your O/B receiver
2. If he is covered, immediately look to your square/X receiver on the slant out
3. Your last read is your X/A receiver on the shallow drag route

Now I want to get into reading the defense as it relates to this play.

You can see that the cornerback covering your wide receiver is on the right side of him.  This instantly signals that you should look to your square/X receiver because when this receiver breaks to the sideline, he will be covered.

You can see that the square/X receiver on the slant towards the sideline is wide open.  The receiver running the drag route takes the defenders in shallow zones, while your L1/LB receiver on the streak route takes the deep zones downfield.

Now let’s run this play another time.  Now the defense is in a different coverage.  In this play, you can see that the defender covering our circle/B receiver is on the left side of him.  This should instantly signal to you that once your wide receiver makes his break to the sideline, you should throw it to him with precision pass to the right.

If anything is unclear drop a note in the comments section, and I will get back to you.