Introduction

There’s no easy way to say it - defense is TOUGH in Madden 22. Player speed & reaction times have been drastically tuned down this year on next gen Madden 22, and that’s left a lot of players struggling to get stops. It’s important to realize that YOU WILL STILL GIVE UP A LOT OF POINTS. If you don’t believe me, check out the score in one of the games from this year’s Madden Bowl which featured the best pro players in the world:

With that in mind, I’ve arrived at Nickel Normal with a plan to make defense great again in Madden 22. The primary style of this defense is a conservative/blanket coverage approach, and this is the style I used to go 23-2 in Weekend League. However, following some inspiration from ThatGooseGuy (the other goose in the Madden community and an absolutely incredible player) I’ve decided to add a blitz-heavy style of defense to this Ebook as well:

• Style 1 - Conservative, max coverage approach with occasional blitzes mixed in

• Style 2 - Heavy blitzing that gives out opponent almost zero time to throw

I’ll say up front that Style 2 is riskier and more advanced than Style 1 because of the number of pre-snap adjustments required to run the scheme well. If you’re looking for a scheme that you can run right away, start with Style 1; if you have the time to run some reps in practice mode, then maybe give Style 2 a shot. What’s great about this scheme is that you can use both styles in the same game, and that will just make life even tougher for your opponent.

With regards to playbooks, I choose to run the 46 playbook (it has other great formations like Nickel 335 Wide and Big Nickel Over G), but you can run Nickel Normal in over half the playbooks in the game.