The Ryan Matthews rule

This just being the example, but like Donnie Avery before him, if the only success a team finds is in utilizing their star player is that wrong? Is it any different than the Randy Ratio?

That is why people need to get on the reps thing. We can trake a look at the circumstances with a few more eyes and discussion and help the SC take better action.

This could of easily of been called the "Kenarious Fluellen (21 atts, 324 yards, 4 TDs)" Rule then say.


Not being in the league long, not sure I can comment on such things, if I did manage to find something successful, by chuff I would love to use it more often, if even I had one Go To Play, I have yet to find it. I try to vary my play calling, and I certainly have not played the game enough to know any cheap or spam plays.


I play how I would like to watch a game, if it's mixing up formations, or just mixing up plays within a certain formation. I'm still learning, hell I'd love to know how you break tackles well. My match tonight, I had the Bears RB stuffed on a screen/flat pass in the backfield, he broke 3 or 4 tackles and turned it into a 27 yard gain, that hurts.


Sometimes it's hard to stop plays though. Against the Raiders, Zach Miller had over a ton of yards and 2 TD's, I know Ryan threw to his TE almost half the time, but still couldnt manage to stop it. Vs the Jets, Vincent Jackson got 4 TD's and over 160 yards, and again tonight vs the Bears, I knew he used Olsen alot, as I had played him as the Vikes as a Sub, Olsen still had a massive game, 2 or 3 TD's and Hester had around 70 yards receiving too. He also likes to throw to Forte in the flats, that happened a couple of times too for first downs. I mean Jay Cutler wishes he could play like he does in Madden.


It is afterall a videogame representation of a sport. I mean do you ask for a QB to be benched because he's got a 95% completion rate going on. It's hard, but I think you have a team, and you use it to the best of its' and your own ability, and unfortunately for me, the later lets me down big time.

As much as I love being everyones punching bag, the comparison falls flat. I was losing most of the giants game Ji think, may have been swapping ties. And romp still had more than 10 pass attempts.

If you wanted to rename it it could be the Golden Tate rule. Which was the first player suspended in the 4thsl.

Flu broke off some big ones, I saved the replays. But there were games where the Matt was the only player who touched it on offense.

Not that that's wrong either. That's why I posted this. To discuss it.

I should of put a winky face in there, but it's hard to say it's a total single player issue, Mr Bills showed he could pass the ball, a couple of games later I think McNabb was 22/25 and a few TD's in there too. I do try to scout my opponents if I can, not that it's helping me much, but Flu may never have another game like that, and I doubt Ryan Matthews will either, in the latest game, Matthews was held to 75 yards on 22 carries. Maybe he's lost his Mojo, maybe the Colts went all run stop D and done what other teams couldnt do.


It is a very hard thing to weigh up I guess, but I'm all for discussion about it, and I didnt mean to give you a dig, was merely having a look LM and went, whoa, Jeff got Flu rolling in this game, as the game before you had 15 attempts for 44 yards.

I didn't think you were. Was just trying to make a proper comparison. Usually these things come up based on ratios and records. Like if I blew out the Giants and did what I did with Flu, then it would be an example of stat boosting.

Which this thread is not about, we already have set rules on that. This is about being pigeon holed with a strategy that wins, where deviation loses. Like and all matthews game.

If you were trying other things and ended up the ONLY thing working was say Run Right Pitch Out with your RB and the team you were playing couldnt stop that, but the game was close, I dont think you can really implement a rule about that though. Everyone wants to win, you know teams have certain players who can tear you apart, and they will use them given a chance. I dont know if you can have a hard and fast rule about it though, maybe others will disagree and say you can.


So you can hand of the ball x times to your starting RB and can only pass y times to your key TE, how would it be policed. I know in games I have played, I have tried to pass to say Bush, only for it to be overthrown or underthrown and say Scaife or Marshall managed to catch it (if it wasnt a pick). Tis much too late for me, and I'm probably not making much sense anymore.

Judge Shredd wrote: a couple of games later I think McNabb was 22/25 and a few TD's in there too.

Most (if not all)of those came via spamming certain plays and exploiting the AI of the D via the rollout... A favorite move of some players in the league.

To be honest, there's a lot of apples n' oranges here.

The Ryan Mathews stuff has been talked about at length, but essentially nearly 500 yards and 3 TD in the 3rd qtr alone, which puts the game significantly out of reach, placed Dave in a spot where he should have gone to a different gameplan.

Carl, I'll answer your question: it's nearly impossible for spamming a single play (or a few of them) to really be a decent tactic under the condition that that's "the only thing that worked." For instance, we saw a consistent lack of an ATTEMPT at a passing game for the Bills, which factored into the decision (after Dave had been told, "hey man, mix it up even a little.")

You put it perfectly, I'd like to play the way I want to watch a game. That's impossible to nail down perfectly, because everyone enjoys different things in football, and plays differently. But we can come to conclusions about what isn't "cool" in terms of league stats and the "necessity" to continue a dominating performance, and what is considered "fun."

In your game against the Jets, Vincent Jackson went 9 for 160 and 4 TDs. He also hit Randy Moss something like 5 times for a bunch of yards too. Those stats aren't that uncommon, actually. The Golden Tate stuff (and prior to that, Donnie Avery) that has resulted in suspensions were something like 450 yard, 7 TD games. Stuff that just plain shouldn't happen. Stuff that sucks the fun out of the league.

Back to the original post. Jeff, you're blurring too many lines in this. You've been a part of these decisions in the past, so you may as well ask yourself the same question.

The answer is always, "yes, it is wrong SOMETIMES, and it is fine other times." It's circumstantial, which is the way we need to look at it to begin with.

I was just saying that sometimes, players can have big games, if a WR was scoring 4-5 TD's every game, then that would possibly be closer to spamming as such. I was just recalling my recent games. I played the Bills in Week 2, I think Matthews had over 200 yards that day, and that was after my Week 1 when Charles at the Dolphins had run over me, so I reckoned the Bills owner had seen that on the stats and knew I was weak there and thus continued on the that theme, given he had a good RB, why risk passing when he knew he could win on the ground.


Yes I know everyone likes different things in football, I used to love watching the Run and Shoot Offense run by the Houston Oilers under Jerry Glanville with Warren Moon at QB, it was magical watching that type of never before seen football, 4 WR's on every down! Are they mad, and it proved they were, cause they could never eat up the clock enough and never won a Championship Game with it. Can you imagine how many yards Barry Sanders could of got had he been running in my more standard Offense than the Lions Run and Shoot. Great to watch, not overly effective. Sorry I'm going off track here.


I think you last sentence sums it up Mike.

Well, one thing we have to accept is that we can't translate real-life to Madden, and vice-versa. How you play in real life is quite different compared to how you play "classy" in Madden.

We try to make this league about not being dicks and having fun. But then when it isn't fun, we have to think about WHY it isn't fun.

I think we pretty much need to lay off and accept that Madden 11 sucks, and all await Madden 12.

I am a bit surprised that a human player gave up that much yardage.

Honestly, if he overworks Mathews, then I feel that's his risk. On any one of those plays. he could have lost the guy for the reason of the season. It's no different than when Chris Johnson stays in to try to get 200 yds or whatever.

At first I thought someone rolled yardage up against the CPU on a non-human game. But against a human, feels like no harm, no foul to me. A running play should be stoppable.

mikesuszek wrote:To be honest, there's a lot of apples n' oranges here.

The Ryan Mathews stuff has been talked about at length, but essentially nearly 500 yards and 3 TD in the 3rd qtr alone, which puts the game significantly out of reach, placed Dave in a spot where he should have gone to a different gameplan.

Carl, I'll answer your question: it's nearly impossible for spamming a single play (or a few of them) to really be a decent tactic under the condition that that's "the only thing that worked." For instance, we saw a consistent lack of an ATTEMPT at a passing game for the Bills, which factored into the decision (after Dave had been told, "hey man, mix it up even a little.")

You put it perfectly, I'd like to play the way I want to watch a game. That's impossible to nail down perfectly, because everyone enjoys different things in football, and plays differently. But we can come to conclusions about what isn't "cool" in terms of league stats and the "necessity" to continue a dominating performance, and what is considered "fun."

In your game against the Jets, Vincent Jackson went 9 for 160 and 4 TDs. He also hit Randy Moss something like 5 times for a bunch of yards too. Those stats aren't that uncommon, actually. The Golden Tate stuff (and prior to that, Donnie Avery) that has resulted in suspensions were something like 450 yard, 7 TD games. Stuff that just plain shouldn't happen. Stuff that sucks the fun out of the league.

Back to the original post. Jeff, you're blurring too many lines in this. You've been a part of these decisions in the past, so you may as well ask yourself the same question.

The answer is always, "yes, it is wrong SOMETIMES, and it is fine other times." It's circumstantial, which is the way we need to look at it to begin with.

kraigk wrote:At first I thought someone rolled yardage up against the CPU on a non-human game. But against a human, feels like no harm, no foul to me. A running play should be stoppable.

That's the problem, that's not always the case. If you have a fast enough HB with good agility, you could run pitch-outs all day and never be caught, regardless of what the defense throws at you (an exaggeration, I know. But it certainly feels that way!). I think it's more an issue with suction-blocking in Madden 11, but this is just from my experience. Some disagree.

CJ Spiller aiming for Ryan Matthews records.


What a crazy game the Colts vs Chiefs was, 70v42, CJ Spiller being the KC Chefs offense with 540 of the 634 total O yards, and 7 rushing TD's in a game to still that record from Matthews.


Both teams over 500 yards Offense!

Falling victim to the one you call Ryan Matthews, I feel I'm allowed to say its retarded! I'm all about winning and having fun in this league. But running the ball 40 times a game and only attempting to pass it 7 times is a little ridiculous. Granted my offense couldn't do anything! I mean anything! The weather conditions were horrible (which hopefully played a part in why he ran it so much) The wind was 20 mph or something crazy like that. Colt Mccoys passes just sailed over receivers.

Then came his game against the BengalSeats. Once again same situation. Ran it another 35+ times. If something works for you, I say use it but don't over-use it. It has more sucking power than a whore vacuuming.

If you like to run make your play calling 60% run 40% pass or something marginally close to that, not 97% run and 3% run.

Thats all I'm going to say about that.

Try to use accurate stats when making these points guys. Exaggeration is not fair to the discussion. Not specifically your post Gary, but using it as an example, no one has ever attempted 40 runs in a game.

He ran 39 times for 191 yards in week 10 against me.

Yea I exaggerated a little on the stats in Kris's game but mine were accurate.

Matthews has 74 more attempts than the closest play while racking up 500 more yards than the next guy. Also he was suspended 2 games. I'm not trying to attack the Bills but It's a little ridiculous in my opinion.

I know Jamaal Charles had a crazy year last season, I don't recall any of his stats. Does anybody know if Matthews is on pace for a similar year or is Jamaal Charles a thing of the past?

We can compare in LM. It saves all data year over year. At work now though.

It wouldn't allow me to look at the full stats(there was an error) but Charles had 1727 yards last year and 2,289 in the 2nd season(The season I was referring too, seemed like it was last year). Ryan Matthews has 1981 yards already this year and 5 games to go! Had he not been suspended I feel Jamaal Charles's record would have been shattered by now.

I'm done bitching though.

Charles also did not play 16 games. Injured as I recall it.

Season 2 or 3?