Every Thursday, a leader in the community will share a tip or two to help you improve your Madden game.  Next up is LBZRules from the Madden strategy website Madden Tips.  This week, LBZRules shares an advanced passing tip for the New England Patriots.

Cross Package Concept

We are all about passing concepts. We have been using them the last two years as a way to simplify the passing game for us.. The pass concept is called the Cross Package from a 3x2 formation.

The Shotgun Trips Twin TE is a 3x2 formation that is flexible for our Cross Package. The play we have called here is Curl Flat. Notice the routes on the play. We have a curl/flat concept on the left. The inside WR - Moss in this case is already running a drag. TE #1, Watson is running a post and Brady is running an out route.

The first thing we do here is hot route Watson, TE #1, on the drag route.  Then we give Welker a streak route.  Stallworth is going to complete the Cross package by running an in route. We would prefer this to be a 10 yard dig route, but we do not have that as an option.

We send TE #2, Brady, on a fade route. Now we have two verticals and several players underneath them to exploit both man and zone coverage. For this write up we will focus on beating man coverage.

Our first read against man is Stallworth. This is basically a hike and throw quickly. If it is man coverage and it is a blitz they will not even get close to your QB. That's how fast we throw this out. It's all about timing. If we get press coverage, we switch our read to the mesh first.  This route will be open all day against man coverage.

If we should miss the first read to Stallworth , we move to the second read which is Randy Moss. If Moss gets wide open on the backside. Now this is all about anticipation. The throw to Stallworth that we discussed earlier in this writeup is anticipation. This throw is also all about anticipation. We are anticipating these guys getting to these areas. So we do not spend a great deal of time reading the field. Feel it, anticipate it and
release the football.

Now the Cross Package can be installed into several other formations. We started out with a 3x2 because it is harder to install in those type of formations. It is much easier to install in a 2x2 formation such as Singleback Normal and Singleback Big.  It is also good to install in compressed sets, although spacing is a lot more significant in video games so you want to more careful when installing them in compressed sets such as Singleback Bunch.