Talk Fantasy Football

We probably all know the standard five player cage.

However I'm noticing that more experienced players seldom use that (at least against AG3 teams). instead there may only be one player adjacent to the ball carrier, and than a sort of "cloud" in the area.


Anyway, any advice on advanced caging?

Also, any advice for the "breakthough" stage. I.e. you've ground forward until you're a couple steps into their side of the field, and now you only have two turns to get the TD.

The "cloud" screen works best close to a sideline as it reduces the angles you have to cover. You're right though, it seems to be a favourite of good agile team coaches. The goal is to a) force a blitz to hit someone besides the ball carrier and b) force that blitzer to still have to get through tackle zones to mark the ball carrier even if he POWs the screening player.

It's that second part, where the defender can't even mark the ball carrier, that is the most effective part of the tactic.

Deploying it just really depends on your player skills. You can use the better screeners (players with fend, blodge, sidestep, tackle, diving tackle) in the leading edges of the cloud where you might not be able to have another man preventing the blitzer from advancing. Other than that, the only trick is to stay conservative and keep your escort disengaged and force the defence to make desperation roles that lead to turnovers in your favour.

The breakthrough stage is really down to player design. A burst player who can catch the ball in traffic (NOS, Catch, Extra Arms, High AG) should be at the leading edge of your screen to take a handoff for the quick score.

I guess a lot of it comes down to building your team with this tactic in mind in advance so you have the specialty players up your sleeve for good screening and bursting when you need them.

I still use the standard 5 player close formation when caging.

It depends ...

usually i use "classic" X-cages because it uses up the least amount of space on the pitch and provides maximum security using five players only. If i have additional range on the front players compared to the center players, i also like to stretch it a bit into 4x3 squares or even 4x4 squares and move one or two additional players into the center which makes it easier to move forward in the coming turn and helps to deal with the cage swarm defence.

If you use more players even to cover up the ball, i'd not call it a cage anymore, but a cloud or swarm. This works for the very slow, strong and bashy teams, but i don't like it as it limits your options to the cage run itself as you have to commit many players to it. This also leaves many defenders free to concentrate on defending the cloud.

The 5 man closed cage is the safest

hard to get players into and your players are close enough together to usually be able to block the ball carrier free.

A looser cage if you move one of the corner players out the way you can really swam the ball carrier and force some agility rolls. It may also limit the options of players to do a hand off too as well.

To keep it moving you need to try and anticipate where you can break through the opposing defence and keep a few of your players ahead of the cage where you want to move it too.

Hard to really put it into text, I'll see about doing some demo videos at some point with accompanying commentary.

It depends on who you are playing. I know one good coach who when stronger/bashier than his opponent normally leaves one part a little more vulnerable - maybe you'll get 2 dice against a Sure Hands player. However he positions so that even if knocked down the extended cage makes it very unlikely the ball will go anywhere dangerous.

DoubleSkulls wrote:It depends on who you are playing. I know one good coach who when stronger/bashier than his opponent normally leaves one part a little more vulnerable - maybe you'll get 2 dice against a Sure Hands player. However he positions so that even if knocked down the extended cage makes it very unlikely the ball will go anywhere dangerous.

Oof. That is a strategy that seems very dangerous indeed, unless you are LESS bashy than the opposition.

When you are bashy the ball is quite likely to scatter out of your cage if the ballcarrier is brought down, since the corners of the cage will probably not catch it.

Cloggy wrote: When you are bashy the ball is quite likely to scatter out of your cage if the ballcarrier is brought down, since the corners of the cage will probably not catch it.

I think that is what DS meant by the extended cage, that the cage is not in a tight formation, and so is likely to still be in your own TZs, and certainly in a spot where it is difficult to be removed by the opposition

assuming you have players that can pick up balls somewhat reliably (aka not like Khemri). I wouldn't risk it otherwise.

So an extended cage uses screens, while a closed cage uses fences and trap wedges. On it. I'll have an article later this week.

Personally, I like looser cages. It's very hard to keep a 5-man "closed" cage clear unless you have a big numerical advantage, as it's too easy to get chainpushes to put the ball in the open. A lot depends on whether your cage is built off the LOS or along a sideline, whether you cage in the backfield, near the line, or downfield, your team's returning/passing/caging skills, and your opponent's relative assets in all phases of the game. Well, ok, passing skills are not relative... but you see what I mean. There are a lot of factors to consider.

Not sure if this helps, but one thing that I always try to keep in mind is how to actually MOVE the cage. Most of my experience in caging is from using a Dwarf team for a full season (about 14 games). Against high AGI teams, they'll set up a space off of your cage limiting your ability to cover any real distance (as you are limited to 1 blitz!). This caused a few of my cages in earlier games to stall out and really put the "grind" into the grind.

One thing that I try to do regardless of whether it's a tight or loose cage is to keep a troll slayer or blitzer free of the cage to do opportunity blitzes, often with the intent of clearing opposing players to make a nice hole for the cage to flow through. With frenzy the TS is much better at this as you can always pick a push to move someone, then hit 'em again hopefully making the hole wider.

Another thing I do when I have enough players is to put two carriers into or near the cage. One of my lead cagers is often a runner with block. If a hole opens and an opportunity presents, I can have the inner runner (or blitzer, as those are the only two positions that typically carry the ball!) do a hand off and let the second runner do a break away, usually followed by a blitzer or TS to for a mini-cage to keep the opponents off of him when he goes.

Playing that way I've won way more games than I've lost. Of course, pounding the crap out of the opposing team to gain a numerical advantage doesn't hurt either.