Facing a strong pass rush and strategic blitzes can be frustrating, and that’s the point for the defense, to frustrate the offense and try to force bad decisions.

In online game play, especially with a football game, you’ll also run into opponents who simply try to dominate and overwhelm you into submission by running heavy blitzes every play, and sometimes running a particular blitz, setup in a particular way, that confuses (glitches) the offensive line’s blocking logic. The cheese blitzers.

Fortunately, if you stay calm and use your head rather than letting these blitzes frustrate you, they’re not that hard to counter in Maximum Football, and often (especially against the cheese blitzers) once you counter their one blitz play and start lighting them up downfield you flip the frustration onto them because they don’t know what to do.

I’m not going to go into a bunch of specific formations on offense or talk about specific blitzes on defenses, because a) I don’t want to spread around the blitzes that confuse blocking logic, and b) the truth is they can be countered from any offense and formation, you just have to figure out what works for your favorite plays.

What I will share is what works for me out of the formations I most use, and you can take the concepts from this and apply them to your playbook and favorite formations or plays.

I run the Pro Style playbook most of the time, at least in MPL play, because the cards my team has include 3 high-end wide receivers and 2 strong TE’s, with only 1 strong RB. If I had a stronger second RB I’d probably run the Power Run playbook instead and hopefully I’ll get the card to do that effectively soon, I’m old school and like the condensed sets and having 2 RB’s on the field better.

But for now Pro Style is the playbook that fits my offensive players best.

When passing, I generally line up in either the Doubles or Gun Solo formation. Of course there are some decent running plays out of both too, but those are typically how I’ll line up to pass.

With Gun Solo, some plays put the RB on the same side of the QB as the TE, and other plays put him on the opposite side of the QB from the TE. When I face a heavy (or cheese) blitzer, I always pick plays that line up the RB on the opposite side of the QB from the TE, this works best.

In Doubles formation the RB is lined up directly behind the QB so all of the plays become available.

Now, to counter blitzing, the first thing I’m going to do is just block my RB. When you hot route a player to block you can pick whether he blocks to the left or right, if I’m in Gun Solo (remember I pick plays that lineup the RB on the opposite side of the QB from the TE) I’m going to cross-block the RB in the direction of the TE so that off the snap he’s moving in front of and across the QB’s body in his blocking assignment. For a majority of blitzes in the game this alone will give you a few more seconds to get your throws off.

If I’m in Doubles formation then I’ll block the RB to the opposite side from the TE. He doesn’t move in front of the QB but he moves quickly to the line and again for most blitzes in the game this is going to give you enough time to make a quick pass.

In about 80% of the games I’ve played this is enough to counter basic pass rushes and blitzes, but it’s not really enough when you come up against a heavy/cheese/glitch blitzing opponent.

In those cases, I also block my TE. I use the same directional blocking for the RB as mentioned above, and the TE I always block in the direction of the Center. Now I should note I’m a pocket passer player, so this is what works best to form and hold a pocket for several seconds giving me time to throw the ball. If I were a mobile/rollout type passer, I might block the TE the opposite direction to give me a wider wall to roll out behind. You have to do what fits your style.

That’s it. It’s basic “Max Protect” applied to your offense that doesn’t seem to break from the few glitches I’ve seen some use to try and break your blocking logic, and it gives you 7 blockers which should always give you at least a couple seconds to plant your feet and throw the ball against all other pass rushes and blitzes.

The only other thing I’ll touch on is using route concepts. Especially when you block your TE too, you’re limiting yourself to just 3 receiving options, and if you’re facing a strong/fast pass rush you don’t have time to wait for your speedy receiver to blow past his cover guy on deep Go routes.

Learn and get comfortable with a few 2 receiver route concepts that are quick hitters. You don’t need every play to go for a 50 yard touchdown, you just need to move forward and stay “ahead of the chains”.

Slay, Snag, Ohio, and Dog are just a few solid route concepts against both man and zone coverages behind the blitz, there’s a lot more and you should find what works best for your game:

Generally I’ll run the route concept to the X/Y side and put my Z receiver on either a slant, post, or comeback route depending on whether my opponent is running man or zone coverage behind their blitzing.

Any time I face a blitzer or strong pass rush doing all this is enough to start moving the ball and forcing them to change their defensive plan once they find I’m dotting them up behind their blitz.

Good luck, have good games, and let me know in the comments if you’ve got a different strategy for beating the blitz.