Playbooks
Franchise Playsheet
Heavy Sets is a 30 play situational playsheet built around one idea: line up in personnel nobody practices against and run downhill. Seventy percent of the book lives in three formations that barely exist in Madden (Power I shows up in 4 of the game's 236 playbooks, Maryland I in 5, Split T in 7), and the concept list backs that up: Iso, Power Run, Dive, Power, Toss, QB Sneak, Designed QB Run and Misdirection. The personnel groupings are 32 (3 RB, 2 TE), 31 (3 RB, 1 TE, 1 WR) and 23 (2 RB, 3 TE), so you are asking your opponent to line up against three backs and two tight ends with no spread look available as a bailout. HB Blast out of Power I and FB Dive out of both Maryland I and Split T are the spine of the run game.
The formation split is deliberately flat: Power I at 9 plays (30%), Shotgun at 9 plays (30%), Maryland I at 6 plays (20%) and Split T at 6 plays (20%), each from a single set. That single set per formation matters, because it means every play you call from Power I comes out of the same alignment, and your opponent gets no pre-snap tell from the formation itself. Shotgun is the only relief valve, and it carries the Pass Play, Play Action, Wheel and Mesh Sit work (Mesh Sit is your primary man beater in the entire book).
Choosing Heavy Sets over a balanced franchise playsheet is a trade: you give up multiplicity and empty looks in exchange for a run game that forces base defense onto the field and a Shotgun package that punishes the heavy boxes you just created. If you want to grind clock, win short yardage with QB Sneak and Designed QB Run, and hit play action off nine plays of Power I tendency, this is the book. If you want four and five receiver sets, it does not exist here.
Heavy Sets wants a physical roster: big-bodied run blocking tight ends and fullbacks for the 32 and 23 groupings, at least two backs with power and trucking, and a quarterback with enough speed and ball carrier vision to make QB Sneak and Designed QB Run real threats instead of wasted calls. Your receiving corps can be thin since the book never plays more than one wide receiver in its heavy personnel, but you need one back who catches well to run the Wheel and the Shotgun Play Action checkdowns. Pick this playbook if you are a clock control, tendency-breaking player who enjoys forcing base defense onto the field and does not need spread formations to feel comfortable.
Coaches who run it: Dan Campbell, Jim Harbaugh, Nick Sirianni, Kevin Stefanski
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Set Power I as your primary audible formation since it holds 9 plays from one set, and lean on HB Blast and the Power Run concepts on first and second down between the 20s to establish the heavy tendency.
Put Maryland I and Split T in your short yardage audibles and call FB Dive on third and one or fourth and one, then flip to Toss or Misdirection from those same sets once your opponent starts crashing the interior.
Save Shotgun for second and long and third down, where Mesh Sit beats man coverage and Play Action punishes linebackers that triggered on the 21 plays of run you already showed.
Use the Wheel concept out of Shotgun against single high looks after a Power I drive, since the 31 grouping lets a back release from a compressed backfield with no safety help outside.
Hot route a tight end from the 23 grouping on a sit or drag before the snap when you are in Power I and the defense stacks the box, giving you a cheap answer without leaving heavy personnel.
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