How do you like your cheese? Perhaps melted between two pieces of bread in a classic grilled cheese? Or spread over tortilla chips with guacamole or salsa for a delish plate of nachos. Maybe you’re like me and you eat string cheese in front of the fridge at 2:00 AM while contemplating life and the universe. Regardless of how you use it, cheese is great, except when it comes to Madden 26 and various other similar sports games, where uncreative and/or untalented players utilize plays (usually just one or two routes in the play) with high success rates over and over again to gain easy yards without putting a second thought into their offense.
These types of players annoy me to my core, because while I also enjoy utilizing good offensive plays, there is also an unwritten rule in Madden that if you want the game to be fun, you need to mix up your play calling and create a balanced offensive attack. If you are just going to cheese out routes and crossers all game, where is the fun in the game? Where is the competition? If it’s impossible to stop, we’ve lost the soul of the game, and these plays I am going to highlight often feel like they are impossible to stop, especially if you’ve been hit with them over and over. But there are some ways to slow these plays down and at least blunt their effectiveness to a degree, such as using good defensive plays and defensive shifts.
Vikings Clearout Rub Return (Gun Trey Open)
The clearout rub return is a Vikings play designed to get a playmaker the ball quickly with space to make a big play. It is a perilous play for opposing defenses because it can beat both man-to-man and zone defenses. The primary route is a unique crossing route from the outside receiver (Jalen Nailor, usually, but typically a smart player will move Jefferson into this spot, so I will reference this route as Jefferson’s henceforth) in trips formation. He breaks inside immediately and uses the two interior receivers to “rub” your cornerback off of him in man coverage. The receiver next to Jefferson cuts out and breaks back in specifically to knock a corner off their pursuit. He then proceeds to trail Jefferson about five yards back, acting as a secondary option over the middle or (ideally) as a blocker downfield for Jefferson.
There is also a go route and running back checkdown on this play, which restricts your options on how to cover it. They can hit the go route if you sell out to stop the short pass, and they can also check it down if you manage to blitz while user-covering Jefferson’s route.
Defensive Counter
There are a couple of things I’ve done that have had some success, but nothing that is an absolute killer of the play. The best recommendation for what play to call is a simple cover one hole, move the deep safety to to covering the outer third on the trips side to eliminate the go route, then take your other safety, who will be lined up on the middle trips receiver and change his coverage to hook curl, which will leave that receiver coverage less for a moment (which is the big weakness in this plan) but the cheeser doesn’t know that, and that route is hardly used. After about a second, the receiver will run back into your safety zone, and you’ll be good, but you’re going to need to risk it for that first second.
The other option is to play zone coverage, using the linebacker or deep safety (on the side opposite of the trips) and just following Jefferson to the best of your ability. A good player can easily manipulate zone on a route like that, but if you are also covering in man, it gets much more difficult, forcing your opponent to beat you with another route.
Dolphins HB Angle Screen (Gun Trey Open)
Another gun trey open play, but this one is a lot simpler than the clearout run return, as it’s just an HB screen play, a really unique and smart screen, but just a screen nonetheless. What makes this play extremely dangerous is the speed of the Dolphins’ running backs, particularly De’Von Achane, who, if you don’t tackle him immediately, this play is almost guaranteed to be a first down, if not a touchdown.
I will say, if this play is being consistently cheesed, it’s not going to be very effective, because you can stop a screen play, even a screen play like this that has the runner take an unusually wide out and in route while the offensive linemen sneak around the D-linemen and into the second level, if you know it’s coming. The most effective way to cheese this play is to use it at most in one or three plays (which I would argue is still sufficiently cheesy enough for this list.
Defensive Counter
The blocking AI in Madden isn’t known for being the best, especially on screens, so it is fairly easy to get around them while ushering a middle linebacker if you can react quickly enough before the play fully develops. To help you be in a better position every down to make that play when the screen is called, I recommend using a 4-3 defense with an outside linebacker that is always placed in zone coverage on the weak side of the field where the running back is lined up. If you want to use that player, that’s fine, but always have him there, playing underneath coverage, so that you can flip to him immediately and make the play on the ball.
Chiefs PA TE Leak (I Formation Close)
A fan favorite for players that use the high-powered Chiefs offensive playbook (which is in itself kind of cheese), this play utilizes Travis Kelce’s (or any tight end’s) great athletic ability and route running in an out route angled towards the pile on for a perfect redzone play. It also has an in-breaking route that crosses Kelce’s route for a scissor route combo for Xavier Worthy streaking across the middle of the field about 15 to 20 yards deep for a great option against man coverage. To cap it off, Rashee Rice is on the weak side running a deep go route with an in-breaking angle about 30 yards down the field for a deep play option when two other options are covered. It has three great route options for big play production and is dangerously damaging to opposing defenses.
Defensive Counter
Using a basic cover three sky coverage out of either 3-4 or 4-3 tends to take away the Kelce route, which makes defending the rest of the play much easier. You can then take the weak side corner covering rice and have him cover him using man coverage, this will allow you to essentially give up the weak side of the field and take your weak side safety that usually covers the flat, and user cover the middle of the field in between the two linebacker zones, this should at least give you a chance to stop this play.
Chiefs PA Read (Gun Stack Y Flex)
Another Chiefs play (of course), this is one of my favorite plays because all four routes in this play are all viable options to get big yards, and could all be open in various defensive sets. It’s got stacked receivers on the weak side running peeling routes to the inside, with the front receiver breaking in at a flatter angle about 10 to 15 before the back receiver, who is running the “shot” route on this play that can hit plus thirty yards easy if successful.
On the flip side of the stack receivers is a tight end on the strong side running an inside stunt and out straight to the boundary about five yards deep from the line of scrimmage. Then the main target (although all the routes are great on this play) goes on a comeback route that consistently kills man coverage.
Defensive Counter
You need to play some sort of zone defense to prevent that comeback route from killing you, but if defended right, it might not matter, because I think the best defense of this play is an all-out blitz. Try using a blitz play with an underneath zone coverage. I use crossfire 3 in the 3-4 defense for the New York Giants because I’m loyal to my team, but you can use any blitz you want as long as you cover the underneath zone on the strong side.
The blitz is the perfect defensive counter to this play because there are too many great routes to defend with just pass coverage alone, and with it being a play-action play, you get an extra second for your defense to penetrate the line, and hopefully you’ll kill the play before they can get the ball out.
Any Shallow Cross Or Mesh Play From Any Playbook
First and foremost, I should say, I do use shallow crosses and meshes a lot, but I wouldn’t say it’s “cheese”, there are a lot of plays with crossing routes in the game, what am I gonna do? Not use them? Not hit the open man running between zones or running past their man coverage opponents? No! As long as I use a variety of different plays and have a balanced offense, you can’t call me a cheeser, even if I primarily throw crossers in the middle of the field underneath the defense… am I a Cheeser? No, that’s not possible, I spent this whole article trashing people who cheese plays, I can’t possibly be a hypocrite, I’m a writer on the internet! My ethics are unimpeachable.
Anyway, shallow crossing routes and mesh plays have receivers cut across the field running from zone to zone, or away from man defenders. It’s a great way to add up cheap and easy yards on a drive by hitting speedy playmakers in stride to get YAC.
Defensive Counter
The best way to defend against these plays (although there isn’t one single way that can eliminate them all) is to simply adjust your defense to cover underneath. This will put them in a better position to react to the quick strike to make a quick tackle or make a play on the ball. You can always use a linebacker in zone between the hashes for an added layer of protection in the area where most crossing routes are caught. You should also invest in (whether this is franchise mode or MUT) in fast cornerbacks with high man coverage ratings to best defend against these plays.
