I may only be speaking for myself, but the passing game hasn't really improved at all over 2.0, in my opinion. My biggest gripe with 2.0 was that unless you were running a very conservative offense, you wouldn't have the greatest success passing and even then, your QB would inevitably chuck a deep ball on 3'rd and 1 that would be intercepted (at least we can control that aspect now). In 2.0, long or deep balls were almost always intercepted and if not, generally were incomplete. I'm seeing the same thing here in 3.0 and it's disappointing to me. In round three of the playoffs today, against a very good human coached team, all 127 pass attempts between both teams were attempted "behind the line of scrimmage"... 127 pass attempts, ALL behind the line of scrimmage. That's pretty much all that works with any success and if that's going to be the case with the final version, then nothing has really changed. My qb led Romero DIII with over 4600 yards passing, 81% completion, 35 TD, 9 ints, and 1200 yards rushing with 6 rushing TDs (more than all my RBs combined). All of the passing was "Very Short" settings. This is just no fun at all and though it may be my team (and yes, I realize Norbert just put out a notice that running was changed and I haven't had time to sim anything this evening), but my RBs can't generate ANYTHING on the ground. I've simmed hundreds upon hundreds of games with every conceivable combination of all run, all pass, 50/50, inside, outside, vs. every defense in every setting. Unless you're running Shottie 100% Pass, Deep vs. 52 100% Run, Short, the passing game seems broken. Maybe my RBs just suck, but in 2.0, at the DIII level, RBs with SPD in the 50's and ELU in the 50's and 60's were pretty productive. And a receiver with 65 speed, 69 hands and 64 elusiveness should be able to easily catch balls beyond short vs. db's and safeties with 50 speed and sub-40 technique, especially when facing a 34 or 44 set at run short coverage.
I know some will chime in that they're having great success passing deep. My question would be, are you having success against humans or sims. In 17 games, I only played 5 sims (2 in the playoffs), so my observations are against human coached teams. I left my pass settings at very short, primarily because it's the only thing that had any consistent success, but I was also curious if anyone could shut it down. Only one coach was able to slow it down. In the playoff game today, I tried a different approach defensively in the first half that seemed to somewhat work in test games, but failed in the actual game, so in the second half, I mirrored what he was doing with similar success. In any event, I'm REALLY trying to not write the game off just yet, in hopes that this new version will bring me back into the fold, but at this point the only difference I see are the added bells and whistles that allow you more control over what you want your team to do and who you want to do it... but, if nothing in the passing game beyond "short" is successful and if the qb has more than twice the rushing yards the RB does, and if I'm running 100% blitz against an all pass team and get 0 sacks, then I doubt that they'll pull me back in. Seriously, I've ran test games with 100% blitz on every play and not one sack in 70+ plays? I'll give it one more beta season, but if it's more of the same, unfortunately, it will be adios.