Madden 25 Patch Fixes Aspects of Zone Coverage, Custom Stems Glitch

Some of the biggest issues with Madden 25 among the community include zone coverage issues and CPU playcalling. Portions of one of those issues have been patched in the latest Madden 25 update.

I’m going to list the full patch notes before getting into the specifics for each item:

• Addressed the issue with Smart Routed Custom Stems resulting in a Speed Boost off the line at the snap
• Tuning to decrease the effectiveness of a specific QB-rollout speed boost exploit
• Addressed an issue preventing the Curl Flat zone depth coach adjustment from working properly when set at less than 15 yards
• Addressed an issue causing Curl Flat defenders to continue to drift away from an eligible receiving threat in close proximity
• Addressed an issue causing outside Deep Third defenders to get out of position when covering corner routes, or giving up too much cushion vs. corner routes.
• Addressed an issue in Squads causing the QB control to switch to a teammate at the snap

The Smart Route Custom Stems speed burst was obviously more of an issue online. It was very much a glitch and does seem to be fixed after the patch. You would do multiple custom stems to get this glitch, and the modified version included smart routing the stem at the very end to get these quick bursts off the line that were not by design.

I’m actually not aware of what the specific QB rollout glitch is so I couldn’t test that one, but rolling out is powerful in this game with and without contains on to some extent. But hopefully this helped with whatever glitch existed.

Curl Flat Zones are back to working how they did in prior years when you changed them in your Coaching Adjustments. It’s true that they would not come up and play flats at 0-10 even when you set them that way in the playcall screen. People tend to like to change Curl Flats in their Adjustments rather than Flat Zones because there tends to be fewer on the field so the tweak wouldn’t mess up your “blue zones” all over the place doing Curl Flats instead.

Curl Flats drifting from close-proximity receivers and Deep Thirds giving up corner routes will just take way more testing to really feel if it’s been improved a ton. I certainly can still give up corner routes on Deep Thirds and Madden has always had issues reeling in corner routes so that one is always in question. Curl Flats drifting from close-proximity receivers I assume ties into ratings to some extent, but it feels a little better so far.

I don’t play Squads, but that last fix seems like a straight bug fix.

All in all, if the zone tweaks end up improving things as intended, then competitive and offline players should end up liking gameplay a bit more post-patch. Custom stems were more the online issue, and then the zone fixes should help make the passing game a little less explosive both for online and offline games if they went as intended.

We’ll be waiting on CPU playcalling tweaks in an upcoming patch to hopefully smooth out the pass-run ratios (more noticeable in franchise mode), and at that point I might be content enough to start a Madden franchise.