Sometimes in Madden, you’ll find yourself in the middle of breaking out a huge play, but a defender is quickly closing in on stopping you before the goal line or line of scrimmage. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to put extra effort into getting those one or two more yards?
Thankfully, there is! All you have to do is dive forward, ensuring you can break the plane before the defender gets a chance to ruin your plans.
Diving is a very simple process, even when talking about the multiple forms of dives that are available. This guide will teach you how to dive in Madden 23, from simple default dives to others that may only be necessary for certain situations.
Diving as the Ball Carrier
Diving as the ball carrier can come in handy when you’re headed towards the pylon or sideline and there’s only a couple of yards between you and the goal line or line of scrimmage.
However, you should be aware that diving does come with risks, namely that being hit by a defender while in the process of the dive greatly increases your chances of fumbling on the hit. If you’re willing to take that risk or feel comfortable and safe about the distance between you and the defender, let’s get to diving!
To dive while controlling the ball carrier all you need to do is press and hold square on PlayStation or X on Xbox. This will cause you to dive forward with the ball outstretched in order to get as many yards as possible on the play.
It is important to remember to hold the button when you press it, as a tap triggers a different diving animation (that we’ll cover later in this article).
You can somewhat control the direction of the dive with the left stick, although it is limited to your current momentum. For instance, you can’t run directly to the right before stopping on a dime and diving to the left.
Going Down to Avoid Contact or Sliding as a QB
The quarterback is the majority of the time the most important player for contributing to the team’s success. If your offensive playbook calls for the QB to often run the ball themselves, you’ll likely want to take every precaution you can to avoid him taking big hits and being out injured for any portion of time.
You may also find yourself in a similar mindset of avoiding contact if you’re running down the clock toward the end of the game and don’t want to give the defense a chance to force a fumble and regain possession of the football.
In both these scenarios, you’ll need to tap square on PlayStation or X on Xbox instead of pressing and holding it. Tapping instead of holding the dive button will change the diving animation to a slide if it’s a quarterback or a forward tumble if it’s any other ball carrier.
Both animations allow you to safely avoid contact to protect the player from a potential injury as well as protect the football from being fumbled and giving the other team possession.
Diving Over the Lineman
If you find yourself only needing a yard or two and don’t see any holes to run through being created by your offensive lineman, you may want to consider simply diving over them and the defensive linemen instead.
This is done by holding down square on PlayStation or X on Xbox as you approach your lineman. The timing can be a bit difficult on this, as diving too early will cause you to leap directly into the back of one of your linemen instead of over the top.
The most consistent way to dive over the lineman as opposed to diving into them is to press and hold the dive button right as you’re about to run into them, or about one full step back from them.
Once you get the timing down, you’ll be able to convert those gritty first downs and touchdowns with consistency.
Diving Tackles
The ability to dive in Madden 23 isn’t reserved just for those carrying the ball. You can also dive as a defender in order to get a sack or a tackle that would’ve been out of your reach without diving.
Triggering a diving tackle is just as simple as diving when you’re the ball carrier: all you have to do is press square on PlayStation or Xbox on Xbox to lunge at your opponent in an attempt to make the play. It doesn’t matter whether you tap or press and hold the dive button as there’s only one diving tackle animation, as opposed to the different diving animations you can trigger with different inputs when carrying the ball.
As was previously mentioned you can use the left stick to control the direction of the dive within reason given your player’s current momentum.
Also similar to diving as the ball carrier, diving to tackle as a defender carries some risk with it. If you attempt a diving tackle and don’t manage to bring the ball carrier down, your defender will now find themselves laying on the ground and having to go through the animation to fully get back up before being able to contribute to the play.
Due to how fast the majority of players in the NFL are, being on the ground for that short of a time is usually enough to completely remove that defender from the play. With one less defender to worry about, the ball carrier now has a much higher chance of taking it to the house.
Final Word
There are multiple different variations of diving animations in Madden 23, each most useful in specific contexts.
By learning how to dive in Madden 23 – as well as when to use each different kind of dive – you’re giving yourself more tools in the toolbox to be able to use on the field to score a win.
If you found this guide useful, I recommend also checking out our guide on how to stop short passes in Madden 23 next.
