Madden NFL 16 will have 600 new plays this year according to EA Sports. Of those 600 plays, 100 of them will be “shot plays.” A shot play is exactly how it sounds. It is a play designed to take a shot deep. It usually involves a play action pass and you 
leave extra running backs and tight ends in to block while you send your receivers deep downfield.
Each Madden 16 playbook will have team specific shot plays designed specifically for them based off of the plays they called in last year’s NFL season.
EA Sports met with legendary coach Tom Moore who worked on all of the new additions to this year’s playbooks but specifically authentic shot plays.
If 100 of the new plays in Madden 16 are shot plays, that still leaves 500 other new plays. We don’t yet know if they are truly new plays with new routes and new formations or if they are just taking a basic concept like curl flats or mesh and changing up 1 route within the play and calling it new. Hopefully, at least some of the 500 plays are truly unique.
It is however hard to implement new plays because there is a large community dedicated to finding Madden 16 money plays and nano blitzes. Any new play that is added has to be extensively tested to make sure it isn’t overpowered.
Some of the most common ways people exploited Madden NFL 15 was through hot routes on screen passes and hot routes on automotion plays. EA Sports has taken away that ability this year. You can read up on the full details regarding that decision here.
We do already know that at least 1 of the plays added this year will be a new fake field goal play which is long overdue. There hasn’t been a new special teams play added to the Madden franchise in the last 10 years. It will be good to finally see something new.
We don’t yet know the breakdown of how many new plays were added to defense versus how many plays were added to offense. Outside of a few new formations there usually aren’t too many new defensive plays added. Most of the 600 plays will likely be added to offensive playbooks.
Madden NFL 16 is due out on the XBOX One, PlayStation 4, XBOX 360, and XBOX One on August 25th, 2015.