check you D sliders, might have - say 4deep zone weighted, but not selected in play matrix (vice versa as well). the former causes the AI to pull plays (selected or not) to fit the designated weight. The latter causes those plays not to be used at all.
Footnote: If it were a rules issue (you mentioned it is not), then it is important to know that Offensive and Defensive rules occur in the order the user has them listed. Ones #1 - top of the list D rule for example, should correspond to the opponents most used offensive formation.
The last comment combined with the rarity of being at that down at the location at that yardage makes priotitizing them just about an astronomical calculation that Im just not willing to copy paste csvs or go through data by hand. I used to, but holy sheet it takes a long *** time and the dataset changes every game.