PilotMan
10-23-2003, 12:22 AM
I havn't see it posted yet so here it is:
QuikSand's Front Office Football Beta Diary (http://www.solecismic.com/diary3.php)
QuikSand's Front Office Football Beta Diary
October 21, 2003 - Looking Under the Hood
(Okay, the automotive analogies are just going to get weaker and weaker as we go - you have been warned.)
I've wrapped up my first season with the Maroons, and we now head into the ever-eventful off-season. "Off-season" is something of a misnomer to the typical sports text sim fan, since it's during the off-season where we feel like we really get to exercise our real influence over the team - making personnel and other decisions that set the overall course for the franchise.
As is customary when starting up a new season in FOF, I check out the league's transactions report - which identifies players who have decided to retire. I have some pretty big news - Marshall Faulk, my workhorse running back, has retired. Egad! We'll have some work to do in the off-season, it seems.
On more substantive grounds, though - the new game's treatment of retired players is much more user-friendly than its predecessors - I can click on Faulk's name in the transactions list, and see his "player card" including his entire career stats (In this case, that's only the one season that I have played - but you get the idea). For those of us who, over the course of a long career, tend to get somewhat sentimental about our players, this is a nice feature.
Our stadium in Cleveland is fairly new - so I don't have an opportunity to propose a stadium enhancement, at least not until the initial 15-year lease expires. So, alas - I don't get to play around with these functions, but they do still exist in the game, and will be familiar to FOF veterans.
Now, we're on to staff hiring. There's another full level to this beyond what we have seen before, as we now are able to hire offensive and defensive coordinators. Each coach/coordinator has the traditional set of skills - but now our selection of staff allows a lot more layered thinking. In my team's case, I have a vacancy at defensive coordinator, so I'll be looking for a candidate who has good skills in developing the defensive positions. But as I consider candidates for the DC job, I can also keep in mind their total array of abilities - as a coordinator can one day become a target for a head coaching position.
I put in an offer for a decent, but older, defensive coordinator. My offer is for $1 million per season, and I try to lure him away from Minnesota with a decent offer. He accepts the deal, and joins up with our staff-I see him as an asset in developing our already-strong stable of defensive linemen and linebackers. Excellent.
With the newly assembled group, I feel like I have my bases pretty well covered: Defending Coach of the Year Marty Tubbs is a great motivator, and an excellent game day coach. My offensive coordinator is solid in development and handles younger players well, while my new defensive coordinator will keep our big men up front on track.
As I prepare for the free agency period, I check out my team's ticket prices. Here there is yet another change that makes some sense. In addition to the ability to set prices for each "class" of tickets in the stadium, we also have a new button to reveal a "price comparison," which is described in the game as "An estimate of the money an average family of four will spend attending a football game, including parking and concessions."
For those of use who sometimes use house rules related to ticket prices (as a way to keep the team's finances in check), this might be a real time-saver. At the moment, Cleveland's index here is $383, which rates a little higher than average league-wide. It's a fairly simple exercise to fiddle with this - I make some quick upward adjustments in my prices, and the index moves up to $415, a few notches higher in the ranked list (For those of us who have done this kind of price comparison by hand watching specific other teams, this will be a potential shortcut, I think. The index seems to account for a weighted average of all ticket prices, which seems pretty fair).
We go ahead and move into the free agent period - one of the critical portions of the off-season. I pore through my own players, and decide to make offers to WRs Cedrick Wilson and Damon Tubbs, both of whom are decent restricted free agents. But the rest of my players without contracts are guys I will let walk away, and we'll plan to fill those spots via the open market.
I free up a little cap space by releasing G Chris Villareal and T Jason Matthews, meaning that the OL will be an area where we'll be looking to make some additions. I also, of course, will be looking at the RB position, where Marshall Faulk's departure creates a significant void.
After the cuts, the team still only has a very modest amount of cap space - not too surprising, considering the initial amount of talent we had to work with. I start to look for opportunities for contract renegotiations, attempting to clear up some cap space to "go for it" this year (we were awfully close to winning it all last year after all). I see something that looks pretty new to me: when I approach LT Flozell Adams about a renegotiated contract, his "offer" is unusually cap-friendly for the first year. Here's what he is willing to play for:
Signing Bonus $6,460,000
2004 Salary $800,000
2005 Salary $3,340,000
2006 Salary $4,160,000
2007 Salary $5,000,000
2008 Salary $6,110,000
In my mind, this is actually a better "fit" for the way most salary renegotiations happen - the team's primary objective is to benefit their salary cap situation in the immediate sense, while the player's immediate objective is to get more guaranteed money (The amount he'd be getting in total compensation over that period remains pretty close to where he was under his current contract). To me, this look pretty balanced - my team would clear up over $1.5 million in cap space for this year, but laying out an extra $6 million in cash to this guy is a pretty steep price to pay - as it should be.
I end up skipping this offer - Adams doesn't look good enough to pledge that much cash to, and instead I do a few much smaller reshufflings and a couple more cuts, bringing my available cap space up to around $6 million. I'll need most of that for my rookie class, but we still have about $2.7 million available to pursue a free agent player or two. Still a pretty tight budget year for us, though.
I direct the scouting staff to search the free agent ranks, and there's another change here for the better. In addition to the familiar searches for "current value" or "future potential" where the scout assess the player's ratings as a whole, I may now request a search according to any single skill rating, either current or potential. So, for instance, I'd like to get a good run blocker for my left guard position- I request a search of all guards, sorted by their current skill in run blocking. Just having these different sorts available means an awful lot more specificity in the way we can pore through the lists of free agent players - seem pretty helpful to me (even if I still might conduct most of my searches based on the overall composite).
I find RG Travis Claridge, a 5th-year man, a pretty good bargain for my open guard position, and put in a modest two-year offer for him. If he develops, he could end up being a pretty passable and affordable player for us - but I'll still look in the rookie draft for more help on the line.
Even though I don't have a lot to spend, I decide to check out the running backs available. Jonathan Wells from Ohio State is a reasonable target for the Cleveland team, and he's not asking for too much. But I doubt he's really "the answer" for us - not exactly an even-up replacement for the likes of Marshall Faulk. Looks like RB might be an obvious place for us to focus an early draft pick, to complement the decent group that we have on hand.
I simply lack the cap space to make aggressive approaches to the top free agents, and see players like QB Kurt Warner and WR Jerry Porter land pretty rich multi-year deals. Instead, we will settle for a few role players, and stick with the core of the team that had such success last season.
We end up landing deals with both G Claridge and RB Wells, and we still have some money to spend. I end up looking at RB James Stewart, but his initial demands are for something in the range of $4 million per year - and I only have about $1.6 million to spend. So, it looks like he's clearly out of our price range.
I end up putting in an offer for DT Gerard Warren a solid young DT who should be able to help us out along the defensive front - already a team strength, of course. I will definitely be looking to fill in my openings at OL and RB with rookie draft selections.
A general observation - consistent with what I noted before regarding contract demands for renegotiations, it seems that most quality free agent players will begin their demands with a fairly cap-friendly salary structure. In most contracts initiated by quality free agents, I see them asking for a sizable signing bonus, but only a modest base salary for the first season - then a significant jump in the second season and beyond. Again, I think this is both pretty sensible from the perspective of the player (getting the bonus up front lessens the need for a big paycheck right away) and for the signing team (who are usually more concerned about the first year cap impact than future years). You may alter these deals to be flatter if you prefer, but seeing fairly backloaded contract offers has become the norm in the NFL, and I think this pattern is fairly represented here.
We wrap up the 20-stage free agency period, having secured three potentially valuable additions to the team, and we are prepared for the upcoming rookie draft. Next up, we'll head into the completely new look of the rookie draft, with an awful lot riding on my picks.
QuikSand's Front Office Football Beta Diary (http://www.solecismic.com/diary3.php)
QuikSand's Front Office Football Beta Diary
October 21, 2003 - Looking Under the Hood
(Okay, the automotive analogies are just going to get weaker and weaker as we go - you have been warned.)
I've wrapped up my first season with the Maroons, and we now head into the ever-eventful off-season. "Off-season" is something of a misnomer to the typical sports text sim fan, since it's during the off-season where we feel like we really get to exercise our real influence over the team - making personnel and other decisions that set the overall course for the franchise.
As is customary when starting up a new season in FOF, I check out the league's transactions report - which identifies players who have decided to retire. I have some pretty big news - Marshall Faulk, my workhorse running back, has retired. Egad! We'll have some work to do in the off-season, it seems.
On more substantive grounds, though - the new game's treatment of retired players is much more user-friendly than its predecessors - I can click on Faulk's name in the transactions list, and see his "player card" including his entire career stats (In this case, that's only the one season that I have played - but you get the idea). For those of us who, over the course of a long career, tend to get somewhat sentimental about our players, this is a nice feature.
Our stadium in Cleveland is fairly new - so I don't have an opportunity to propose a stadium enhancement, at least not until the initial 15-year lease expires. So, alas - I don't get to play around with these functions, but they do still exist in the game, and will be familiar to FOF veterans.
Now, we're on to staff hiring. There's another full level to this beyond what we have seen before, as we now are able to hire offensive and defensive coordinators. Each coach/coordinator has the traditional set of skills - but now our selection of staff allows a lot more layered thinking. In my team's case, I have a vacancy at defensive coordinator, so I'll be looking for a candidate who has good skills in developing the defensive positions. But as I consider candidates for the DC job, I can also keep in mind their total array of abilities - as a coordinator can one day become a target for a head coaching position.
I put in an offer for a decent, but older, defensive coordinator. My offer is for $1 million per season, and I try to lure him away from Minnesota with a decent offer. He accepts the deal, and joins up with our staff-I see him as an asset in developing our already-strong stable of defensive linemen and linebackers. Excellent.
With the newly assembled group, I feel like I have my bases pretty well covered: Defending Coach of the Year Marty Tubbs is a great motivator, and an excellent game day coach. My offensive coordinator is solid in development and handles younger players well, while my new defensive coordinator will keep our big men up front on track.
As I prepare for the free agency period, I check out my team's ticket prices. Here there is yet another change that makes some sense. In addition to the ability to set prices for each "class" of tickets in the stadium, we also have a new button to reveal a "price comparison," which is described in the game as "An estimate of the money an average family of four will spend attending a football game, including parking and concessions."
For those of use who sometimes use house rules related to ticket prices (as a way to keep the team's finances in check), this might be a real time-saver. At the moment, Cleveland's index here is $383, which rates a little higher than average league-wide. It's a fairly simple exercise to fiddle with this - I make some quick upward adjustments in my prices, and the index moves up to $415, a few notches higher in the ranked list (For those of us who have done this kind of price comparison by hand watching specific other teams, this will be a potential shortcut, I think. The index seems to account for a weighted average of all ticket prices, which seems pretty fair).
We go ahead and move into the free agent period - one of the critical portions of the off-season. I pore through my own players, and decide to make offers to WRs Cedrick Wilson and Damon Tubbs, both of whom are decent restricted free agents. But the rest of my players without contracts are guys I will let walk away, and we'll plan to fill those spots via the open market.
I free up a little cap space by releasing G Chris Villareal and T Jason Matthews, meaning that the OL will be an area where we'll be looking to make some additions. I also, of course, will be looking at the RB position, where Marshall Faulk's departure creates a significant void.
After the cuts, the team still only has a very modest amount of cap space - not too surprising, considering the initial amount of talent we had to work with. I start to look for opportunities for contract renegotiations, attempting to clear up some cap space to "go for it" this year (we were awfully close to winning it all last year after all). I see something that looks pretty new to me: when I approach LT Flozell Adams about a renegotiated contract, his "offer" is unusually cap-friendly for the first year. Here's what he is willing to play for:
Signing Bonus $6,460,000
2004 Salary $800,000
2005 Salary $3,340,000
2006 Salary $4,160,000
2007 Salary $5,000,000
2008 Salary $6,110,000
In my mind, this is actually a better "fit" for the way most salary renegotiations happen - the team's primary objective is to benefit their salary cap situation in the immediate sense, while the player's immediate objective is to get more guaranteed money (The amount he'd be getting in total compensation over that period remains pretty close to where he was under his current contract). To me, this look pretty balanced - my team would clear up over $1.5 million in cap space for this year, but laying out an extra $6 million in cash to this guy is a pretty steep price to pay - as it should be.
I end up skipping this offer - Adams doesn't look good enough to pledge that much cash to, and instead I do a few much smaller reshufflings and a couple more cuts, bringing my available cap space up to around $6 million. I'll need most of that for my rookie class, but we still have about $2.7 million available to pursue a free agent player or two. Still a pretty tight budget year for us, though.
I direct the scouting staff to search the free agent ranks, and there's another change here for the better. In addition to the familiar searches for "current value" or "future potential" where the scout assess the player's ratings as a whole, I may now request a search according to any single skill rating, either current or potential. So, for instance, I'd like to get a good run blocker for my left guard position- I request a search of all guards, sorted by their current skill in run blocking. Just having these different sorts available means an awful lot more specificity in the way we can pore through the lists of free agent players - seem pretty helpful to me (even if I still might conduct most of my searches based on the overall composite).
I find RG Travis Claridge, a 5th-year man, a pretty good bargain for my open guard position, and put in a modest two-year offer for him. If he develops, he could end up being a pretty passable and affordable player for us - but I'll still look in the rookie draft for more help on the line.
Even though I don't have a lot to spend, I decide to check out the running backs available. Jonathan Wells from Ohio State is a reasonable target for the Cleveland team, and he's not asking for too much. But I doubt he's really "the answer" for us - not exactly an even-up replacement for the likes of Marshall Faulk. Looks like RB might be an obvious place for us to focus an early draft pick, to complement the decent group that we have on hand.
I simply lack the cap space to make aggressive approaches to the top free agents, and see players like QB Kurt Warner and WR Jerry Porter land pretty rich multi-year deals. Instead, we will settle for a few role players, and stick with the core of the team that had such success last season.
We end up landing deals with both G Claridge and RB Wells, and we still have some money to spend. I end up looking at RB James Stewart, but his initial demands are for something in the range of $4 million per year - and I only have about $1.6 million to spend. So, it looks like he's clearly out of our price range.
I end up putting in an offer for DT Gerard Warren a solid young DT who should be able to help us out along the defensive front - already a team strength, of course. I will definitely be looking to fill in my openings at OL and RB with rookie draft selections.
A general observation - consistent with what I noted before regarding contract demands for renegotiations, it seems that most quality free agent players will begin their demands with a fairly cap-friendly salary structure. In most contracts initiated by quality free agents, I see them asking for a sizable signing bonus, but only a modest base salary for the first season - then a significant jump in the second season and beyond. Again, I think this is both pretty sensible from the perspective of the player (getting the bonus up front lessens the need for a big paycheck right away) and for the signing team (who are usually more concerned about the first year cap impact than future years). You may alter these deals to be flatter if you prefer, but seeing fairly backloaded contract offers has become the norm in the NFL, and I think this pattern is fairly represented here.
We wrap up the 20-stage free agency period, having secured three potentially valuable additions to the team, and we are prepared for the upcoming rookie draft. Next up, we'll head into the completely new look of the rookie draft, with an awful lot riding on my picks.