Passacaglia's HFL Gameplans

[Passacaglia]

Hey everyone!

With cthomer5000's help, I'm going to be posting my gameplans from my HFL team, the 1970 New England Patriots. This should be an interesting set -- the team has been predicted by many to win the Super Bowl in the league's inaugural season, so it's the kind of thing where anything less might be seen as a failure from the gameplans. I hope you will all check them out!

[Passacaglia]

Our first game was on the road, against the Buffalo Bills. The Bills were predicted to finish 2nd in the division, taking one of the wild card spots. They're a pretty dangerous team, with Johnny "old man" Unitas at QB, with an overall rating of 87, and rookie sensation Spillis at WR, rated 91. On defense, I tried to stop their passing game at all costs, so I geared up for the pass, and set my gameplans to double team the top WR at 100, so Spillis wouldn't burn me too much. On offense, I determined that Buffalo's weakness is its defensive line, so I set myself up to run.

Here is the link:

http://lovetohate.us/fofc/gameplans/buffalo_gameplan.fgp

Comments are welcome and encouraged! I haven't looked at this gameplan for a while, but when I do tomorrow, I'll see if I have any more to say about it.

[Passacaglia]

All right, it looks like no one has any comments on this gameplan, so I'll give some of my basic strategies that I used to make this:

Personnel -- I have some great starters, including an amazing running back in Nick Eddy, rated in the low 80s. Compare that to my backup WRs in the mid 30s, and it makes sense that even in 3WR sets, I want Eddy on the field. So in the 3WR sets, I put my RB 1 in the slot receiver spot, put FB 1 in the RB spot, and put TE 1 in the FB spot. This keeps Eddy on the field even in a 3WR set -- it just moves him out to WR. Since I'm most likely passing from this formation, that's where I want him anyway. But when I *am* running from this formation, it'll be the FB getting the carries. As a result, I set my FB percentage to 0 -- the FB still gets his carries in these 3WR formations, and the TE blocks in front of him. In the same vein, on the single-back, TE Pair formation, I have my starting FB play the #2 TE, again to keep my starters on the field. My only exception to my rule of keeping starts in is that on the Single Back, 4WR Formation, I keep the RB at RB, and put both my backup WRs in. If I were to move the FB to RB, and the RB to a slot spot, I would have to decide which WR to put in there. I don't trust the "any wide receiver" function, since I'm pretty sure that's what had my DT Sam Adams involved in 31 pass plays one game. And I don't want to just pick one, since my 3rd and 4th receiver are pretty equal. So I just let them both in here. In the goal line formation, I put the FB 2 in the TE 3 spot, since I have a very good 2nd FB, and a horrible 3rd TE.

[Passacaglia]

Circumstances -- I hate "normal situations." So what I do is change the circumstances by messing with the boxes in the upper left corner.

Normal: Tied (0) to up by 8
Lead: Up by 9 or more
4Q Lead: Up by 1 or more (under 15 minutes)
Normal 4Q: -8 to 0 (down by 8 to tied) (under 15 minutes)
With Deficit: -8 to -1
With Large Deficit: Down by 9 or more
4Q deficit: Down by 9 or more (under 8 minutes)

Sometimes on defense, I'll fiddle with these, because I worry that I'm expecting my opponents to think like me, and start running a LOT in the 4th quarter once they get the lead. Since the AI gameplans don't do that, I expect some teams to pass more than I would.

[Passacaglia]

Offensive Gameplans -- This stuff here probably pertains more to my team, and the matchup. I wanted to run a lot, so I had high run percentages. I also don't like my QB's medium pass rating, so I try not to throw medium passes often. This really cuts into his yards per attempt, since I don't really want to throw deep that often, with my strong defense. Anyway, I also set up the runs to go behind my great Left Tackle, Jon Kolb. But when I'm in goal-line situations (Inside the 3, or in one of the deficit situations, where I only run when I have <2 yards to go to get a first down), I split it equally among every gap. I probably SHOULD run up the middle more, but eh.

[Passacaglia]

Defensive Gameplan -- Again, a lot of this has to do with my team, and the matchup. Buffalo was sitting there with Johnny Unitas, one of the best QB's in the league, as well as a rookie sensation WR who was probably THE best in the league. So I had low numbers for my run percentage expectations, and had my nickel and dime packages at 50. Just like in my offensive personnel, I like my starters, and I don't like taking them out. So normally, I have my nickel and dime settings pretty low, but in this case, I needed the extra DBs in there. Also, I made SURE to set each gameplan window to cover the WRs by having my top guy on their top guy. Since they has this monster rookie WR, I put 100 in covering the top WR. Now, what I do is take the difference between the WR's overall rating and my CB's overall rating. If they're equal, I make that 50 -- double coverage the WR about average. If my CB is better, I take the difference, and subtract it from 50. If the WR is better, I take the difference, and add it to 50. I like to blitz a lot, but with a QB like Unitas in there, I didn't blitz as much as I would normally. As for defensive coverage, two of my starters were by far the best at bump and run, and one was by far the best at man. So I ran bump 60% of the time, man 30%, then zone 10% just for variety's sake. As I went through different circumstances, I'd start runnning man more, but the 30-60-10 is what I ran for 'normal' gameplans.

Edit to add -- in most situations, I had my aggressive pass or run defense set to 0. Since it was the first game of the league, I didn't really know what Buffalo's offense would look like -- even if he has the tools of a heavy passing team, their GM might not play it that way. I generally like having these at 0, unless I *know* they're going to come out heavily, like if their QB is hurt. This way, I figure that my defense is just playing straight, not heavily committing themseilves to a run or pass, just because my guess told them to. That's probably easy for me to say with a defense as good as mine, though.

[Passacaglia]

Miscellaneous gameplans -- Not a whole lot to say here. I hate fake kicks, so that's at 0. I ran a 4-3 in this game. I have my WLB set to blitz more than the other guys, because he's not as good at man and bump defense, like the other guys. So I figure that in passing situations, I'd rather have him rushing the passer than playing a coverage scheme he doesn't know very well. Buffalo has a decent O-line, but their worst pass blocker was their LT, so I blitzed much more to the outside. And no one from the secondary blitzed -- that's not their job.

[Passacaglia]

So that's that. I'd really like to get some discussion going, so make some comments, or ask some questions!

The result of the Game 1 Gameplan. New England 28, Buffalo 23. Go me! Although, we got lucky in a lot of ways. My MLB, Carter Campbell, returned an INT for a TD, and my RB, Nick Eddy, ran a 63 yard TD. Eddy had 19 carries for 105 yards, but without that run, he would have had 18 carries for 42 yards, and my "run-hard" gameplan designed to expose their weak D-Line would have looked really foolish.

Game 2 was at Philadelphia, who won their first game at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 13-7. Neither team was expected to fare well throughout the season, though.

http://lovetohate.us/fofc/gameplans/philly_gameplan.fgp

[Vince]

I'm enjoying this, even if no one else is. I like to see the thoughts put into the gameplanning. I'd write up something like this, but my teams are a combined 10-31 so far. So I think it would hurt more than help :)

[Passacaglia]

Thanks, Vince! I know our team is doing well, but considering the statements made by Mr. X in his preview, I wonder if I'm not really doing that well.

Anyway, here's another one:

http://lovetohate.us/fofc/gameplans/jets_gameplan.fgp

This is an interesting one, because the Jets QB, Norm Snead, got hurt late in the game before. Still, it was a battle of undefeateds.

[Passacaglia]

Okay, so besides Vince, is anyone else interested in seeing more of these?

[gstelmack]

I don't have comments on the specifics of these gameplans, but I'll offer up some tips:

Agreed on tweaking the boxes in the top. My team has lately had a nasty habit of being up by 3 or 4 points but still throwing late in a game. In addition to upping the run percentages, I had to tweak the score/time for the "Fourth Quarter Lead" situation. Now they run out the clock with small leads (especially effective when the opponent is still using defaults, so is expecting some passing while you are pounding the ball).

The scout does not often touch the default run percentages. You usually want to tweak these, sometimes significantly. What's amusing is that the default offense and default defense percentages don't match.

Keep an eye on your passing distances. My QB is really good, but was stuck with a low completion percentage. The reason was he was throwing downfield a lot, but my O-Line wasn't all that great so he was getting hurried a lot. Even with a great QB and receiving corps, I still had to throw more short passes thanks to the O-Line.

Watch your games in the viewer utility that's floating around. Gives a much better picture of where your team's problem areas and strengths are than the box score does. Now if it only gave formation and blitz information, we'd be golden.

[Icy]

I'm really interested on this, not on the gameplans files as i like to design my own, but on the thoughts and reasons for developing them. I'm specially interested on defending gameplans thinking/reasoning.

[Alf]

yeah, I am interested. I am truely bad at gameplanning especially on the defensive side of the ball....

[Pyser]

im following...

[3ric]

I'd read, for the purpose of encouraging more discussion of this part of FOF...

[Northwood_DK]

If Pyser is reading I better take a look at this as well.

[johnnyshaka]

Been looking around for gameplanning ideas/howto's...so, it would be great if this were picked up again!!

[Passacaglia]

Maybe I'll pick it up again, when the 1971 season begins.

It's probably a good thing I stopped including these, though. The team suffered a complete meltdown, dropping from 7-0 to 10-6, missing the playoffs.

[Chubby]

yeah, I am interested. I am truely bad at gameplanning especially on the defensive side of the ball....I'd give some pointers but then I'd have to kill ya :D

[MIJB#19]

I'd give some pointers but then I'd have to kill ya :DBut what's so special about "You have to acquire Joe Teeters", no way Alf will be able to do that.
;)

[Skolleck]

Heyas All,

It seems the links to the gameplans are all 404 for this thread. Does somebody have the gameplans that used to be posted here?

If so can you post them?

Thanks,
Scott Kolleck
GamePlanning Fool, or just a fool, need to find out which. :D

[johnd2442]

granted, this is for FOF2004, but this is really helpful for those of us beginners to FOF trying to understand gameplans.

[Passacaglia]

I'm glad I could help! Unfortunately, I haven't really gotten into gameplanning with FOF 2007. I've been mostly hitting recommend (ssh, don't tell my online league competitors). The only thing I really change at the moment is my WR double coverage, which I still set as in post #6 in this thread.