FOF 2007 GroupThink (season five)
 

Over the years, with various versions of the FOF games, we have had some substantial success with a multi-participant game here at FOFC. A search on terms like "GroupThink" will yield some of this history -- the Wyoming Wildfire team, run by a fair number of us back with FOF 2001, was very entertaining, as I recall.

I know that multiplayer competitive leagues are all the rage. But I'm wondering if there might be some interest in a multi-particpant effort to run one team in a single-player environment. Historically, this has been a matter of dividing up into several different roles to be played -- with various people focusing on drafting, free agency, various position groups, gameplanning, and the like.

SInce we're fairly early in the game's lifespan, maybe this might prove to be an interesting way for some of us to learn more about the new game together.


Anyone interested? I don't have easy access to web space to post game files, so someone with that resource would be needed... past that, I have to imagine we could swing things okay. I'm willing to play nearly any role.


- - -


With things gettiung underway, here are the essentials:

To get the files, log on to Yahoo! mail using this information:

username: groupthink2007
password: godillos

From there, go get THREE files, unzip and overwrite in this order:
-the very first initial file sent
-the file form the start of the latest season (currently 2009)
-whatever is the very latest file sent

Incidentally, by accessing the game files, you implicitly agree to NOT engage in any simming ahead, or any other unsportasmanlike activity contrary to the spirit of the game, whether articulated specifically here or not. This means no simming ahead, no testing out position switches, no conducting rookie interviews, no testing out contract offers, etc. -- that is all going to be done centrally, by the person who is actually conducting the sim. This is an exercise in playing the game collaboratively, not in cheating to demonstrate how clever you are.

I'm up for this, it sounds fun, and with all the new features it will add a lot to discuss, like who we interview for the draft, getting the results together, analyzing the new stats, etc

I'd definitely be interested as well. A few of the things I've seen lead me to believe that this version is going to be much deeper for multi-player or a slower collaborative game like this. It sounds like scouts are going to be much less dependable at higher levels, and that taking a more active interest in the league's universe, tracking other players' performance and development, and just generally being a bit more thoughtful about things will be a big factor in success. I really love that 'avoid interceptions' is now hidden, it's going to add a whole new layer to trying to guage the development of a young qb.

I'm down. I like the roster management aspects best, but I am a capable game planner as well. Let me know if there is a spot open for me.

-Jeff

They are called succession games in Civ4, and they really do help people learn more about the game, especially if it is in a AAR (After Action Report) format, where you describe what you did and the reasons. I would definitely read the thread.

I'd read along as well, but don't think I'm a strong enough FOF player to help.
sounds like an awesome idea though.

I'd be interested in some role, something along the lines of special teams coach. I do have access to about 20 MBs of webspace I could use for this as well.

Count on me for any free spot open.

Glad to hear there is interest. I know that if I play, I will want to be involved in the discussion for most things -- which was really fun all along. Ideally, we have one person who is ultimately in charge of, say, the rookie draft (presumably that won't be me) but I'd still want to be part of discussing whether we take the WR or the LB, for example. So, even if we have jobs, a lot of the fun comes from doing stuff collaboratively.

I am going to be intermittenly available the next few days, but by around Wednesday ought to be back available regularly. By then, maybe we can start appointing a staff and getting things started.

I'd likely want to be involved. I just feel guilty because I think I completely killed one fo the Grou pThinks when I left for my like year or so long time away from the board with no notice or warning.

Anyway, I'll help any way I can.

This sounds like a good way to get a feel of the mechanics of the game.

I'd like to give it a try if at all possible.

Ah, memories.

I think I would like to be involved in the draft / draft scouting side of things.

I'd like to join in as well.. something to do with drafting as well..

I wouldn't mind participating at all -- but I'd be just as happy following along from the outside.

If it goes in this direction, I'd be interested in joining the discussions, though I don't want a particular job.

I've never been involved in one of these, but I'm highly intrigued.

It's probably best to let people plow through the game a bit, but my plan will be to start something up probably on Wednesday of next week. If you're interested in a specific role, drop me a line by PM. If you have any specifics -- like "here's what I'd like to do as defensive coordinator" or somesuch, that would be great but not necessary. By far the most valuable contribution is a willingness to stay involved with the project - we'll let overall talent take care of itself.

Last time we did this, we gave actual roles to everyone, but allowed anyone who wanted to chime in in basically every decision. So, even if your job is special teams coach, you can certainly be part of discussions about drafting CB or OL, or about who ought to be starting at QB, or whatever the issue of the day happens to be.

My goal will be to have game files ready to go out on Wednesday, and we can start with an empty cupboard team in year two of a brand new career. I'm assuming that fictional rosters would be preferred here, and that we will take over (and presumably relocate) an NFL team.

We'll gin up the engines mid-week next week, so if you're interested, give some thought to a role you might want to stake out, and let me know. I'll do my best to pull things together as best I can and get it rolling.

No way I have time since I get to start back up at school on Tuesday.

But I'll be following along, always trying to pick up whatever knowledge I can about the inner workings of FOF.

My last day at the restaurant is the 10th of November, so I'm probably out until then -- but after that, I'd love to jump in.

Casual respone in the thread has been fine, but follow-up has been... uh... less so. That's okay, maybe we're all too deep into home testing games to commit to something like this.

I'll try to get this started soon, maybe today. I'm thinking that to start, we'll just run season one of a league, and at its end release all the players -- then "take control" in year two with an empty roster and a severe cap problem for the initial year. That ought to phase-in any action a bit, which I think would be wise.

For those interested... does that seem sensible?

Definitely.

I'm having a hard time getting into testing as the SP feel is just not for me, so this should help me to gear up some interest.

At this point, I'm pretty willing to take on whatever is needed to make things move. With my job right now, I should be pretty able to take on some responsibility since I work from home, although some days are pretty busy.

Maybe we need to start actually assigning roles?

I'm still interested, but shouldn't we wait until the patch? There are some important bugs like FA negotiations. Anyway i'm up to this.

Didn't see this the first time around, but I would be interested in this.

Still up to it

I'd be up for a scouting/drafting role.

Okay, I have started a new FOF 2007 career, have QuikSimmed through year one, and after the disastrous 0-16 season from the Houston Texans, they have been folded and replaced.

Welcome to the NFL, Texarkana Armadillos. Zero players, a lingering cap disaster, and starting basically from scratch.

I have already hired a front office staff, all pretty young, on 1- and 2-year contracts (the shortest they would accept), so we will have to make decisions there soon. I just thought that the best way to get ourselves truly immersed would be by starting off at the hottest time of the offseason -- the start of free agency. So from right here, we can already see the free agents, and the rookie draft class. It's time to get to work.

I have set up a Yahoo! email account for use with the game files, which I hope will do for now at least. For anyone who is game for getting into this exercise, we'll hold off on the idea of formal roles for right now... most people just expressed a generic interest in being involved, so we'll run it without roles and titles for the moment.

To get the files, log on to Yahoo! mail using this information:

username: groupthink2007
password: godillos

There should be one huge zipped file in there, about 5 MB in size. I believe that all yolu newed to do is frop its contents into your "universe" directory, but it's been a while since I dealt with these various files, so it's possible that there's more work to be done. If you have trouble with this, please post it here, and we'll get it cleared up.

With that... load up the files, and we'll use this thread for discussion on what to do. If you did a seaqrch on the term "GroupThink" you may have noticed that at one point the multiple GT threads offended some users, so we'll need to be responsible about this -- no need to start 20 different threads to debate every single issues with the team. Let's try to keep it in this thread for now... if we need to branch out, we can discuss how to do that later.

Incidentally, by accessing the game files, you implicitly agree to NOT engage in any simming ahead, or any other unsportasmanlike activity contrary to the spirit of the game, whether articulated specifically here or not. This means no simming ahead, no testing out position switches, no conducting rookie interviews, no testing out contract offers, etc. -- that is all going to be done centrally, by the person who is actually conducting the sim. This is an exercise in playing the game collaboratively, not in cheating to demonstrate how clever you are.

I will d/l these as soon as work settles down today (if?)

Chemistry Leaders

So, I think that if we want to make an effort to build some chemistry on this team, one way to do so is to take advantage of the “blank slate” beginning, and to go out and get some players who could be effective team leaders, just for chemistry purposes. So, I’m looking for five guys who are all in the same affinity group – that way we might all be able to easily spot affinities and conflicts, without having to do too much work to do so. We’d also have the opportunity for multiple affinities at QB.

So far, here’s the best lot I can find:

DT Corwin Burks, 11th year, 8-9, Ldr 100, Pers 99
CB Howie Gerak, 9th year, 8-9, Ldr 100, Pers 83
WR Grady Woodson, 9th year, 8-9, Ldr 98, Pers 90
RB Marc Aranda, 7th year, 8-9, Ldr 60, Pers 86
RT Bruce Cote, 8th year, 8-9, Ldr 90, Pers 60

If we go out and sign all five of these guys, then in theory we could completely organize all our chemistry planning. If things are set up as they were in FOF 2004 (which I have heard, but not confirmed) then we could target players in the 7-8 and 11-12 groups to try to build affinities. And, we could pretty easily keep that in mind when evaluating rookies as well, a nice bonus.

From this lot, I suspect that RB Aranda and DT Burks are probably good enough to actually contribute, and maybe even start. But the main focus is getting chemistry foundations, any on-field contributions would just be gravy.

I'll be downloading after work today or tomorrow at the latest.

I've d/led the files and will have a lot of time this afternoon to have a good look at everything.

Downloaded. Should be fun.

We should also keep in mind who we will be targeting in the draft. If we decide to actually use the 1.1, we want to make sure he fits in with our chemistry structure.

Downloaded also. I like the idea of locking up some good leaders as well, will add a layer of analysis for us as we're evaluating players and give us some more decisions to make.

Looks like we'll have a tough draft day decision to make between a good young qb or a stud LT. There look to be some very attractive options to trade down as well though, CB Lochner, OLB Tucker, and ILB Rockwell all have some pretty good 'measurables.' I think our next steps are interviewing everyone at the top of the board and trying to get a feel for how far down we can trade and still pick up an impact player. From what I've been seeing I'd be very surprised if QB McCartney did not go #1, but his blue bars don't set him apart from the two QB's rated beneath him, so even if we decide to focus on a QB with our first pick I think we'd get more value by moving down.

Good stuff, should be fun to have these discussions. Should we be targeting guys for interviews right now? Are we going to be signing free agents other than our leaders, or are we going to build through the draft and undrafted rookies?

WARNING -- it appears that we have a problem, and doing a rookie interview (with at least one player, the top QB) causes a crash. It's possible that the game file is corrupted somehow. Just be warned, before investing too much time into this game. I don't know what to do about it... but FYI.

After we have our affinity structure set, perhaps we should try and determine what type of system we will run in terms of offense and defense?

That would guide us through determining what personnel we need through FA and the draft to build this team.

Without any overall agreement that we shoudl restrict ourselves in any general way, I figure we'll play withotu house rules, but with common sense restraint. So yes, we can be looking at vetreran players as well -- but we do need to keep in mind that we have a seriosu cap problem this year, with more than 40% of our cap space dead from last year's cuts.

Hmmm.... Yes, I'm getting the same thing.

So, assuming we go with the 8-9 group as our leaders… here are some affinity-positive free agents who look like they might be worth pursuing:

Birthdays 7/24 – 8/23 and 11/23 – 12/22:

QB Donald Morrill – 2nd year, probably a future mentor, pretty lousy skills
CB Maurice Sellers – 7th year, 38/38, solid in bump, decent cover man
WR Frankie Kramer – 10th year, 36/36, decent receiver, surplus mentor, ST+
SS Shannon Wolfe – 5th year, 45/55, great in zone, solid all around, PR, ST+
LG Allen Coffey – 12th year, 44/44, decent run blocker, 94 personality
DE Wade Bullock – 12th year, 43/43, void in run D, 84PRTech, 9.3 PR% in 06
DT Julio Forbes – 6th year, 31/31, run stopper (55) with little else to offer
WILB Lamont Samuels – 7th year, 37/39, decent all around
CB Percy Schiller – 11th year, 38/44, good play D and interceptions

Nobody here is a standout star player, but all (except QB Morrill) are worthy of putting on the field, at least as a stopgap, if need be, and none are likely to be very expensive.

A couple of questions about chemistry.
1. How important is it to have team chemistry? Does it play that big of a role?

2. Are there certain birthdates to pick, or whatever grouping you can find?
3. Why 5? Why 3 offensive players and 2 defensive players?
4. Do certain positions have more of an impact on leadership and chemistry?

Thanks.

From the game help file:


I believe that the mention of QBs interacting with defensive leaders has since been discredited, but this apparebntly still defines how the system works -- same as in FOF 2004.

As for how important it is... nobody really knows. There are some studies in the Strategy folder that might be interesting to read, but it's largely unknown how big a deal it is.

A graphic to replace the generic "Little Rock" might be nice, at some point, for those whose contributions might be something outside the game itself.

I like that idea in general.

Here's a thought -- maybe we could try to build a style that is essentially something new to the game in FOF 2007, compared to what was available in FOF 2004? The obvious thing that I can think of is either a true West Coast offense (heavy focus on the short pass) or perhaps even a run-and-shoot style offense. On defense, I'm not sure what might make sense -- perhaps a 3-4 setup with more LB specializtion, enabled by the more detailed depth chart setting?

Any specific thoughts along these lines? I'm game for most anything, and I do like the notion of coming up with a style of play and them seeking out players who will fit well with it... at least to the extent that we plan to do anything but a generic gameplan, that is.

I've developed a true West Coast Style Offense that has worked very well in one of my test leagues. I'd be glad to share it for the project if we wanted to go that route. Of course, it helps in that league that I have a great running back who is very dangerous with the short passes.

Chemistry Effects on Drafting

If we go ahead and adopt the 8-9 group from above as our deliberate chemistry leaders, then here are some top rookies who would be potential affinities:

RT Jonathan Bickler
CB Bryant Nissly
QB Floyd Carlisle
QB Ricardo McConnell


…and perhaps more importantly some potential conflicts (birthdays from 5/22 to 6/21):

LT Courtney Free (the #1 ranked player overall)
RT Jumbo Rogers
RT Deion Jennings
DT Kenneth Cassidy
LG Frankie Hawkins
DE Derek Cordie
DT Tony Testa
FL Bobby Herod
RB Antonio Caniff
SE Ellis Kurtz
CB Aaron Noe
RB Leonard Martin
LT Mitch Collado
RB Rich Anthony
SLB Quentin Matthews – superfast LB, ran a 4.39

I like that approach, and if you've got a gameplan already sketched out, I'm perfectly fine going with it. So, presumably, we would want to find "good fit" players. So, in addition to the things we usually would look for... we'd want:

QB - short passing, accuracy, screen passing
FB - good receiving skills, blitz bickup
WR - getting downfield, courage
OL and TE - emphasis on pass blocking skills

Anything else I'm leaving out?

RB with good receiving skills and blitz pickup as well.

Also, route running should be at a premium with all our receivers in a West Coast offense (or at least our primary guys).

Draft wise, we should likely aim for high intelligence guys if we plan on running a "West Coast" offense.

As for defense, any ideas about what coverages we're planning to run? I was thinking base 3-4 bump and run with high blitz tendencies from our linebackers.

Also, reading the help file, it appears that free safety will become one of the more important positions on defense.

Thoughts?

I find it very hard to "read" a FOF 2007 draft, so I have no idea where this guy would likely be selected. But in my view - he'd be a wonderful choice for the team we are envisioning thus far -- his strong suit si mostly with the shorter passes, he has all the secondary skills we'd be looking for, plus he's fleet of foot to scramble as need be. he graded out well in teh combine, and is among the more developed QBs in the draft.

I can't imagine taking him at 1.1, but if he were there for us in round two, I think I'd be very tempted. If he's a mid-1st guy, then I don't know what's best.

My general instinct would be not to take a QB early and to get a "good enough" guy in free agency...but the FA crop is dreadsfully weak, and I may biased toward what has tended to work well in FOF 2004, which may no longer be the case. My drafting of QBs in '07 thus far has yielded far more rocks than diamonds.

Absolutely agree. Ideally, the back will have good elusiveness which I *think* helps with turning the screen passes into decent gains at times.

Given a full day and night for input, I am going to make a few offers to key free agents, including the affinity leaders previously identified, and go from there. I won't be making any really binding FA offers -- nothing with a meaningful bonus that would keep us from reversing course if we eventually decide to do so. But I want to get the ball rolling a little bit, and it seems that with a few free agent players in place, we'll have a decent starting point for that. I'll probably sim through the first three or four weeks of free agency, until the inititl round of bids are resolved -- I expect we'll get all the players we target here.

New file coming soon...

First wave of free agency complete…

Here are your first eleven ‘Dillos, sports fans:


Hmmm… the chemistry stuff isn’t printing out correctly, but you will see in game that every player here is an affinity guy with a group leader, with the exception of QB Schultz, who was brought aboard as a decent reserve and position mentor.

While these signings took a bit longer (in stages) than I had expected, I am not panicked. From here, I think that pretty much any offer will be accepted immdeiately, so we can essentially do the next 4 stages one at a time, pretty easily.

Right now, I think we need to focus on two things:

-Rookies to interview (I think we need to stay out of the QB position, sadly)
-Further free agent signings to lock up prior to the draft

Remember, all the currently restricted free agents who remain unsigned will become unrestricted after the draft -- meaning we will get an orderly shot at them. These are likely to be more attractive players for us to try to build with, if they are at all talented -- 3rd and 4th year guys with some future for development seems more attractive than 11th year fossils, all things being equal.

With that... let's keep the discussion going for now.

Further Free Agent Targets

Now that we have the colorized scouting reports, it’s much easier to see players who fit with our chemistry setup…plus I’m looking at offensive players who would fit fairly well into a short passing offense.

LG Gus Jaffe is one of the best pass protection OL remaining in free agency (scouted at 70 there), and would be a weak affinity with our leader on the OL. Jaffe is also a G mentor, which may be useful down the road as well – he could be a long term investment for us, as he’s only an 8th year player. I declined to make a big investment in one of the expensive players (mostly at center) so we don’t have any playable OL on the roster yet – Jaffe would be one, and he’s asking for $1.4/yr. I’m assuming that we could lock him up for two or three years fairly easily with a deal that meets his requirements.

WLB Kyle Schifino looks like a backup-caliber player, but he’d be an exceptional affinity (I think) for us, and has decent-enough skills to see some action if needed. Rated 24/36 overall, but a 93 personality makes him a good locker room influence for now – and high leadership and intelligence make him a likely mentor down the road.

RB Brant Roberson might be a wonderful fit for our style of play – he’s a versatile RB with pretty decent skills in both straight-ahead running and in receiving from the backfield. He’s also a standout punt returner (2 TDs last season), and has kick return skills as well. RB mentor, too.

WR Andy Kinney may be the best receiver left in the FA market for our team – 37/42 overall, decent receiving ratings generally, void id in BPOR, which shouldn’t matter too much. Possible starter for our team, I think, and an affinity guy.

WR Frankie Kramer is not as good nor as targeted in his skills as Kinney, but he is also an affinity guy, and he’d be a special teams standout for us as well.

Offensive line interview candidates

(I’m deliberately trying to take one of the less sexy position groups)

My general thinking is that we don’t want to use an early pick on an OL, but if a decent prospect slips, a middle round pick might be fine. With that, I propose to target these OL players for rookie interviews:

RT Jumbo Rogers
RT Deion Jennings
LG Gabe Godzik
C Spencer Suckle
C Adrian Hansen
RG Zack Newsome

Both WR are no brainers I think.

WR Aaron Williamson isn't a bad target either, fits the system and is a Mentor.

WLB Grady Belanger would be a solid target, I like him better than Schifino personally.

SLB Kirk Franz could be a playmaker for us.

LG Jaffe and RB Roberson are good choices too.

TE Diaz - is he off limits since we had him in 2006?

I will focus in on evaluating linebackers in FA and the draft.

I believe that we agree to focus in on 3-4; therefore I will look for players high in the following attributes (in preferred order):

ILB: Run defense, bump and run defense, play diagnosis
OLB: Pass rush technique, run defense, bump and run, punishing hitter.

Any thoughts to this?

I will look at the file a little later and post my thoughts about specific players:

I made all the cuts last season, so everyone out there is willing to listen to us, at least.

#1 Options:

With McCartney and Free both likely non-targets for us, I think our best option might be trading down.

My targets for the top of the draft would be:

CB Percy Lochner
WLB OJ Tucker

I would really be happy to acquire either. Lochner may be the #2 pick in the draft after McCartney. I would be shocked if he slipped past 4-5. I don't have a strong feel of where a top LB would go.

Scenarios:
Keep #1 - Draft Lochner
Trade down to #2 - Draft Lochner
Trade down to 4 or 5 - Draft Lochner or Tucker. If both are gone - Trade down again???

I do think we were pointed in the 3-4 direction.

Did we discuss the primary pass coverage though? Thoughts?

I think Run defense should still be a higher priority than PR Technique for OLB's, but otherwise I like the line of thought here.

This is the only post so far that gets into defensive philosophy. So far, no real support, nor any real opposition. So far, I just went with generic DBs, in the absence of any particular coverage system.

I tend to play a lot of BNR in FOF 2004, so my inclination would probably be to try something else... but I'm oipen to most anything. A heavy-blitzing 3-4 sounds interesting to me.

Thinking overall --

Here's how I envision our eventual roster of 53 players for this season:

~15-20 veteran players, mostly position leaders and affinity guys (mostly on board already)

~5-10 younger free agents, 3rd and 4th year guys whose contracts were no picked up (sign in late FA period)

~7-10 rookie draftees

~15-25 undrafted rookie free agents


Does that sound about right to you all? We build a little infrastructure with "good fit" free agent players this year, but generally will be fielding a pretty young team, and will be very lean as we enter next year's FA market where we might have a beter sense of where we might want to make a major cap commitment.

I work another double today (woohoo for 18 hour days), but I'm free this weekend, and I only have two shifts left at the restaurant. This weekend, I should have some time to look things over -- I'll just grab a position group that hasn't been picked up, and analyze them in the draft.

I like Lochner a lot as well, hopefully an interview will back up some nice looking bars. I also think he could fall to 4 or 5, I'd even be a little surprised if he didn't. Jim has definitely fixed the issue of Qb's not going as high, to the point where there's at least one Joey Harrington in most drafts I've seen, sort of a guy who is a reach that a bad team takes in the top 5. I think with that LT there, it's probably safe to drop to 4 if we want to target Lochner.

I like Lochner too as a potential top pick... but have no feel at all for where we could drop to get him. If we drop from 1.1 to 1.3, we can probably extract a pretty good price for doing so, and our risk would be lessened (compared to dropping down to 4 or 5 overall). I'm guessing we could get a 2nd and a 3rd, at least, for that drop.

I think the DT's would probably go ahead of Lochner. Plus, worst case scenario, is that we would take OLB Tucker who looks like an instant impact freak as a linebacker.

So, let's say that Denver would give us their 1st round picks both this year 1(5) and next year for the pick at 1(1). Are we willing to do that, and take either the top CB or LB as discussed, based on availability? Or woudl we rather get a package of picks this year, to try to get a quicker start? I generally value 1st round picks far more highly, but we might get their 2, 3, and 4 this year or something like that.

On this team, that LB has DROY written all over him.

I also value 1st round picks highly and would go for the 1st rounder next year over a package of lower round picks this year, if we can make that deal.

I like the idea of grabbing a first rounder next year as well as opposed to getting a package this year.


Now i'm not great w/ the gameplanning kind of thing, but isn't a good to great DT valuable in a 3-4 defense (correct me if i'm wrong). I admit that I haven't had a chance to download the file at home yet, and can't remember if there were any great DT's available.

Current working list of veteran FA offers to make:

LG Gus Jaffe
RB Brant Roberson
WR Andy Kinney
WR Frankie Kramer
WLB Grady Belanger
SLB Kirk Franz
TE Eric Diaz

Where do we think we can go with this next stage? If it only looks like our real effort remaining will be with rookie interviews, then maybe we can load this up a bit, get most of them out of the way, and get to the draft in maybe two more stages?

I agree that a great DT is essential. While I think the top DTs are good picks, they don't stand out to me (to be fair, I only gave them a cursory look). Tucker on the other hand looks studly.

Sounds like a reasonable plan.

I will plan to run another stage tomorrow morning, assuming I'm up early enough to do so. Any further input on rookie interviews, etc will eb factored into that stage.

FAA Update

So, we have signed several more free agents… and have made some rookie interviews. Here’s an updated roster, according to our scout:


Now, a few scattered notes… we’ll start with the bad news first:

RB Roberson has claimed the group leadership role, upending the chemistry effort there (I must have missed the message to this effect). He’s a good fit, but my thinking is that we want to make the investment in chemistry simplicity… I feel confident we will find solid, playable receiving backs elsewhere, so I advocate cutting him.

LG Jaffe would have done the same, so I didn’t pursue him. Instead, I went after a couple of veteran interior linemen who looked decent enough, on the cheapest possible contracts. Neither is an affinity, but they look solid for right now.

Our OL premium is on tackles, where I botched the rookie scouting – I tagged for interviews two conflict guys, rather than affinities. Sorry.

Finally, I interviewed the stud LB we liked, OJ Tucker, and it looks like he had some ratings erosion. For those who still have his old ranges visible, have a look before seeing the revised version. He is now labeled as “Very Overrated” which makes me wonder what to do there. (more to come on this)


On brighter notes:

Denver was very excited to grab the top pick, and accepted my initial offer – giving us not only next year’s 1st rounder, but also their pick at 2(4) this year to make the swap. I’m thrilled, and didn’t want to mess things up by bickering… so it’s a done deal. I think this means we can focus a little bit on some rookie interviews of second-tier players, who might be there in the early second round, where we have two picks now. w00t!

One OL we interviewed, RG Zack Newsome from Penn State, looks like a nice draft sleeper. He’s about 25 deep at the OG listings, whatever that means, but he is well developed, a pass blocker mainly, and our interview tags him as “Very Underrated.” Right now, I’d love to think we could land him at 3(1), or maybe even later. Looks like a great fit for our pass-heavy system. At 289, probably can’t move to tackle, though.

I signed a couple of cornerbacks, including Phil Rogers, who looks pretty good in both zone and man schemes. With the veteran FA talent pool getting so thin, I just didn’t want to see us end up with no options there, so I signed a couple guys as cheaply and risk-free as possible. While I wouldn’t want to see these guys dictate what we do long term, we now have three playable guys who can hold their own pretty well in a zone system.

CB Percy Lochner held his ratings with his interview, and is labeled as “As Scouted.” He has projections that remain topped out for run D, man and bump coverage, and play diagnosis – looks awfully solid to me. Even though he’s a modest mismatch with the corps of veterans we have back there, I would be happier to build around Lochner than them. I’m now hopping for him to be our top pick, and don’t know what to do if we’re looking at LB Tucker at 1(5).


Some good progress, and a few disappointments. New file is up in the email address.

Affinity Rookie QBs

Since we are building so much potential affinity, I thought I’d look for rookie QBs who would cash in on our triple-affinity potential, and who have some reason for optimism.

Ricardo McConnell (5.5) – 1st 40 time, 4th test, 3rd agil, 5th pos test, 39% developed
Edward Caldwell (4.6) – t4th strength, 1st agil, 31% developed
Rodney Lichtenberger (4.1) – 2nd 40 time, 40% developed
Aaron Matthews (3.9) – 8th agil, 7th jump, 7th pos test, 44% developed
Alex Hickman (3.8) – 5th agil, t4th jump, 12% developed

Since we won’t be able to do interviews at the QB position (crashing issues) we have fairly little to go on past this.

Just looking at the blue ratings ranges, I’d spot these guys as good “system fits” for us:

Howard Burks
Chuck Hall

I’m seeing a positively alarming scarcity of QBs who seem to have good ratings in the short passing categories… enough so that it makes me wonder if something seems wrong there.

Anyone else feel up to running another stage, either tonight or tomorrow morning? I don't want this to turn into my game, just with assorted hangers-on.

I downloaded the latest file (FAweek10.zip) and we're still listed as having the 1.1. Didn't you trade that?

Ugh, it's possible that I didn't save after making the trade. Sorry.

Regardless, Denver will do the deal and send us 1.5, 2.4 and their 2008 1st for it, so let's consider that a done deal.

What would be helpful to have for the next sim (tonight or tomorrow morning) would be a list of 5-10 target rookies to interview in each position group:

RB/FB

WR

DL

LB

DB


Also, there's a very good FB sitting in free agency (from Miami) still, who is looking for a pretty fat contract. Any thoughts on him? He looks like a very good fit - do we want to go get him? One year deal? Multi year deal? I'm open to anything, but I didn't want to commit a big bonus without getting some group sense of things.

I like him a lot for our offense. I say we go after him. Multi-year deal is fine, but I'd probably drop the salary a bit from his asking price to try to keep his cap cost at 2mil or below for the length of the contract. He doesn't have any others offers to him right now, so we can give it a shot.

I'm not quite as excited about Lochner as you guys are. I think if we're to spend a top five pick for a CB, he should be a triple threat. It worries me that he has NO zone skills. That said, he's a combine beast, so he'll be a solid player for us, I just wonder if we'll be able to get away with playing basically no zone in FOF2007 or if we'll need to mix it up a bit more.

I don't have a great alternative yet to go after at #1.5. I like that WR Anderko. I don't know if we need to go that route, but he looks great. The LB Tucker scares me a bit with the "Very Overrated" tag.

I also like the MLB's combine scores a lot (but wish his Run Defense was higher). We could trade down again and still get him - maybe even pick up another 1st rounder.

KWHit: Wouldn't it be possible to just remove him from Zone Coverage situations? I know that I have focused on getting guys in my SP career who have Bump and Run and Man-to-Man skills and with just the scout recommends run very very little zone. With this group taking a more indepth look at things it seems like having a DB with a complete deficiency at Zone could easily be worked around as long as zone isn't a focus of the team (as it does not appear to be).

Well, we could put him on one side of the field in M2M or BnR and play zone on the other side of the field, I suppose. My point mainly was just that I'd be hesitant to pick a guy that highly that has that big a deficiency - basically forcing our hand in the coverages we can run. Also, if you look at our current roster, many / most of our secondary are best in zone coverage.

I just wanted to raise the points since it sounded like we had a lfew guys that seemed ready to pull the trigger on Lochner.

Some possible DT's to interview - looked for guys with blue bars high in run defense, as I think that's important in a 3-4, though not sure.

Robert Renfro
Donovan Shipley
Kevin Korinek
Kenneth Cassidy
Artie Bobo
Zack Beale
Leland Kisbany
Nathan Patterson

Update…

We offered FB Harvey Holmes a two year deal at basically $2m.yr, and he has accepted. Risk free, basically, but he looks like an obvious addition for a team that probably will be struggling on offense.


We have interviewed the several top DTs indicated by Sublime2, plus a couple more. From the results, which you can view in game, we might have a couple of leads there:

-DT Leland Howard rates as "very underrated" and is the most developed DT in the draft. I'd possibly be tempted to move him to DE.

-NT Artie Bobo is a true nose tackle (no pos switch needed for him to play in the middle) and is also “very underrated,” plus he’s an affinity guy for us. Run D looks like it projects to around 75, not bad. Not a superstar, but another intriguing later round pick, perhaps. Poor combine, but pretty well developed.


I went ahead and ran some interviews with wide receivers who looked like they had some skill matches and decent combines. We have four veterans around already, but certainly good young WRs will be a staple for a team like this. Highlights:

Billy Joe Anderko, the top rated guy and a combine stud, graded as “overrated” but he still fits into my thinking as a possible #1 pick for us if he falls

-Anthony Brennan is 10th on the WR overall board, but is a pretty good skill match for us (very high in the top three ratings) and graded out “as scouted” – maybe round two or three?

-Dennis Fabbrizzi is a deep sleeper, but had some good combine numbers (str) and graded as “underrated” – late round guy perhaps


At RB, I don’t usually look early in the draft, but took a look at a couple of guys:

-Autsin Hagglund might be a nice pickup as a receiving-focused RB – only real demeirt in his apparent ratings is fairly low “getting downfield.” Graded as “underrated” and a couple of high combine results.

-Leonard Martin is a pretty good skills match also, and graded “as scouted.”

-Anthony Greene looks like he’d make a fine utility back – underrated, receiving skills, returns both kicks and punts, might even play some straight-ahead HB if called upon. He’s pretty far down the list of RBs, might be a nice later round pick.


I also interviewed the #2 rated offensive tackle Bickler, as his name has come up as a possible top pick. He looks outstanding. Probably needs to be in the discussion.

A few rookie targets – these are players who came out in a “% developed” sort, who looked like decent skill fits. Mostly looking for late round fliers here:

CB Emmitt Gardner
SLB Allen Munro
CB Pat Gust
NT Alan Honaker (to DE)
DT Seth Keith
NT Kris Grant (to DE)

Both of these defensive tackles are almost pure pass rushers – if they interview well, both probably would switch well to play DE, they are both in the 290s in weight.

SLB Allen Munro is an interesting guy – ranked 4th among OLB, very well developed, pretty good run stopper, but no pass rush technique. At 219 lbs, he might not switch well from OLB to ILB, where I suspect he would be a better fit. Dunno… I suspect he isn’t worth the fairly early pick that it would require to get him, but if he slides, maybe a 3rd rounder?

I haven't been following the various discussions about FOF 2007 -- but is there some consensus emerging that a team really needs to use all three coverages in order to be effective? I'm skeptical if there is... but if not, I'm confused by some of the discussion above (basically about whether Lochner and his void in zone skills is a serious problem).

I agree that drafting Lochner, barring a bust, locks us into at most using two coverage setups for the foreseeable future. I basically dismiss the skills of the veteran guys we have on hand -- we're dealing with a range of skills that isn't all that broad, and with guys who we wouldn't expect to be around all that long anyway, in most cases.

I'm still putting Lochner atop my hope list for the pick at 1.5, with the WR and RT as my other contenders, and LB Tucker now down a notch from them.

Has Lochner been interviewed? Also could our scout's ratings be posted? I'm following this along and want to contribute, but I haven't downloaded the game files, which maybe is just what I need to do.

With a 3-4 Blitz-focus defense, what type of players will be needed in the front seven?

Will this force a bigger emphasis on top-tier man-to-man corners. How will the safeties work and what type of players will be needed?

I don't think we have really decided what style of coverage we are going to use. Some people seem to be convinced that the new game will force teams to use multiple coverages, or even all of them, and will minimize the value of players who specialize in one style of coverage. We haven't had anything even approaching conclusive here... if there is strategic discussion on this elsewhere, I haven't seen it.


I'm going to wait for a bit today before doing a stage... haven't had much input since the last one. We have a lot of rookie interview slots still available... anyone want to offer some (any) guidance there? Or are we finding this process too tedious to spend time with? I'm willing to just scatter around a ton of interviews and move to the draft if that's what we want... but I don't want to step on anyone's toes by doing so.

We've had people volunteer to do certain things, but not all these things have gotten done. I wonder if the lack of assigned roles is what's making this a single-centered exercise. *shurg*

Anyway -- get word in this morning if you'd like to see anything in particular done before we head into the draft. We've got 3 picks in the top 40 slots, so we have a chance to cast the mold for this team right away. Let's not fritter it away.

Any thoughts on this? I'd at least prefer a second before cutting him.

I think building around chemistry is great and wholely support cutting Robertson.

Another update…


Well, we haven’t looked much at DBs in the draft, so I will do some looking. Since we haven’t really isolated a certain coverage focus, I won’t do any filtering in that regard.

Here are some guys I’ll plan to interview:

CB Bryant Nissly
CB Emmitt Gardner
CB Clifton Shephard
CB Aaron Noe
CB Arnold Norris
S Vernon Swift
S Kerry Ward
S Kerry Fabian
S Omar Hathaway
S Seth Jackson

I'm not sure what would be best here. If the draft would be the necessary draw to get us more momentum, I'm glad to basically zip through a bunch of scattered rookie interviews, and get us there to make our fisrt pick today. But I don't want to do so at the expense of anyone who actually wants to be involved in the pre-draft processes.

My inclination is that the relative silence in these stages is an indication that the interviewing process just isn't that compelling... and that we'd be better off zipping ahead to the draft.

If there's anyone who would like to make a contribution before I do so... please make it known soon. Otherwise, I'll go ahead, interview a bunch of linebackers (which I have deliberately stayed away from) and other guys mentioned in this thread and otherwise, and sim up to our pick at 1.5 in the draft, where we can start the first BIG debate for this team.

I agree with just heading right to the draft. If anyone wanted to get some major input onto the interviews, I imagine they would have by now.

Free Agency Concludes

Okay, I have finished up our rookie interviews, and have advanced us to the draft. Feel free to look in-game to see the results of the interviews… I did some scattershotting of players who looked to have good skill matches, guys who had notable combine results, and well-developed players. A fair number of guys came through the interviews looking attractive, I think.

Into the draft – we sit at pick 1(5), and I have gone ahead and simmed the picks leading up to ours. Without further ado – here’s the top of the draft:


A bit surprising on the early end of things…

So, our internal mini-debate over CB Lochner has been rendered moot. For what it’s worth, trading down isn’t much of an option – just to test the waters, I fished a bit with the Giants, and found that they wouldn’t even give us their 2nd round pick to move up from 1(10) to 1(5) – so I’m thinking we just used this pick, as I don’t value mid-round selections all that much, myself.

Carry on, gentlemen…

PRO: With the top CB off the board, I would submit that the most nearly perfect draft pick for our team is probably the offensive tackle, Jonathan Bickler. He had a very good combine in several key areas, and our interview upped his apparent ratings pretty nicely, if he has a skill skew it's modestly toward poass protection which fits well, and we have tagged him as "Underrated." He is also an affinity guy with our current position leader, and our current roster doesn't have anyone we want on the field playing LT, to which I'm sure he would switch easily.

CON: OT isn't exactly a huge impact position, and with a team that looks to be pretty weak on offense, we'll be investing a lot of money and capital into a guy who probably won't translate to many wins anytime soon. He is also not very well developed, which is always a red flag at any position, so we'd be paying a lot for a guy with fairly lousy current ratings, at least for a substantial share of his first contract.

With the Giants not wanting to give up even a second rounder, I wonder how the trading works. Does trade value drop off after a certain point? Is the AI smart enough to determine a trade up does not suit it needs (basically, they would need a reason to want to do a deal)?

I suspect the trading AI is pretty generic. I think by most "draft value charts" from the NFL (not necessarily suitable for use with FOF, but an obvious place to start) probably says that the drop in value between 1.5 and 1.10 is somewhere in the middle to late the second round, so NYG being unwilling to send us 2.9 for the move up isn't absurd, necessarily.

I agree with you it not being absurd. I like that it makes you have to work the draft. I was curious that if a player the Giants want, would they be willing to pay more than it's "valued"? Also, I wonder if the deep of the draft, both position-wise and overall, plays a factor. Also, do teams have certain players they want.