The "One and Done Challenge"
 

The “One and Done” Challenge

Okay, it has been a long, long time since there was a single-player “competition” here at FOFC. Some of you might recall that back with FOF 2001, I believe, a whole series of players played a career with teams from Richmond, Virginia that all had the same starting point, and reported back on their long term success. Regrettably, the game was not flexible enough to really make the year-to-year experience perfectly parallel for each player – the x-factor even for imported draft files renders this a variable, no matter what. That inflexibility remains today, so it’s just not easy to come up with a “challenge” that really puts everyone in the same boat.

This is an attempt to do so.

The concept is simple. We can’t control what comes into the league in future draft classes… so, for our team, there won’t be any future draft classes. Just this one. Load up, build an entire team just from this rookie class, who come through your training camp, and play out the entire career with those players.

It should, I think, have several interesting advantages:
-One long offseason, but then it should move quickly if you want it to
-Long-term look at many players who might otherwise get replaced/released/traded
-Long-term look at cohesion, as yours will likely move from worst to best in the league


Here is the setup:

YOU GET:
An empty roster (well, one angry guy who won’t re-sign, but he will be gone soon)
Three years worth of draft picks, including the 1(1) this season

YOU MUST:
Build your team **entirely** from this year’s rookie pool, with players acquired before this year's training camp
Set your global options to: cap increase from 60 to 99, injuries set to 100

YOU MAY:
Make any trades you can involving all three years’ worth of picks to acquire picks for you to use in this year's draft
Draft as many or as few players as you like, and then

YOU MAY NOT:
Sign, trade for, or otherwise acquire any new player to your team after the first year’s final cutdowns*
(*one exception – worst FA K/P, but only if needed to keep the career alive)

edit: To be as clear as I can here, after your 2008 training camp, you may *never* trade for, draft, sign, or otherwise acquire any new player for your team, with the exception of a kicker/punter absolutely necessitated by injury, and in such a case only the worst-rated free agent. I hope that is completely clear - that really is the essence of the whole challenge. Miss that, and you're simply not playing the same game the rest of us are.

YOU START:
By getting the files I have uploaded here: OneNDone Zip Files
(warning: it looks like the frfoot.fgr file includes a custom color setting - at the very least, back up your file with that name... you may not even need this one)

YOU CONTINUE:
By doing your rookie interviews, making whatever trades you like, and drafting
Fill in the rest of your team with undrafted rookies, and head to camp
From there on, play an entire “dynasty” career with that lot of players

YOU KEEP SCORE:
Over the long haul, here’s how you can give yourself a “score” for your efforts:
(for simplicity's sake, just use the in-game summary - don't subtract out the 0-16 start that you were handed for the first year)

Your score is the sum of:
100 x Cumulative (career-long) winning percentage, rounded down
Your total number of games won + ½ your number of ties, rounded down
2 points for each time your team won its conference
2 points for each time your team won the championship


edit: A few notes, in case these things are not obvious as you get started. Keeping a legal roster will determine how long you can keep your career going - remember, you can't add any new players. At some point, guys will retire, or guys might leave via free agency. You will need to field a legal roster with whatever you have left. This likely means making permanent position changes, even if they completely emasculate the usefulness of the player (like switching a RB to CB, or a DT to OT). So it goes. But keep this in mind, both as you build your initial roster and as you go forward -- staying flexible, and keeping your players happy about playing time (so they will re-sign with you) are essential parts of what you may need to do down the line. Also, recall that no non-QB can ever switch to QB, so carrying fewer than four guys there is likely asking for trouble. (There's a waiver on the P/K position, to keep that from needlessly occupying three roster slots) Hope these tips are helpful if you're getting started with a One and Done Career.

So I could in theory trade the 1.1 for a stud QB in his 5th season but then I must keep him?

I don't think you can trade for veterans.

That seems pretty clear to me that the answer is "NO". The future year's draft picks are for acquiring picks in this draft only I would assume.

No, all your players have to be rookies, period. If you want to use that 1.1 to take the top QB, that's fine (I have not even looked at this draft class, incidentally) or you could choose to trade down to give yourself a ton of picks in rounds 3-7, if you prefer. But no veterans, period.

If it turns out that anyone here actually wants to take this up and give it a try, I'd like to think that we could separate out any "spoilers" from this thread. Since we're all dealing with the same lot of players, in my first time thought at least, I'd prefer not to already know that DE Joe Sacker is predestined to be a great breakout player that I can get at pick 4.21 but not after that... if you get my drift.

Do we need a team ID and password?

If I put these files in, they won't erase any MP stuff or anything, right? (logos, city files, etc.?)

It's a solo career, so I *think* you just load the files into your "universe" directory, and it should come up as one of your available single player games, under the filename: OneNDone.

The only file that is in there without the OneNDone name is the frfoot.fgr file -- I guess it may be wise to back up your file of the same name, as I don't honestly know what is contained in that file.

No logos, city information, or anything else. I don't even know what NFL team this is mapped onto... I don't even have an NFL setup any longer for FOF.

Awesome. I think I'm gonna take a shot at this. Do we have a time limit? Like...10 years and then we compare scores? Or just until everyone retires from this year?

Also...what should our settings be for injuries and cap?

Hmmm... I guess I ought to put some of those settings into the rules above.

I'm thinking we go with 60-99 for cap increases and 100 for injuries. I think that is what I have in there as the default, but I'll add to the rules that those are to remain fixed at those levels.

I think that is wide open. I have made the scoring such that additional years are very likely to be worth playing, as long as your team has at least a reasonable hope of winning several games. Down the stretch, it might require shifting positions here and there to field a legal roster, but I reckon that to be part of the long-term challenge. Something to plan for, though, as you fill those 51st-53rd roster slots... probably good to have a few guys wit proper weights to serve as a "gimp" just to fill in the roster in case of a fall-apart.

I did intentionally waive the no signings rule for kickers and punter - nobody will want to carry a 3rd guy there, but it would suck to have your career end if your punter is listed as out and you cannot field a legal roster in year three or something.

Incidentally, my personal thinking is that I want to play this out once without any special information - just do my interviews, do my draft, fill in the roster, and see how well I can do.

But I can foresee, especially if a number of people play it and post their results somewhere, a future replayability where I/we play it over again, but use some "insider" knowledge -- knowing in advance that certain players are likely breakouts of draft-day-fallers, and make plans around that.

I might take some notes to myself on certain players who would make good future affinity group leaders, too. I just can't help myself.

I'll def be giving this a try

Awesome... I thought about a similar challenge earlier but never got around to it. I'm in.

What the hell is up with the colors???

Can we get a separate thread for spoilers/results?

Is there any way to get a new base file one more year out? That dead cap space is a killer.

I'm not really convinced it's a killer... I am flying through a career, had four picks in the first 16 including 1.4 and 1.6, signed all my draftees with the exact contracts they wanted, and still have over 28 million for free agent signees. Even if you push for picks 1-4 somehow, I have trouble seeing how you spend all the cap space this year.

Maybe it will serve as a reasonable limitation on how much to crush the AI trade engine, if nothing else.

Hmmm...maybe that answers that question. If you have a red-and-goldish color scheme with this team, then presumably that .fgr file includes the custom color scheme. It wasn't my intention to share that... sorry. I'll add a note to that effect above.

How do I load the single-player game?

The second of the several icons at the top right is "load game." Make sure you have not opened the multi-player window out of habit -- that window being present/absent is essentially the toggle between being in MP and SP mode.

I have it closed, but it says no single-player games available.

Well, it has worked for at least one person... so I'm guessing there is some setting difference.

If you didn't use my .fgr file, can you try backing up yours and using mine? Maybe that's why my .fgr file got updated, as maybe it includes information about the save games library, perhaps? *shurg*

Quik, I'm in.

Do we need a little subforum set up for different people to post their year-to-year results?

I have no idea what would be the best way to set things up... we clearly don't want to overrun the main forum with crap, but that's basically out, I'd think.

Whether individual dynasty threads make more sense than something set aside on its own, I don't have any really strong feelings.

I can set every person up with a thread that only he can see, then on a specified date, we move the threads ibto one new subforum for this, and make them all public. How does that sound?

Sounds pretty cool to me.

I'm in, just so everyone knows.

I'll set up the private deals in the morning. If you're in and haven't posted, please let me know.

Oh hell yeah I am in.

Extracting rookie class...oh yeah the juices are flowing.

I am going to start a dynasty report on this, probably tonight.

Is use of the Change Tracker frowned upon or not? If it is kosher, I will report what it tells me.

I am in. What else are visits to the in-laws for?

I'm going to give it a shot.

Quick question. Once we get get past the third year, we'll start getting draft picks again. Should we just draft and then not sign the player?

Should we draft BPA? Or the worst available? I ask because it seems that if we draft the worst player, there could be too much talent on the other teams, so I would assume we should just draft BPA and then let them re-enter next year?

I'd say just trade them away for future picks that you'll trade away in the future :)

This sounds great. I'll give it a go.

OK. I've set up private forums for the following people.

1. QuikSand
2. Chubby
3. JetsIn06
4. Passacaglia
5. SkyDog
6. Subby
7. Shorty3281
8. Celeval
9. gstelmack
10. stevew
11. digamma
12. larrymcg421

Go ahead and write a full-blown dynasty report in there with all the creeping/booming/unmasking detail you want. No one but you should be able to see the contents (not even me, until I change the settings.) On a deadline day that Quik specifies, I'll de-privatize the forums, and move all of the dynasty threads into the One And Done Challenge subforum.

If you haven't posted and want to participate, let me know, and I can get you set up.

Since I'm somewhat sick, and also Jewish with nothing to do over the next couple days :), I'd like to give this a shot, even though I haven't opened up FOF in at least 8 months. I've never been much of a dynasty writer, so if I get my own thread, is it cool if I stay brief on the details?

Yes yes, that's easiest.

Your forum is now set up.

Thanks SD.

Is this a rule, then? Or can we draft players, but not sign them?

Is there a way to make those not visible? They're kind of screwing up the format of the board.

Yeah, but it's much less convenient. It won't be that way for long.

Deadline for results?

I think it is "cleaner" to just trade away all your draft picks - it keeps your roster screens from being cluttered with extraneous guys, and potentially avoids an "end run" of acquiring rookies to draft for chemistry purposes, if there is any advantage to doing so.

Honestly, I can tell you from my own experience (I have played countless "no draft" teams) - we're talking about an investment of maybe a minute or two of your time once every three seasons. It's not hard to do, just trade your picks away five at a time and demand almost nothing back, it doesn't take any deep thought.

Jeez, the pressure.

I'm thinking something like January 15th. Sound okay to everyone?

I sat down yesterday and deliberately just *flew* through my draft, and got my team finalized and ready to start playing games in about 90 minutes of game time -- not exactly the "slow and steady" approach, overall. This will by no means be any sort of world-beater team, though.

No need to detail anything in particular... I know that I didn't really take any notes with my initial draft-day trading spree, and have no plans to write out much of a dynasty, other than probably keeping the season by season Team Summary printouts.

Please, if anyone is thinking about playing this "challenge" and is just not interested in doing a long, involved write-up... don't be pushed away by that. No pressure to do serious writing, just tell us how it's going.

QS, the draft for me took about 3 hours. Interesting approach. :)

I actually wish I had taken a lot longer with it... I *know* that I could have done better given more time. Patience is not a strong suit of mine.

Quik:

I assume this goes without saying, but it's not really explicit in the rules. The players have to be signed from this class while they are rookies, correct? In other words, no getting to year 5 and trading picks for year 5 players from this rookie class.

Hey SD, since the almighty complained and others slightly did in General Discussion, maybe we could make a new forum below the Werewolf and Hattrick forums called One-and-Done challenge? We could have the main section where we could post topics to generate discussion, and also have our private subforums in there too, so we could all be in our own little world and not bother the non-participaters?

I wondered that too, but I think this covers it in the rules...

Right.

I even went with the assumption that you can't trade for rookies in that first year.

For instance, I ran the Change tracker after Year 1's TC, and the Jets had a player they just drafted boom +14. I told myself it wouldn't be fair to trade for a player I didn't even draft/sign.

==

QS, I'm right there with you. In my dynasty, I started writing many paragraphs about each player I was interviewing... as I went on, the paragraphs turned into sentences, which turned into no write-ups. That gets tedious!

BTW, I have found some GEMS in this draft! I am interested to see what kind of monster team we can build after everyone is done and we all see who was successful.

I'm not interested in moving the forums because of a little whining. It takes roughly .5 seconds to scroll past the headers in the dynasty forum.


Larry:

Good point. Missed that.

Hmmm....I've already made a couple of post-camp trades.

DOLA:

Ah...I haven't saved yet. Re-reading the rules, Quik probably didn't intend this:

Well, to each their own. I guess QS' lack of patience hits here too, as he clearly did not get specific enough on the rules! ;)

I reverted to the save immediately postcamp. It's pretty straightforward that he didn't mean to do it this way.

downloaded the file... hopefull I'll have time to give this a try. Haven't really been able to get into SP yet otherwise.

Glad to hear that the "deadline" is mid-January as this week is very busy for me and I would've passed otherwise. I'm in!!! Look forward to getting starting with this later this week.

I am open to any more clear language in the rules, but yes -- you may only sign players during this first season, and only before training camp. After camp, you may never obtain any more players for any reason, other than a fill-in K/P and that only if it's necessary to stay legal with your roster.


I guess I will amplify this -- I'd hate to have any ambiguity lead to someone playing a totally different career than everyone else and "missing" the whole point of the challenge. *shurg*

New language added to clarify original intent:

edit: To be as clear as I can here, after your 2008 training camp, you may *never* trade for, draft, sign, or otherwise acquire any new player for your team, with the exception of a kicker/punter absolutely necessitated by injury, and in such a case only the worst-rated free agent. I Hope that is completely clear - that really is the essence of the whole challenge. Miss that, and you're simply not playing the same game the rest of us are.

I hope that helps... it's an obviously huge difference. If you could just go around acquiring all the breaking-out and/or fully developed stars from this draft class over the years, you'd be playing a completely different game.

In theory though, we could find ourselves at the point where we don't have enough active TEs on the roster, for example, due to injuries. If that should come up, should we also sign the worst rated TE that is at the same level of experience?

No.

Part of the challenge is maintaining enough diversity to handle these situations as long as you can. Yes, at some point you will no longer be able to field a legal roster... that is, in part, the idea. Having a few guys on the roster of versatile weight (like a 228-lb FB, perhaps, who could become a TE in this situation, or could become a RB or WR if the situation mandated it) is part of the long-term strategy.

I listed kickers and punters because they are completely restricted in this game -- nobody at any other position (other than P/K) of any other weight can ever be switched to P or K. That would have made it almost necessary for every team to carry a third P/K to be able to handle a retirement or a serious injury... and given that this challenge is already so strict, that seemed too much (upon having this pointed out to me).

As for running out of QB, TE, DE, or anywhere else... you're on your own. At some point every team will suffer enough retirements that they can no longer field a legal team, and then they are finished by necessity.

I'm thru season 1...coaches/scouts are signed for next year, but what should happen when their deals are up? Should we just re-sign them?

Oops. I figured unsigned FAs after camp were Kosher. Making some cuts now.

Another question...I'm heading into season 3. One of my QBs is refusing to sign his RFA contract because he's pissed about playing time. I'm guessing I have no other choice than to sign another crap QB?

any chance i could still get in on this?

I think that means your done, unfortunately.

Here you go, Logan.

I guess if you didn't think all this through completely, and have found yourself unable to make it onward, you'll have to use your best judgment on what to do. (In my view, it would be better to just bend the rules slightly than to feel you had to start over completely)

In theory, a meaningful part of this "challenge" is maintaining a legal roster as long as you can. That means having extra guys around (like a 4th QB, or a"flex" guy to cover FB/RB/TE, etc) but also making sure that everyone is willing to re-sign with you (so, keep an eye on everyone's happiness with paying time).

If you're totally in a pinch, you make the call. But in concept, part of the challenge is not to let your team get into this sort of situation. If you've got a guy on the bench who is getting ticked off about being on the bench... you've got to give him some playing time, or else you're going to be short that guy before too long.

This is a special challenge career. It is intentionally both unrealistic and somewhat difficult. Hope it still proves to be entertaining for those playing it through.


I'll go back and add some more "words of warning" to the introductory section, I guess.

As a fast simmer, I definitely wasn't paying attention to the needs of my 3rd string QB (sim 8 weeks, check the stats to see who needs more time based on production, and proceed). I'll be sure to take it a little slower from now on.

Thoughts on hiring coaches? I went ahead and re-signed by old guys since I'd think we would all want to have the same coaches, as any difference could make a big impact on our results.

I figure that with the severe limits on players, we'll need all the flexibility we can get elsewhere. So, use any contracts, renegotiations, and the tag as much as you like. And as for staff and coaches, I think it's wide open to do anything you can there.

For what it's worth, my tendency is to try to get any frustrated players some playing time right away at the start of the season, get everyone happy, and then play the guys I need to play down the stretch. With most players, as few as 2 starts will be enough to get them back to content.

I'd love to be in

i'm in.....

been playing with it all night...

Quoted for posterity.

I always do this with a bit more structure if people want to be anal. I count my total draft points and distribute them between the 7 worst teams that year, as best I can. It usually amounts to something like 1 extra third for a given team, not a huge advantage....

I kind of decided that if I have to pick someone up to field a legal roster due to massive injuries, or way premature retirements, I'll pick up an UDFA on the opposite side of the ball of what position I need. IE a RDT who I'll switch to a RT, which usually results in a 1/4 type player. Or a SS-> RB

Probably violates the spirit of the challenge, but it seems like a reasonable work-around in an absolute worst-case career-killing scenerio. At least in the first couple seasons.

Not to be an assjockey, but there are reasons why I planned on this sort of thing - I kept 4 QBs, a FB (not required at all), and generally 1-2 extra players at every position. Why field 11 offensive linemen when only 7 are required? Yep, only 7 are required. And it's easier to switch a DT to OL than it is to find some guy who can be swapped in as a QB!

I'm not going to bend the rules a hair, once my team is too injured/retired to compete, I'm done. :)

I was actually contemplating keeping 5 QB's around.

i made it to the front office bowl in my third season. i lost 45-38....

on to year 4. one guy is demanding a trade, two disgruntled.....

Just for fun, I decided that I'll be trading my picks to the team in my division with the worst record as they become available to trade.

Might I recommend an additional score of points for each year you can keep the dynasty going? Otherwise a few early good years and you retire with a blisteringly high winning percentage, which is, by far, the highest input to your score. I think we should encourage people to keep going, instead of calling it a day when their star RB or somebody goes down permanently and they have a high percentage.

This draft class blows. Awesome!

I would hope that people are playing with an eye on keeping the team going as long as possible, but you may have a good point there.


On another note, once we're done with this, it'll be interesting to look harder at the players from this draft class who crept a lot, but were never on our radar screens. I already see quite a few (year 3 now). Looking back at the draft class info on the first few of these, all I can surmise is that, like good players who perform better than their bars at the combines, there are also good players who underperform at the combines, even though they're really better than their bars. I'm not sure there's a way to identify guys in the latter group with any level of consistency, but looking at these guys might be an interesting exercise.

Is it too late to join this? I haven't played SP in a long while, I'd love to test myself a bit.. I have plenty of time on my hands for sure.

I might call it quits after 6 years, but it's because I don't think it's mathematically possible for me to have a .200 winning percentage even if I win out until guys retire.

As SD said, I'd think you'd want to play as long as possible to try to achieve the benefit of this challenge (outside of doing the best) and that is to see how player's perform after a number of years where they aren't really starter material. Figure 8 years at the minimum, probably 10. I'll end up playing til the end even if it's boring as hell just because there's very little time that goes into it if you want it to be a quick sim -- it's really just signing extensions in a 2 or 3 year cycle for me.

Heh. I just set up my scorekeeping spreadsheet. The issue is that in a given year, the winning percentage makes up 80% or more of the score in almost every scenario. (The lowest plausible is 7-9 with four straight postseason wins--55 of 70 points.) When the rules above are applied to an entire 10-year career of going .500 with no conference titles or bowl wins, you'd get 80 points from the 80 wins, and 50 points from the winning percentage. However, if you score year-to-year, each season gives you 58 points: 50 from the winning percentage, and 8 from the wins. I hadn't thought about that, and I'm sure Quik was intending to apply the scores to the end result.

Well... let's think this through.

Let's say you scrape by a few years, then get good, and stay good for the career of a good RB, like you suggest. Maybe 3 shaky years, 6 good ones -- you finish 9 seasons winning 12 games in the first three, and then 12 each in the next six -- totaling 84 regular season wins. Let's tack on that you have won 10 of 16 playoff games, with two bowl wins. That equals:

110/176 = 62 points
94 wins
4 bonus points for bowl wins
Score = 160 points

Now, let's say your stud RB retires, and your team suddenly is expected to be not as good. Maybe you're now a roughly 6 win team, out of the blue. (I’m trying to set this up as a really obvious “over the cliff” effect for illustration purposes) So, add on another season of 6-10 football, and where is this team now?

116/192 = 60 points
100 wins
4 bonus points for bowl wins
Score = 164 points

…the gain from winning even a few games still outweighs the modest loss in overall winning percentage. This is an implicit function of a couple of things – the 0-16 season that you are saddled with in calculating your overall win percentage (deliberate) and the expectation that your team will have at least some degree of struggles out of the gate (which sounds like it may not be universal, but I think will be true for most players in this challenge). In just about any ordinary circumstance, even a really obvious “cliff effect” would still not give a true incentive to arbitrarily stop the career and tally up a final score. The scoring system will still reward longetivity.

Hope that helps. I decided to leave in the initial 0-16 season for two reasons – it’s easier to watch when you don’t have to back out those numbers, but also the 16 deadweight losses help to prevent this sort of perverse incentive to preserve a high win percentage.

[mostly redacted]

It's your *overall* winning percentage, for the whole career, rounded down to an integer. (If anyone wants to suggest a better explanation in the rulesto make this clear, please do)

I tried to make the scoring very simple to pull it all from one place, in-game.

Maybe "cumulative winning percentage" captures it?

I'm obviously a bad judge. I thought "overall winning percentage" did just fine, but I've edited it to try to be as clear as possible.

I'm still convinced that it's nearly inconceivable that you'd have a situation where your score would be better off stopping than continuing.

Now you're the one with the big dick mentality.

Sincerely,

Guy Whose Team Drops From 2 Wins to 0 Wins in Year 6

SkyDog, can you add me to the private forum? I'd like to start doing this tonight.

i quit, already....

it was nice to have a diversion over the christmas break, while the leagues were on hold...

but i just find it a little tedious, re-negotiating 53 contracts in year 4......

and i just got guitar hero, for the wii......

so, i have to rock