Keep It Like The Kizer - a FOF8 challenge career
 

KEEP IT LIKE THE KIZER
The setup: Fresh restart using the v1.4 NFL player file posted at FOFC by antdroid (thanks!) in September 2017.

The hook: I’m playing with the Cleveland Browns, and will treat the top four rookie draft picks from 2017 like deities. They stay, they start, and they are the guys we will try to build around.

The catch: None of these guys is actually any good. QB Kizer is just a click or two above awful, S Peppers is borderline starting quality (but probably at FS rather than SS), DE Garrett is maybe rotation-caliber as a pass-rushing specialist, and TE Njoku is a near-total stiff with only one good skill (getting downfield, which is admittedly at least somewhat useful). (It sounds like this was a bug with the player file, which has since been remedied, but I started before it got caught, so I'm locked in with four young... well...Browns)

Preseason notes:
Prior to the first training camp, we release QB Cody Kessler. Kessler came through the import process looking pretty decent – meaning the AI would play him ahead of Kizer. Verboten. Remedied.

I intend to put the AI in control of depth charts for expedience. So, that means I will need to steer away from quality players at QB, TE, and probably FS (I think Peppers will fit better at FS than SS in this game, where he’s going to be a decent cover man, ballhawk, and special teamer but not much of a tackler).

By the way, here’s what Kizer looks like for us. He’s dreadful, but the concept here is to build around these Browns rookies – so he’s our guy:



Okay, with no real hopes of anything good coming from the 2017 season (except probably a top three draft slot) here goes nothing…

2017 season
Yes, hopeless. We’ll have pick 1.1 ahead, deservedly so I think.


So, there we have it. Abysmal. Unsurprisingly so, I guess.

Kizer got hurt, but at least our one win was with him in the saddle. He grades out at 17/33 by my scout now – with his one main skill being the seemingly useless “timing.” Lovely.

Other key youngsters: Myles Garrett looks like a solid situational pass rusher whom we will probably force into full time duty. Njoku is a TE2-caliber guy who can block a little and has a nice 88/97 GD but little else to speak of. And Peppers has a 94 interception bar (but only one pick in his rookie season) and ought to be fine but not spectacular as a FS starter and special teams standout. S’allright.

Herb is nonplussed:

Team Perf 00
Fr $Value 100
Profit/Ls 100
Roster St 02

2018 Offseason

Mmmkay, now we’re fixin’ to build a team here.

Staff. Rrrright, CYA. New staff will be built around scouting, a deep offensive playbook and a 3-4 front. (I’m skipping the names, they’d be a distraction) So, we can install my “system” here and start getting guys to implement it. We will be a run-first team (duh) and will pick our spots with the passing game…maybe a play action style.

Re-signing priorities: RB Crowell
FA target positions: Judicious targeting of impact players anywhere

I’m going to use a few house rules here to keep the game from getting out of control in wide open free agency:

-players must be offered the contract duration they seek
-I may only have one outstanding FA offer during any stage of FA:1

I want the offseason to feel realistic, rather than just two offseasons of MASSIVE rebuliding and gutting the team. My guess is though these rules, we will be able to bring in a handful of quality guys (we have a bit of cap space), but will still need to count on our rookies and returners as the team backbone. As it should be.

It’s looking like a trade-down year in the draft for us (no standout monster at a need position, the obvious 1.1 is a stud QB) so I won’t bank on a particular guy coming from the draft to fill a certain roster spot.

Stage 6 will be tough – RB Crowell is up then, but so are (by bad happenstance) the top two free agents I’d really love to bring aboard, DE Ziggy Ansah and CB AJ Bouye. I am likely instead to overpay for a LB in another stage where I’m freed up to spend.


So, we round out the roster a bit here. I missed on a stud LB early, but filled in pretty well with Kennard and Brown, I think. We remain one edge rusher short of a fundamentally solid front seven. The secondary is basically okay now, though depth is scarce.

For the draft, I am not going to be making trades out of the current year – too easy to exploit the AI that way. But I will trade down this season (top tier QBs seem likely to go 1 and 2) and still try to get a top pass rusher, plus some compensation later in this draft.

The Jets oblige, and send us their 2nd and 4th to move up to pick 1.1 to take their franchise QB. We get our target guy at 3.


I tried to deal up for a CB/KR/PR, but it’s too pricey and he goes at pick 10 overall.
We land our anchor pass rusher, great. My 6th round DE might actually be a nice find – a rotation guy with special teams skills.

Got two guys at LB I’m pleased with, wanted both at 2.02 and was shocked when Conerty fell a full round to us. Filled in special teams, obviously, all three guys look like improvements, and with a QB-hampered roster, we’re going to need angles like a good kicking game.

First look is a bit disappointing for DE Earhardt – wanted a higher upside than 70 or so. But overall, I think we have a lot to work with here. LB Conerty might bump in preseason, and end up even better than that 55, which would be awfully nice.
After training camp, we get a trade offer of a 6th for DeShone Kizer. How wonderful! No thanks, but really, that’s great.

So…down to 53 players, here’s where we stand as we start off the regular season:


Okay, hopes are not high, but here we go…

2019 Season


Well, lousy again. Pick 1.4 this time, that’s fine. We need an impact WR and then I think we will have pieces in place. We need to keep Kizer upright, too, that might help his development.

What do we see from our rookies?

QB Kizer – needs a ton of help around him, period. Concussion bad omen for a long-term commitment guy by design here. He’ll be a liability for us, but that’s not a surprise. Cohesion, surrounding talent, and gameplan should get him to maybe a rating of 80-85 in time (we’d hope).

TE Njoku – got basically all we could hope for here, 100 targets, and 7 yards per. Not bad. I doubt he’ll ever be a 1,000 yard guy, this could prove to be his high water mark in yardage.

DE Garrett – 9.5 sacks in a DE rotation, that’s good. Shelton should be the star, but Garrett is good enough to be in the mix, too.

S Peppers – looks like he got semi-benched this year, my bad. Campbell will be gone, and he’ll be back to full time FS next season, I’ll see to it. We’ll find a special teams guy or something to be S3.

Herb:
Team Perf 08
Fr $Value 100
Profit/Ls 100
Roster St 28

I'm watching.

I can't imagine this will get very exciting. But in theory, I will try to develop a serviceable team using these guys, and hopefully work on my drafting skills a bit along the way.

2019 offseason
Up from here. We will try to target some role player guys who can slot in nicely behind our must-start types… special teamers for TE2/3 and S3/4. And in the draft, I’m pretty focused on WR here, hoping that with pick 1.4 we can land an immediate 10-target guy.

Same rules – one guy at a time in early free agency. And a crisis right away. LT Joe Thomas is a free agent, and I’d be likely need to pay whatever it takes to keep him around for a couple more years. But DT Shelton is on the market, and I feel we should try to lock him up, too. However, both guys are targeting stage 2. I need to make a call, and will go young and target Shelton – in part because 2nd year T Blades is probably good enough to play for us now.

Looking to build young, but will seek out some of my role players among the veteran scrapheap.

I cut WR Britt for cap space, and LB Collins is likely right behind him for another $10m. The free agent market for receivers is gigantic – I can definitely do better than a declining Britt for his $8m in cap space.


WR Davante Adams is pretty good, but he’d cost us around $15m/season… I’m not wild about that huge investment in a B+ guy (66/66 by my scout and below 1,000 yards each season so far). I instead go after CB Nickell Robey, a very good mixed skills cover man…but we lose out to Miami for him. Alas, we end up just re-upping with CB McCourty for two more years, and miss out on the shiniest free agent wave.

On to the draft… stud WR would be great, but the class isn’t accommodating. Sadly, we may need DL help again, as last year’s 1.3 pick Earhardt now charts as only 40/59…starter but not stud.


I’m not bowled over at pick 4, so I deal down to get the Saints’ second rounder, and pick at 1.10 instead, still getting a top target – a combine-skipping cover man with big bars.

The trade offer for QB Kizer has risen to a 5th rounder. Great!
Our punter is busted for bad conduct. “Being Sebastian,” I think they call it now.

I’m letting RB Duke Johnson walk away. Buckeye Rod Smith is a low-talent sub, and our rookie Rogers looks better suited to play the 3rd down role here. So, we’ll go cheap behind Crowell.

On first look, we might have landed a key player in WR Whitfield – scout had him VU and he shows up well developed and looking really good. Just what we need, honestly. Rest of the draft looks fine, our top two picks should help the defense a ton.

Uneventful camp and preseason, we’re ready for our third try with real games.

2020 Season
We hope for another step forward… start slow (with TE Njoku injured) but win two to get even, then spend the whole season flirting with, then reaching, .500.



Wow… we managed 8-8, which seemed like a nice arbitrary benchmark. What I didn’t realize was this would give us the #5 seed, and a game against a milquetoast 8-8 Dolphins team. So unfair… two 10-win teams are sitting out in the NFC.

Young core players watch:
QB Kizer (37/42) – standard low-level QB, nothing noteworthy in bars
TE Njoku (41/41) – missed 2 games injured, he’s okay
DE Garrett (52/52) – 10 sacks is nice, solid starter now
FS Peppers (31/31) – big drop in ratings, just a marginal guy now

We fall behind Miami 24-4, then Kizer gets two TS passes to get us close, but in the final two minutes he gives up a pick-6 and we lose 31-21.

Happy with the results for certain. Did not expect playoffs, even if via a strange mathematical backdoor. But now, we have a foothold toward being a legitimate team to reckon with. Good signs.

Side note – here’s the scout view as we wrap the 2020 season:

2020 offseason

Okay. We basically have a “base.”

Looking now at key guys to keep around. I haven’t been renegotiating anyone, so this year our major free agents are RT Shon Coleman (stage 2), C JC Tretter (no stage), and DE Carl Nassib (stage 5). I’d like to retain other guys as fill-ins too for continuity but if we re-up with these three, I’ll be pretty content.


The Cowboys sign away C Tretter, who isn’t great but the continuity would have been nice. We have Meadows ready to go, and he looks good enough, so we’re fine there I think. Didn’t pursue any of the mediocre veterans.

We head into the draft in need of WR,LB,OL.

 

Typical mixed bag draft. BPA picks at LB will add to our depth, and allow us to keep shedding older guys. Past that, nothing to shout about – I don’t think anyone here is more than he seems.

We have another suspension (backup LT Johnson), and WR Sammy Watkins is now holding out. I respond by signing WR JJ Nelson, a deep threat guy with a huge bar in adjusting to bad throws, on a 2 yr deal, and expect to cut Watkins unless he relents quickly.

I do another few odds and ends to prep for the season. Watkins is still holding out, but we will carry him and hope he returns. Especially with Whitfield hurt to start the season, we are really thin at WR.

Hoping for 8-8 again, don’t really think we’re better than that. Our spcial teams should be pretty solid at this point, and we’re fine winning games 16-10 if we can.

2020 Season

So, uh…we’re a bye team.


Not sure what to think here. QB Kizer elevated his game to “decent,” but the running game got locked in, WR Whitfield developed into a serious stud (he missed the first two games, his 1300 yards was in only 14 games), and our defense suddenly became the toughest to throw against. Wow.

Admittedly, we had some issues with our central players. TE Njoku was fine – undoubtedly our TE1. But Garrett sort of slipped behind 2nd year DE Dave Blanchard in the depth chart, and managed only 6 tackles. And S Peppers blew out his knee and went to the IR midseason. So…I may have failed to remain perfectly faithful to the rules here, I should have caught Garrett’s benching sooner and…I guess…put Blanchard on the inactive list.

So, in the postseason… we win easily at home over Denver. We play host to New England (led by QB Teddy Bridgewater), in a tough conference championship game. We paste them 26-3, and head to the bowl game. Weird.

In the title game, facing mighty Colin Kaepernick (no joke) and his G-men, we are thoroughly outclassed and fall badly, 27-6. But what a run.

Damn. That was fast.

Still have theoretical interest in playing this out. But admittedly less than when this felt like a project that might never "come together."

2021 offseason
As we close out 2020, Herb stands up and takes notice!

Team Perf 90
Fr $Value 97
Profit/Ls 98
Roster St 54

So, is this actually a good team now? On paper, it doesn’t really look that way (the 54 roster strength, frex), but the results were awfully solid. I’m going to continue my line of thinking that cohesion is the play here, and I will focus on retaining guys who got it done for us last year.

Again, I am not renegotiating anyone, and I’m sticking with a new rule (one I rather like) of only having one FA offer outstanding at any time. That puts some meaningful but easy-to-follow limits on my roster management.
CB McCourty has retired – he had declined anyway, so that’s a loss on cohesion but a big gain in cap space.

Main thinking for free agency is to retain my young guys – and here’s the weakness in the overlap of my two restrictions here. I should have allowed myself an out to reneg with my four key youngsters, rather than just have them all walk into open free agency at once. Without a rule-bend here, we have DE Garrett targeting stage 2, but Njoku, Kizer, and Peppers each with no targeted stage. Ah, the virtues of having crappy cornerstone players, nobody is greedy! I think we can make this work.

RB Crowell is getting on in years, but we’ll try to re-up with him, too. Have a few others I will try to weave in among the cornerstone guys as I am able.


We miss out on RB Crowell, as Houston grabs him while I am pursuing Kizer (CB Wilson messed up my thinking, as he got another offer and I had to realign to keep him). Wasn’t sure how closely I wanted to follow the rules there. We’ll live, I reckon. I don’t sign a veteran here, will likely look for a rookie to move in and join a committee. Aaron Jones is also sitting there unclaimed as a do-it-all-pretty-well option leaving Green Bay.


Tough call with our top pick – CB is a major need, and there are two alluring guys here. Howard Showalter got scouted as underrated and has a near max bump bar, but Bernie Flynn has really good coverage bars (but a void at interceptions), high endurance, and a 4.38 dash. I settle on Flynn hoping that maybe Showalter might fall (or we could trade up in round two)… but no dice, he goes with pick 2.2.

A fast Wisconsin RB almost falls to us in round 2, but goes to the Packers (heh) two picks earlier. We go for a Buckeye DL (top-two-bar type guy) and fill in with a mess of stab-in-the-dark types, targeting special teams or specific single skills more than overall creeper candidates.

DB Darius Slay is holding out – we pay up, for two fat years. He’s basically irreplaceable for us – the SS is asked to do a lot in our defense (100+ tackles usually). His combo of RD, ZoneD, and PH all over 65 makes him a centerpiece player for us.

Young CB Douglas Phillips is a huge addition – undrafted rookie last year, played a lot and developed, now looks like a starting caliber zone-first cover man. Not the perfect guy for CB2, but he would be perfect for CB3 if I can land a better guy (sadly, our top rookie might not evolve to be better than Phillips). Regardless, we sign him for 2 years.

DT Gietka slides over to play NT after a weight gain in camp, and looks like he may be a long term play for us there. My staff wants CB Flynn to play at FS (where we only have Peppers) but I reverse that to force Peppers onto the field this year (if he can stay healthy, dubious).

So, basically, the offseason boiled down to: stay the course, add good young guys at NT and CB, and not much else. Pretty unexciting.

In the spirit of my challenge rules, I am going to have to deactivate a good DE (Blanchard, 52/62) to keep my cornerstone guy Garrett (51/51) on the field in the main DE rotation. He’ll be there for depth in case of injury, but the point was not just to keep the four young guys, but to feature them.
So, we head into the regular season looking to find out if we are actually a power team. Big questions abound here – with Kizer develop into a net plus for us? Will the running game remain effective? Will our pass defense remain a major asset? Let’s see…

2021 Season
Hard to imagine a more deflating way to start the season after a superbowl berth than a 6-0 loss. But here we are. Zero points. Yikes.

It gets better. We’re 6-2 at the halfway point, and Kizer is okay efficiency-wise (6.69, 81.5) but the numbers just are not there this year. WR Whitfield was nearly a 100/game guy last season, now he’s sitting on 371 yards in 8 starts. We are winning with good pass defense, and a +14 turnover differential.

We wrap the regular season at 13-3 again, blessedly unscarred by many injuries. Things looked better on the back half for the offense (especially Kizer with a great stretch run, no picks in his last 7 games), but we remain a team that simply doesn’t look like a steamroller in the typical sense.


So, I guess we are for real. What would the O/U have been on wins for the season? Maybe 10.5? Covered that easily, despite the roster weaknesses. Nice.

Kizer will play on a soft knee in our opener at home to the Titans. And…boom, there we go, down 16-9. They got an early lead, inched it up to 16-0, and we were playing in all-pass mode for three quarters, it seemed. Ugly way to go out.

Key guys update:
QB Kizer – we know what he is on paper, but a 14/3 ratio is AWESOME
TE Njoku – pretty much a “work the seams” guy, good enough
DE Garrett – replacement level guy, nothing much exciting now
FS Peppers – his once-promising bars gone, he’s ceding time to reserve CBs

(Side note – I think I will up my setting for having players play in their exact position, to force Garrett and Peppers into playing more…though Peppers was on for over 500 snaps this year, he’s just not a tackler)

Herb things we are basically in the zone:

Team Perf 90
Fr $Value 96
Profit/Ls 96
Roster St 84

Not sure what altered his view on the roster so much, but here we are.

I'm following this quest, Quik.

Do you have chemistry turned on? #justasking

No, chemistry is off. If I leave it on, it becomes a massive distraction for me, and really slows things down. I wanted this to be an interesting challenge career with the "play it out with these four guys," that then became even more alluring with the "...and none of them are actually very good" add-on.

What I really need, I think, is to re-boot my "Seven Year Itch" concept career, to force myself to draft better and rely less on gadgets (in this case, cohesion, I guess).

2022 offseason

Okay, then, we’re a good team. Got it. And I’ve got a dozen or so GM offers awaiting me. Also nice. Not going anywhere, but nice nonetheless.

CB Byron Maxwell retired – no real loss, waning veteran. No movement in coaching, despite Mike Tomlin being available and looking attractive – I’ll stand pat with my staff, save for a new strength guy.

In free agency, we have G Bitonio (stage 3), DE Earhardt (3), LT Blades (2), C Meadows (10), WR Watkins (5), and LB Petit (3) as my more or less ordered list of priorities. Obviously the jam at stage 3 will cause us to risk – and probably lose – a couple guys who have been good for us.

The dilemma breaks down this way. Petit is fine but replaceable, so he’s 3r among the three guys. Bitonio is nearly our highest rated player (66/66), and with OL cohesion being an asset, he makes sense as the guy we’d pursue here. Plus, We are too deep at DE already, as we benched Dave Blanchard last year to keep Myles Garrett playing. So… easy call to re-sign Bitonio, and let DE Earhardt walk, right?

Well…Bitonio is in his 9th year, Earhardt in his 5th. Hmmm. It also seems possible that nobody else bids on Bitonio, and maybe I could sneak in and offer him a deal in stage 4. No chance Earhardt goes unclaimed, I think. So, there’s that. Plus, I honestly do have a credible G waiting in the wings in 3rd year Brant Battle (36/66) so we wouldn’t be totally left high and dry.


I go with G Bitonio for cohesion, and watch both DE Earhardt and LB Petit immediately sign elsewhere (for $17m and 15m/yr, respectively). The cap consideration actually played a big role here, too. I fill in with a decent run-first DE Weatherly to help fill the gap while (hopefully) staying below the overall ratings for DE Garrett.

I try to re-sign my punter, but he’s reluctant and in doing so I miss out on WR Nelson, who was a decent downfield WR3 for us. P Butler finally signs in week 9, giving us a chance to get some easy deals done later on.

Basically, as you can tell, I am all in for cohesion. Just one new addition through early free agency.

For the draft, we have a few spots we have to fill (K and LS) but want to plug in useful guys at WR, RB, and LB if at all possible. LB Petit wasn’t really a star, but his loss puts us one short with our two real stars pending open free agency soon. So, a quality addition there would be timely. And on offense – we’re just anemic (and RB Andrulis sucks) and anything could help that lot.


Well, LB O’Neill was another too-good LB falling to my pick. Seems like a weakness in the SP game. If he holds to form, he’ll be a stud just like Murphy (pick 2.4) and Bloomer (1.21) – the type who ought to go around pick 1.6 or so.

WR Lang is raw but could end up being really good. DE Doering is a weird profile guy – wacky combines, two maxed static bars, worth a stab. Two intriguing corners later, we leave the draft with no long snapper, no QB2, and no RB2. We’ll have to stay targeted in late free agency.

Side note – we finally get a stadium upgrade approved.

DE Myles Garrett and LB Leonard Murphy both hold out – we have to pay up. One due to our rules, and one because he’s a monster. With Murphy, this may be a blessing – he and CB Abdul-Malik could easily have both been stage 2 guys next season.

In late FA, we lock up 3rd year RB Isaiah Piccolo, a guy with 100 HR and few fumbles in his first two bounce-around seasons…and a desire for a fairly cheap 4 yr contract. We grab a rookie long snapper, and re-up with backup QB Blades, and we’re ready to go.

LB O’Reilly will move to start at SILB, DB Skelton moves to SS where he could evolve into a can’t-cover-big-hitter enforcer type there, I’d be okay with that. G Polanco looks great, but I hope he doesn’t die on the vine while he waits for a chance to start (at 10% developed, a real risk).

Okay, saddle up. Over/under this year is probably 11.5, given two big years in a row. But if our depth is tested, unlike last season, this team might not be ready for that.

2022 Season

Preseason gives us a clearer look at the rookie class. DE Doaring is interesting – 83 PRS, 81 PH are good signs, he’s got several big bars on the bottom, but in the “stuff that counts” he’s really lousy: 34/54 RunD, 6/15 PRTech. So, what good is this guy, rated 44/55 after his first preseason? When I auto-set lineups, a guy rated in the 50s is going to get starts or at least playing time. So, now what? Can’t use the 62/74 ST bar if he’s inactive. Weird spot, weird player.

LB O’Neill projects as a near-stud, not a total stud, fine. SS Skelton is on target, but will never cover anyone (he’d be really useful in a setting where I set depth charts, he’s a good special teamer). G Polanco got even better, yikes. WR Lang looks like a bust, at a position where I had been counting on him as our top slot guy, ugh.

Okay…into the regular season we go.

…

Last season we opened by posting zero points. Better this year. 51-6 over division rival Ravens. That’s what we’re talking about.

Week 4 we have to sign a free agent scrapheap LT to fill in for a couple weeks (Laremy Tunsil, heh). Then again for a few weeks for RT Coleman. Tunsil is playing a good bit, seems.
At 7-2, the team looks good again. Piccolo has taken over as the RB1, but we are barely grinding out 4 ypc. Kizer is up to a 96 passer rating, and Whitfield is back to his 100/game pace – with the exact same gameplan as last season. Beats me.

We stumble a bit down the stretch, and finish off with a loss against Pittsburgh, leaving us both 10-6. Luckily, that’s still good enough for a bye in a four-way tie among the division leaders and top wild card. Sucks for the Stillers.


So, 10-6 isn’t as great as 13-3, but the bottom line is still a week off and a home game. We’ll take it, even if the UNDER paid off here.

Running game improved in efficiency when we were losing games – so I’m writing some of our struggles off as game script issues. Not panicked there. Kizer is not good on paper (still rated only 35/35, with no important rating over 35), but in our system he is now pretty reliable as a performer. A slump down the stretch undermined his season stats, hopefully we can get him going in the postseason.

I have no explanation for DT Gietka, it appears he became our passing down DT, but 9 sacks and 9.8 PR% is crazy good for a true DT. Garrett had a nice season, earning his big paycheck at least.

Biggest issue for the postseason is WR health, as both Watkins and Coleman are questionable for unknown duration hammies after week 17.

In our opener, we host Jax, and shut them out 17-0. We really bottled up their run game and controlled the ball well. Watkins/Coleman combined for one target, ugh.

In the conference championship game, the Jets pull away in the 4th quarter. Watkins at least played, so we didn’t have a massive excuse – just lost to a seemingly better team (behind guys who are not Jets today, needless to say). So it goes. Still no ring.

Herb 74 94 92 58

Kinda bored at this point.

I think I could be roped into something if we wanted to try some kind of GroupThink concept career. Or a challenge idea.

This did kinda go from okay, "interesting maybe" to "looks/feels like pretty much every other career" pretty quickly.

I think, maybe(?), at this point those who have been really into the game have kinda broken it.

Yes, Jon, that's pretty much it.

I still really enjoy the sense of "oh, wow, we have so much to do here..." at the start of just about any FOF career. But in time (here, sooner than expected" it just turns into "oh, hey, we're good and just trying to stay that way." And that's way less compelling.

Thing is, I don't think I'm really deserving of that implied reverence. I'm smart and have played the game a lot, but I don't think I am particularly good at drafting - so it's not like I just loaded up with 30 young players in 3 draft classes and made a superteam. Here, I honestly think it was just a matter of smartly filling up with decent veterans (who fit the gameplan), and letting cohesion turn a mediocre team into a pretty good one.

Hmmmmmm....

But maybe that's -- sort of -- where it "breaks" a little bit (for long term, repeated plays anyway).

I mean, let's go with "you're good at the game but not great" ... yet with Kizer at QB, you went 13-3 how quickly?

Maybe the hurdle to clear to make winning somewhat easy IS "just be reasonably smart & get somewhat good at the game", or more simply -- don't be a dumbass & don't break shit.

And I don't really mean that as any sort of harsh critique of the game (lest anyone get bent at me), I'm just sorta thinking aloud here, reacting to what I see happen kind of often.

I wouldn't mind joining efforts too (quick bio: played hundreds of SP careers and simulated another 1000s before venturing into MP earlier this year).

I've tried Career Challenges based on real-life examples for the sake of increased immersion/realism. E.g., limiting FA and extension signing bonuses to a fraction of the profit, having 4 years to reach the playoffs with crappy teams, having owner-mandated draft picks (based on popularity, or taking the highest-rated QB regardless of bars/combines), etc.

All fair, I reckon.

What about a draft-focused GroupThink career? Maybe play under the "Seven Year Itch" rules-- your whole roster consists of guys you drafted, and you have to let everyone walk after their 7th season, period.

Hmmmm. Warming up to this idea. It deliberately leaves very little room for error...you need to get something out of pretty much every pick.

Just stumbled on this. I'd happily be involved with a FOF 8 GroupThink if there's interest in doing that. I'm a regular re-reader of this thread and would love to see something similar

Sounds like a good challenge to me.

... and I feel like an idiot for never stumbling upon the linked thread above. thanks a lot squirrel.

if I GroupThink materializes at some point, I'd be happy to contribute with game plan analyses such as the one below. not sure if it will show up formatted below, but you get the idea -- success of 122 plays in normal situations vs different defensive calls.

********NORMAL***********122 Normal************************************
2-7 (1Q: 01:43) 8 ydpass 122 Strong Pass ZXYAT 16S26 Normal 122 vs 43 Over, Regular Personnel, Press-1, Buzz No Blitz +++
2-10 (3Q: 01:01) 11 ydpass 122 Strong Pass XTYZA S2942 Normal 122 vs 43 Over, Regular Personnel, Press-1, Buzz No Blitz +++
1-10 (4Q: 12:14) 3 ydrun 122 Strong Run 22 Shotgun 122 vs 43 Over, Regular Personnel, Press-1, Buzz No Blitz -
2-13 (1Q: 05:01) 5 ydrun 122 Pro Run 20 Normal 122 vs 43 Over, Regular Personnel, Tampa-2 No Blitz -
1-10 (1Q: 12:11) 7 ydrun 122 Strong Run 25 Shotgun 122 vs 43 Over, Regular Personnel, Tampa-2 No Blitz ++