FOF 2004 - Return to the Island of Misfit Toys
 

Return to the Island of Misfit Toys

Well, I have been fiddling around with a few other sim games lately. I’ve labored through about seven seasons of OOTP 6… it’s improved from its previous incarnations, but just doesn’t look like it’s for me. My efforts were certainly not worthy of writing about, so please don’t feel slighted. Anyway… I’m back to itching a bit for my true love – building a football team. Since I feel like I’ve exhausted the more or less “traditional” approaches, I thought it might b worth giving a shot to a different style. I’ll go back to the Island of Misfit Toys – where all my players will come from the free agent rookie pool available following the rookie draft. I’ll keep players on my team through any means, but the only way we can sign them is as undrafted rookies.

Usually, I tend to set my gameplan first, and then look for players who fit it. Here, I expect to do the opposite – which may prove more interesting. My experience with the IMT concept is that it’s more or less dumb luck where you get some quality players – even if you’re especially good at finding them, they just come along, you don’t really get to “call” for somebody to help out at a particular spot. So, if I end up with a fleet of nice receivers, this might end up as a run-and-shoot type of team… but if we end up with run-blocking linemen, we’ll pound the ball instead. Defensively, I expect the whole scheme will be based around the quantity and type of linebackers I get – I’m open to a 3-4 defense, even, which would be an oddity for me in this game. So – we’ll go with the flow… presumably, we will get lucky and land a few breakout players, and they will become the core of the team.

I am going to follow one general rule – I’m not going to start players out of position. If I draft a S and he can move to CB, I am open to doing that. But I don’t want to have a ton of guys playing out of their actual, listed position.

Past that – I think it will be pretty much “anything goes.” I don’t expect to get into very much detail with the player selection process… I think I will probably just post an Excel table with the training camp analysis, and use that to show what happened. I will add in a few comments about the particularly promising rookies in each crop.

More rules as needed… if this actually becomes interesting, then I’d expect my discussions to get more detailed. We’ll just let it run its course.

For what it’s worth, I’m going to play onward in the game universe where I had been the GM for the Miami Dolphins. After an unbelievable run with that club, I have essentially grown tired of playing with such a monstrous roster – that won’t be a problem with an IMT squad, I’m certain.

I’m taking over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a club that has a pretty rough go of it during this league history. We probably won’t be turning that around anytime soon – but with only 17 players under contract as we start off the 2030 season, we ought to have a fairly easy time clearing out the chaff and starting over. That’s the goal.

I’ll confess – there’s something very wrong about this team, as I give it my first look-over. They have 28 players who were signed to one-year rookie deals last season. 28! I don’t know what kind of salary cap hell this team was in… but no wonder they have been last in the division two years running…

Happy to see both this dynasty in general, and the same universe. It's almost like a sequel.

I don't yet know if this one will be worth getting too excited about...

2030

By the way, for those of you who followed the aforementioned Dolphins dynasty, you’ll be pleased to note that all-universe QB Mel Copeland made it into the HOF with a full 100% support, as expected. No surprise, but I thought it was worth a side mention here.

The very first step is to clean house with the front office staff. Basically, I try to go “top of the line” with my staff hirings – and we grab the OC from my old Miami squad, along with a great-looking head coach. My lead scout (a critical position) is pretty good, doesn‘t have any major weaknesses, but he’s not so great with young talent – we’ll probably look to replace him before too long. Ideally, I’d like to get a solid young scout we could keep for a long, long time.


The preseason is delightfully brisk in this game – we zip through free agency and the draft, and quickly move right into the post-draft free agent market, where I’ll be looking for rookies of any shape and size to make our initial roster.


Here’s the first year crop:


Not a lot of home runs in the lot, here – I think RG Christian Ogden has the most promise of anyone, but it’s tough to put an offensive guard on the cover of the media guide.

It might be tough to start Carl Rivero ahead of these other guys – but he might have the best future. I can’t imagine that he’s going to be our long-term answer, though… so we will probably go with Hawker or Blanchard, I suppose. Neither Bradford nor Barnes will inspire anyone at RB – so we’ll limp through this season at the glamour positions, it seems. WR Tony Redding might turn out to be our most productive offensive player, actually.


We run our first season on auto-pilot – letting the staff handle both the depth chart and the game plans. We’re not going to amount to anything here anyway – we might as well get it over with.


Hmm… when I said the team wasn’t going to win any games, I didn’t really mean that literally. Feh, zero games. Ugh.

Highlights? Not many. Best I can say about QB Hawker’s season is that he was better than our backup Blanchard, who posted a 0.0 QB rating on the year – which is pretty tough to do. I guess RB Bradford’s 842 yards rushing qualifies, and Tony Redding’s 713 is solid on a team that managed to so little offense. DT Carl Leal looks like a pretty respectable run-stopper for us up front – actually, 85 tackles is crazy for a DT, but on this team not a huge surprise. Our second-best player on defense might have been CB Dana Glazer, which is nice as that’s a tough spot to fill, generally, in these things. But we were at or very near the bottom in every stat category that matters – so this year was a truly lost cause.

Incidentally, the Dolphins made the Superbowl again after going 10-5-1 and getting only a wild card, but they lost to a mighty Atlanta team (18-1 on the year).


Nothing to see here…

2031

An uneventful pre-season, up to the rookie class. Here’s the camp snapshot:



Well, it seems we have a new quarterback – Terry Webster may not be a star in the making, but he’s better than what we have, and will vault right into the starter’s slot there. RB O.J. Shapiro looks like he could step right in as our starter – he has maxed-out elusiveness, which might be an asset with such a shaky line up front.

MLB Austin Alarcon will step right in at MLB, and is my early tag for DROY honors – he ought to snag a solid tackle total for us. DE Seth Nyland looks like a decent pass rusher, and he ought to start for us, too. WR Norbert Everett has some potential, but will have to battle for time, along with a few other quasi-prospects at WR.

It’s another season on auto-pilot for us – hopefully the last. After a couple of seasons, I’m hoping to have enough sense of the team to start putting things together myself, and trying to squeeze some wins out of this bunch. The early appearance is that this might end up being a passing team – I’m not wild about any of our backs, and the line seems to be shaping up as a bit pass-inclined, overall.



Leaps and bounds. Leaps and bounds.

Terry Webster wasn’t great at QB – but an improvement, for certain. His ability to run a little certainly helped our case, too. At RB, Bradford was again the man, but Shapiro will get a long look next year if it’s between those two. The WR group was muddled – no real standout there.

LB Alarcon did post good tackle totals, but not staggering – not enough for DROY, even. The big shock was that DT Carl Leal, our tackling machine in the middle, notched enough tallies to get a trip to Hawaii as a first team all-pro – nice!


I’m not sure if the statistics support this team winning five games – but it’s something to try and build upon, I suppose. Next year – we go hands-on, and try to see what we really have here. We’ll have to make contract decisions on 2/3 of this team – so it will be time to decide who can really stay around.

How odd. This morning I was just thinking. "Quiksand hasn't had a dynasty in a while. I hope he does one soon". A few hours later, this thread starts.

I knew those psychic powers would come in handy some day.

Glad to see you back in Dynasty mode QS. I will be following along closely.

good luck, i enjoy the island of misfit toys

Nice to see Copeland in the HOF.

A simple question : What do you do with your draft picks ? As far as I remember, in our previous IMT, you were trading them to another team (who did not have tremendous succcess anyway)

glad to see the same career continued. how did miami do the 2nd year without you?

Answers to questions from above:

-I have been trading all my draft picks to Cleveland (for no particular reason), as I do enjoy watching to see what a team can do with a double draft every year

-Miami stumbled in its second year without me and missed the playoffs -- I'll have a report to update you on their status following the next season

2032

This will be my first year of getting hands-on with this team. I plan to set the depth chart myself, and probably tinker with the game plan a bit, too. Maybe not hip-deep in everything, but it won’t be a zombie team this year.

During the free agency period, I re-up with a number of players who have served for two years. Keys on the list (guys I see having a fairly long term role with the team) include:

RB Gerald Bradford – 1,592 yards in two seasons as starter – will compete for role again
FB Chester Compton – decent blocker, really all I want at this position
TE Billy Joseph – decent starter for two seasons, but certainly replaceable
WR Tony Redding – 1,295 yards as our top target and punt returner – decent for long haul
C Jack Kearney – two year starter, some potential – marginal
RG Christian Ogden – solid starter, our best lineman, developing fairly well
RT Howie Bugallo – tackle is tough position to fill, he can keep the RT job for now
DT Curtis Ocasio – decent starter inside at DT, okay at everything
DT Carl Leal – run stopper standout, maybe our best player so far – new long term deal
LB Sam Freeman – strong side starter, decent but replaceable easily
LB Paul Blanchard – starter, but not enough run support for my tastes
CB Dana Lester – our most consistent corner – decent for now, definitely
SS Frankie Von Oelhoffen – nine picks make him our best ballhwaker – decent player
FS Tyrus Feenstra – decent defender, no eye for the interception, though – maybe CB?


I will probably fill up the roster with a few more re-signings, but those will just be fillers. Going forward – I think this is the group from the first “draft” that makes the cut and stays in our plans.



In training camp, we have some nice news – a couple of decent breakout candidates in G George Richardson and LB Kerry Seiler. Neither one looks like a world-beater, but we’ll take what we can get. So far, the picking have been pretty slim – in three years, I have yet to see a single URFA who looked like a sure-thing, slam-dunk breakout candidate. Alas – we’ll work with what we have.


There aren’t any real surprises with our depth chart or game plan – we will remain a pretty vanilla team this season. RB OJ Shapiro gets my opening day nod for the starting tailback slot – but we will keep an eye out, as Bradford is a close second and has the experience. I’m hopeful that our special teams will improve – as we went out of our way to obtain a number of reserve player who could perform well there. LB Kerry Seiler is going to start right away as the weak side linebacker, despite my scout’s argument against – he has more upside than the others in the hunt.


I don’t think this is a team that can win six or more games – if we squeak our four or five again like last season, I’ll be fairly content. Honestly, we are thinner than I had expected at this point – I had expected to have four or five real breakout players around by now. As it stands, I think we only have a handful of players who would be worthy of making a well-developed roster at all. Not so hot.


We wanted four or five wins – we end up with three and a half – a little disappointing, but not that bad, I guess.



Nice to see the QB get more TDs than picks – that’s a good step. Terry Webster is actually developing beyond his original projection – something we did not expect from him. Interesting…

RB O.J Shapiro was playing okay, until popping his knee and being lost for the season. Bradford again stepped in and was decent as our starter – but RB remains a position where I will keep fishing for a step up. WR Tony Redding is okay – he really just benefited from an overall improvement in the offense, I think.

LB Sam Freeman had a very nice season – his 7.5 sacks is the most we have seen from anyone, and our pass rush seems to be getting better. Indeed, our LB corps put up pretty respectable numbers this season all told -- even rookie Kerry Seiler looked pretty decent, despite still having very limited current ratings. S Von Oelhoffen remains our best interception threat – he doesn’t have a lot else, but he can pick them off.

I do a number of contract extensions here, rather than waiting until next season – at this point, money is not really an object, so I have great flexibility as needed.


Can this team start to resemble a “real” team soon? QB Terry Webster is looking more and more viable, and a few more players are taking their places – MLB Austin Alarcon, CB Jeremy Abrams, and TE Billy Joseph are all starting to look like guys who could end up being worth something to us after all. We’ll see…


And by the way – three seasons after my departure, the once-titanic Miami Dolphins dynasty is in total ruin, they went 5-11 this year and missed the playoffs again with their second straight losing season. Hooray for the AI!

2033

Again, the offseason flies by, getting us quickly to the undrafted rookies. I’m hoping for a standout this year – we really don’t have any stars on this team. A defensive tackle as our best player? Really, now…

And I think we have a winner – CB O.J. Mills is the first rookie that I see great things from. He is also projected to be pretty solid in man coverage, which is what I’d prefer to play anyway – so this guy might end up being the real thing. The sky is the limit, I think – he could end up very, very good.

RB-turned-WR Aaron Buckley has some real promise, too—though I don’t know that he will live up to his lofty potential. But he benefited greatly from the position switch, and we could use a playmaker on offense like what he appears he could become.



Okay – we get a bingo with CB O.J. Mills – and I’ll reiterate that we project a high ceiling there. I expect to get him playing time right away and get the development going.

QB Terry Webster continues to surprise me – now he develops in his future potential in his third training camp. This isn’t the usual pattern I am familiar with (he had a negative initial training camp) but it’s strange – this jump is really just getting him back up to where he originally projected. I don’t know what to think about all that – can he continue to develop past the 45 rating? Stay tuned – as he looks like our starter for the foreseeable future.

A little jump up for S Feenstra, also – what gives there? He is actually developing beyond his potential from last season, too – so I don’t know what to make of that.

Not much news otherwise – except that WR Aaron Buckley won’t ever see those solid potential ratings that had me so excited. Shame, really – I’m a sucker for Syracuse players, too – so he would have been a nice find. He’ll make the team, but I don’t see a bright future for him.


I suspect that this will be another tough year – we are just too shallow all around to break through at all. I’m thinking again that 4-5 wins is a reasonable goal.

The going is even tougher than I had expected – we start the season 0-7. I decide to institute the Miami offense that treated us so well there. We don’t have great personnel, but we’ll se if that helps get things back on track. (I know, so much for the whole “innovative gameplanning” idea here) Things don’t get a whole lot better – we sneak out three wins in the final nine games, but it’s still a bad year on balance.


Interestingly – as we went to the pass-happy attack in the second half of the season, Webster actually got more efficient. Of those ghastly 35 picks – 18 were in our first 7 games (when we weren’t throwing all that much). Silver lining, I suppose.

Chandler and Redding both gave us good efforts as our starting WR tandem – and rookie Buckley played in the slot for a while, boosting his totals, too. Buckley might not be a throwaway after all. RB Bradford again stepped into the starting role, and was again adequate. Boy, getting a serious threat at RB would be very nice for this team.

MLB Alarcon posted some huge numbers – he is improving with each year, it seems. His TkPct is up, too – it’s not just that we’re getting more tackles on defense. DT Leal might have a case for his third all-pro honors – he made second team last year with stats similar to this year’s. And we’re starting to see some guys do well in coverage – I do like to see double digits in passes defensed, and we have three guys do that here (feh, two were linebackers, I know). It may take a while, but our optimism remains for OJ Mills – he still has potential to develop even more.

DE Nyland posted 10 sacks – a good showing overall, but we still are anemic in getting to the QB. I don’t know what it will take to get those engines running – but this defense really needs better pressure to help out the cornerbacks in man coverage.


Tough to say if this was a step forward, or just sideways… we really could use an infusion of serious talent.


Incidentally, Cleveland takes all the draft picks I have been sending them gratis, and wins the championship this year.

35 interceptions? Oh my.

Did you indeed find a replacement here? That might have been the reason for:


We haven't really looked at how scouting errors might mess with our ability to find the breakout players. I assume that pretty much everyone here hires a scout that is very good with young talent unlike your first scout. If the first or second year was under the old scout the new scout could just be showing that he is indeed a breakout player.


Well it wasn't like you were giving them much to work with. The AI has probably dismantled the team and still making decent money on the gate. It really is amazing at how efficient the computer is at dismantling good teams. Not just teams that the human player leaves but strong, young, AI teams that appear like they could be consistant winners for 5+ years always seem to fall apart.

I dunno what to make out of this, did somebody take Dutch lessons?

Sad to see how the Dolphins have folled in 'no time'.
Interesting to see Cleveland does take advantage of the picks like Washington used to do in in earlier IMT dynasties.

Thanx for coming back quicksand. The only difference between this one and the dolphins is that you arent drafting anymore right? You are just taking riff raff left over. I love this dynasty and keep it coming.

2034

So, on we go…

The owner of your franchise is seriously concerned about the performance of your team. You need to improve your performance as general manager of this team, or look for other work.

Yeah – having the firing option left on is a bad idea for an IMT team. Kinda forgot about that little catch here… hopefully we can get things going before the clock strikes twelve.


We actually have a few exposed players this year – most notably WR Tony Redding. We lock him up to a new three year deal – far cheaper than he wanted as an extension, it turns out. Good move, modest risk. I’m thinking he might be able to top 1,000 yards this season, assuming we stay with the pass-heavy offense.


In the undrafted rookie crop – I go after a number of players who look interesting. Before camp, my top two prospects seem to be TE Bo Sikma and C Jamal Garcia. Not exactly the positions I would have picked for breakout players – but as usual, we will have to take what we can get. If we get good starters out of those two guys, this will be a better than average crop for us so far.

This year – for the first tiem I have been following things, I actually lose out on an undrafted rookie! DT Byron Wheeler looked like he’d end up all potential anyway – but he seemed worth a shot. But we lost out right away, and Philadelphia takes him in the first week. I’m pretty sure I have never seen that happen before.


Well, we get breakouts from the two guys I saw coming – and one more. RB Levon Rodenhauser may not have the perfect set of skills, but he showed some growth in camp, and will have an argument to be our top RB for this season. LB Jessie Mohon also might have some promise – he’ll push Sam Freeman on the strong side.


This year – we need to make a forward move. I’ll stick with the pass-happy game plan, and we just hope it comes together a bit better. We need Webster to get the picks under control – we’re just not good enough to overcome a handicap like 2 turnovers a game. On defense – we should be getting better against the run – this year we might actually become an above average defensive team overall.


In our first game, we are flattened by Atlanta, and we lose MLB Alarcon for the year – could be bad. But that gets rookie LB Mohon into the starting lineup, and we’ll see what he can do right away.

After an awful start to the season, we put things together a little bit, and manage to end up 6-10. When is 6-10 a great accomplishment? We look at the underpinnings of this season, and see some real growth, I think…



Okay – some signs of life here. Webster is probably a hopeless case – he’s no longer developing at all, and he just can’t help but throw a lot of picks. 30 more this year – that just puts us in a real hole, I’m afraid. But he nearly tossed for 4,000 yards – on over 7 yards per attempt, that’s not so bad.

Rodenhauser certainly didn’t answer all our questions at RB, but I still think he’s the best option among the guys we have right now – and there’s at least some hope he can get better.

WR Tony Redding delivered on my prediction for a 1,000+ yard season – heck, we nearly got another one out of Aaron Buckley, who took over the starting job at split end after being a role-player lat year. Everett is fine, but he will never be a prolific player.

Defensively – we were pressed into using a rookie MLB, but Mohon did okay. Seiler is clearly the star of the show at this point, and will have a case to be the MLB for next season. Von Oelhoffen continues to make big plays and tackles – statistically, he’s a nice safety, but he does give up a lot of completions, despite the picks.

We just can’t get much of a pass rush, which really hurts us here. 28 sacks and 56 hurries – both numbers need to get up by about 50% to get into the effective zone, I think. DE Seth Nyland is developing into a pretty credible pass rusher at LDE for us, but we aren’t getting much from anyone else, really. DT Ramirez might be getting good enough to start at DE next season, where he might be better than the platoon of Chapman and McGrew.

My the numbers – we are getting better. We were within a TD in 14 out of 16 games – so this 6-10 team could have easily gotten a few extra breaks and gone .500 on the season. Hell, if we were just even on the turnover ratio, we probably would have been an 8-8 team… and that’s with a roster rating of 2/100… a distant last in the league. There is some hope.

No, but we both speak languages that borrow from Latin - yours more liberally than mine, but this is one we both decided to use. Of course, only uppity highbrows like me use it in English much.

Quik, you can always just ignore the firing and keep playing on.

Actually QS, from a french point of view english & dutch have very similar latin backgrounds (ie : few) compared to Italian, SPanish, French, etc...

Duly noted. Thanks, Alf.

We use gratis in french too.

Glad you're enjoying.

One other difference is that here I am actually setting the depth charts myself -- which gives me a good deal more control. With my Miami team, all I did was assign each guy his position, create the game plans, and let the scouts set the depth chart for me. (Occasionally I'd intruce by way of de-activating a player here or there)

So - this is a little more hands-on. But generally, the two dynasties are similar, especially with the strict limitations on acquiring players. This IMT rule is a beast... I really though I'd have more talent accumulated by now.

I dunno about no draft picks...I mean mel copeland was great....I think you should keep 5,6,7 th rounders each year or sumthing. Anything you do I will read and enjoy.

2035

Into a new season… we’ll see if I’m right about seeing signs of growth in this team.

The owner of your franchise is absolutely livid about the overall value of the franchise.

If you're not able to put together a much more successful season this coming year, you will definitely be out of a job this time next year.

We’ll see… I guess bossman wasn’t as pleased with the 6-10 record as I was.

We have a number of players on the open free agent market this year – I’m expecting to sign many of them, but didn’t see much value in doing so by way of contract extensions last year.


Side note: Dolphins CB Mickey Sims and P Jeremy Shaw both got inducted into the HOF.


We retain our entire staff – OF Darrell Cooley I getting old (69) but we keep him on, in the name on continuity. We’ll worry in another year or two, I reckon.


In free agency, I am pursuing a number of our own guys – trying to tie everyone up for three years or more. Fortunately, none of our guys inspire any competition – and we get everyone we wanted back on the roster.


After the draft, we head to look at the rookie pool. I am underwhelmed – I just don’t see any home runs out there this year. Damn.


Well, we might have something with FB Brennan and TE Delrio, but what exactly does that get us?

We do see some improvement in RB Rodenhauser – continuing his potential development. He still doesn’t look like a star, but he might be better if we stick with him. Again – he’s really the best option we have, though his lack of receiving skills is a minus in this offense. Rookie Jesse Williamson looks like he might turn into a pretty useful third-down back and special teamer, and we expect him to make the team, despite a shaky camp and a “down arrow” from our scouts.


The biggest roster shakeup this year is at LB – we will be sliding everyone around this season, putting Alarcon at the sam, Seiler at the mike, and Mohon at the willie. That puts Sam Freeman out of a job, but I fear that Alarcon may be brittle at this point – so I think Freeman will get his snaps anyway. Seiler might be our best player at this point – we might as well get him into the MLB slot where he will play every down.

On offense, we are going to try and run the ball inside a bit more – trying to stabilize the offense. Rodenhauser does have some good power running ability, and our two best linemen for run blocking are at C and RG – so it makes sense to run “inside right guard” a bit more than I’m used to. I make a switch there, and we’ll hope to do a little more grinding inside than last year.


As for the season ahead – I’m thinking 8-8 is our goal. We don’t have to be a lot better than last year to get there, really. If we can reduce the mistakes – maybe get back close to even with turnovers – we ought to be right there. I don’t think this is a playoff team, but it would be nice to be in the race until the last week or two.


By the end of preseason, LB Freeman is in there for Alarcon (who may be done) and I’m switching things around along the front seven already. We enter the season with a roster rating of 3 … still FAR below the second-last team’s 25. Our cohesion ratings are 100-88-98-100, so our sticking together is paying off in that respect, at least.


In our first two games, QB Webster throws 9 interceptions. That simply can’t stand – he’s killing us. I don’t really have a viable option there, though – so the only thing we could do would be to re-assemble the offensive game plan, and switch to more running plays. I consider it – but decide to let it ride.

It takes until week five for us to get a win – and we do so only after Terry Webster is lost for the season to an injury. So, Glenn England will take over, and we’ll see what he can do for us back there. It isn’t pretty, but we do sneak out a win or two here and there. We get a nice win at home over a good Indy team to get to 6-7 on the season – not so bad after a terrible 0-4 start. Wayne England isn’t exactly Broadway Joe, but the team is playing fairly well around him.

Levon Rodenhauser gets his first 100-yard game, as we smash the puny little Saints into oblivion. But we lose a close game at Tennessee (basically losing on a kickoff return TD) and then get edged out by defending champions Atlanta, and we fall just short of our initial season goal.




Okay – let’s start with the numbers. Second in the league with 4.60 yards per carry – that’s downright fabulous! Our passing efficiency was down – not too surprisingly, since we had to go to our second string QB for most of the year (mercifully, I’d add). Defensively, we end up the #1 team in the league against the run – allowing only 3.35 yards per carry. This is a mature league full of stars, and this is a team full of URFA rejects – and we are #1 against the run. Wow. #5 against the pass in ypa is very strong, as well – just HUGE steps forward there, too. This team is really coming together.

Why only 7 wins? Well, inconsistency at QB is a big deal – but LOOK AT THAT TURNOVER MARGIN! We were a staggering –29 in turnovers… and still managed to win 7 games? That’s shocking! This is two years in a row with this kind of problem – it’s starting to look like a real problem, not a mirage. Either way – you make your own bad luck, and turnovers are a big part of that, to be sure.


QB Wayne England kept the ship from sinking. He’s now 6-5 as a starter – and will have a case to be the starter for next year, despite a lackluster 67 rating and more picks than TDs. We simply don’t have great options, obviously.

Is Levon Rodenhauser an emerging star? My scout doesn’t see him getting better rapidly, but we used him more wisely this season, and saw his numbers bloom a bit. Running a more conventional offense, he could pretty easily tough 1,000 yards or more, I have to think. Our receivers again split up the duties pretty well, with no real standouts there.

Kerry Seiler has definitely won the MLB job, leading the defense through the season and making tackles on one of every six plays. Jessie Mohon followed up his solid DROY campaign with another good year as our starter at SLB, where he will probably stay. Austin Alarcon might not be done after all – he gave us a solid half season at the weak side, and might be good to go from here.

We picked it up a bit in the pass rush, with 54 sacks – tied for the most in the league. We don’t have a single pass rushing star, but got 14.5 sacks from our two starting defensive tackles, and basically built around them. LB Courtney Bullock, playing at both OLB and DE, contributed pretty well, and is making the case for more playing time on the line.

Our secondary managed to get only 6 interceptions all year long – that is just not acceptable. Now, OJ Mills is turning into the shut-down corner that I expected him to eventually become (19 passes defensed to 36 catches allowed – pretty good ratio), but we need some playmakers around him. Von Oelhoffen had an off year – we need to rebound from that, as we can’t get outgunned in turnovers by two a game and expect to ever be a winning team.


Progress, sure. But my owner isn’t thrilled with paper progress – we need to start turning all this into some wins, and soon. Next year – we need a winning season.

2036

Well, I await the verdict from the front office – it sounded like I was on a pretty short leash…

Well, technically, I was fired – but fortunately, I have the override option, and I’ll continue on as GM. But, in some respects, I guess this challenge has failed. I’ll understand if you stop reading now.






Glad you didn’t…

As a very side note – I wandered into the league almanac, and noticed something very interesting. In 2034, a couple of seasons ago, LB Christian D’Elisa (a 7th round draft pick of mine, still with the Dolphins) was named Solecismic MVP of the league. I very rarely see defensive players get that nod – but he had a monster year: 145+47 tackles, 7 sacks, 6 forced fumbles, and 2 interceptions. Just thought that was worth mentioning. (And boy, could I use a “diamond in the rough” like that guy on this team!)


Once again, I will let my free agents hit the market – I don’t think many of them are going to be hot properties anyway, and we ought to get cap-favorable deals with most of them. Heck, with this talent level, the cap might never be a concern to us, but I’m playing it tight anyway.

Everything goes pretty smoothly – we get our top five pursuits re-signed without incident. QB Terry Webster is looking for a new deal – what do you do with a semi-disgraced former starting QB? I guess you probably cut him, or at least you don’t bring him back – but with the lack of good options under these rules, I probably need to retain him as our backup, I suppose.

Down the line in the late stages, we lose our punter – but I can live through that, I reckon. There always are passable punters available as free agent rookies.


WR Aaron Buckley announces a contract holdout. I can, of course, afford to pay him whatever he is demanding. I might wait him out, though – he’s really not al that special a player.

I’m surprised to see San Francisco move in and grab QB Terry Webster – that leaves Wayne England as our obvious starter going forward. Fine – but we don’t have a lot behind him, admittedly.


Regrettably – I see no sure things before training camp. Lots of roster fillers, but I don’t think we have any major breakouts in the making among this group. This is awful – I really expected to find more than a handful through the first five or six seasons… without a few standout players to build around, this team is really lacking.


Okay – some good news with QB Wayne England, who nominally made a nice step forward in training camp, though it’s really just making up for an offseason “slide.” He was a negative mover in his first camp, and there’s no reason to think there’s any real upside in him. 33/33 is probably the best we’ll see from him.

QB Ted Tatum looked like a marginal prospect – but might now project to be the best of this year’s crop. He’d have to get a good deal better then his current projections to be of much value – but he might be worth a look down the road.

Nothing much else to get excited about – honestly, this is a very weak incoming class.


I switch up the game plan for this year – we will run more than last year, for certain. I’m less enamored with our passing game personnel, and am resigned to the notion that we aren’t going to be that good on offense. So, I think we might be better off playing a bit more conservatively on offense – and trying to lat our defense win more games for us. We’ll also see more carries for RB Levon Rodenhauser, who may be our best offensive player at this point. We’ll power him inside, behind Gray and Ogden, and try to make the best of what we have. I’m expecting maybe 1,200 yards from Rodenhauser, if he stays healthy.

Other changes include elevating Bo Sikma to start at TE, but all three guys will see playing time. WR Aaron Buckley continues his holdout, and we have reshuffled the WR corps to accommodate that – I’m not that worried. We are depleted badly at DB – and have LB Blanchard playing some as a strong safety, for lack of better options.


This year – we will be looking for a winning record. The defense has come together, and our offense is going to try to slow the bleeding. If we can get to a more reasonable turnover margin – maybe even close to even – then we ought to be an 8-8 team without any improvement. Anything we do better makes us a winner, I figure. The goal for this season is our first year over .500 under our leadership.


Early season injuries are awful – and we struggle early with a 2-4 record. When WR Jerry Chandler goes down with an injury, we work out a one year deal with holdout Aaron Buckley, and get him back into the fold. The injury count mounts all season long – we suffer serious pains on the OL (both tackles) and then the L (both defensive tackles out for the year). We lose our ninth game, ensuring yet another losing year – but this feels like it was taken from us, really. We limp home to a 5-11 record – and we’ll have to survey the long-term impacts of some of these injuries. Stalwart DT Carl Leal’s injury was very serious – if we lose him, that’s the cornerstone of what was once a very good defensive front.


Wayne England was still prone to miscues, but 23 is fewer than 35, I suppose. RB Rodenhauser deliveres on my 1,200-yard prediction, but I was hoping for a little better than 3.8 ypc, and I certainly was envisioning more than 2 touchdowns. With Chandler and Buckley in and out of the lineup, we lacked stability in the receiving corps – Redding was again our best target, but not by a lot.

Our pass rush slipped badly – I’m sure due to losing our starting two defensive tackles for much of the year. LB Jessie Mohon was the only member of the defensive front to start every game – he moves for strong to middle and back all season. DE Hardy Jannot deserves some credit – he started 14 games filling in at DE and DT, and gave us a very nice effort. CBs Mills and Abrams played well – but without a pass rush, it’s tough to rely on man coverage that much.

Very tough season all around – disappointing by nearly every measure. I was expecting more – and instead we slid back to a disappointing six wins. Can we rebound?

Yuk....I think it is impossible to do this without drafting...Maybe it was just the injuries though....I dunno.

Okay, it was inevitable (for me at least) to watch this dynasty & compare to my own.
Record-wise:

1st year -- 0-16 (you) vs 1-15 (me)
2nd year -- 5-11 (Bucs) vs 1-15 (Cards)
3rd yr - 3-12-1 (Bucs) vs 3-13 (Cards)
4th yr - 3-13 (Bucs) vs 1-15 (Cards)
5th yr - 6-10 (Bucs) vs 7-8-1 (Cards)
6th yr - 7-9 (Bucs) vs 7-9 (Cards)

Considering a number of differences in our play styles (I'm much more hands-on than you from what I can tell), I think it's kinda interesting to see the similarities in the results. And considering that I believe you're much more adept at picking up on breakouts than I am (although I've learned a little bit from nearly 30 years worth of Misfits), your luck seems to be not all that different from mine.

I really hope you continue with this for quite a while, I'd be very interested to see how much the parallels continue.

Other random thoughts: Seeing all this, I can't help but wonder how much my house rule about keeping players that my scout selected from a particular school helped my overall progress. It was just one player, but he was head & shoulders above most of my talent for a long time. Now, he didn't come along until 2022, but I've only been below .500 once in his first 9 seasons. I wonder -- can one OT make that much difference?

If the similarities in performance continue, you should be about to hit a period of better seasons any time now. Not great, but more mediocre than awful, followed by a lull before a surge.

Anyhoo, very interesting reading for me in this thread.

Jon

2037

Into another season – optimism is waning.

I’m “fired” again – but again ignore it and play on. Oh, well.


I put in offers to my free agents – WR Tony Redding gets a solid offer, and a more modest one goes out to ne’er-do-well split end Aaron Buckley.

I re-sign DT Justin Eby, but lose DE Edward Chapman – I expected to re-sign him, but he was looking for over $1.5m a year. I expected him to go unclaimed, where I’d go after him after the draft – but no such luck – we lose a decent reserve there. Drat. (I’m just to used to playing hardball with contracts, I let this guy go over $500,000 – in a year where I will probably have $25 million in unused cap space)


Damn – another year without a URFA prospect who really excites me. I load up anyway, hoping to catch a little lightning with one or two guys who have some potential – maybe we‘ll find a few who might actually reach that potential?


Well – we do have one breakout player, it turns out. Another lineman, regrettably another guard. But it looks like LG Whit Weinmeister might end up being our next dominant run-blocker, making our interior line look pretty passable.

I think we have two decent additions for the DL in DT Sean Spires and DE Alan Johnston. We’ll need them, with DT Carl Leal already out for the whole year (and perhaps beyond) and DT Curtis Ocasio showing lingering effects in his run-stopping skills after last years injury. We’re in trouble up front, suddenly – and this was our best unit before last year.

CB Joe Harrison was going to make the team anyway – he has kick return skills that we need badly. But with a little jump in camp, he now will get even more looks than he would have. Hopefully, he can develop into a contributor – he has some man coverage ability, fortunately.


Setting up for this season – I plan to keep the offense intact, with more running plays called than the pass-heavy gameplan we were using before last year. Defensively, I’m just hoping that we can stay fairly healthy this year. No real shakeups in the depth chart – our DL is re-done by necessity, with Jannot taking a permanent role as a DT for us, and Ramirez starting alongside him. We swap LB roles as well – Jessie Mohon will start in the middle, and Kerry Seiler will start on the strong side and help with the pass pressure. At safety, Leo Koonce has beaten out Tyrus Feenstra to start at FS, but we expect both to play plenty.


So – on we go. Is 8-8 too much to ask for? I don’t think so. We had terrible bad luck with injuries last year – some of that will continue to hurt us (DL) but I’m hopeful that we can click a bit better, maybe get positive in turnovers, and build on that. I’d like to see us have a winning season, but would settle for 8-8.


Our worst preseason injury is to LT DJ Rodriguez, who is out for most of the year. Nickelback Dana Lester is out for the year as well – but we are deep enough at DB to fill that gap pretty easily.

We suffer another tough season full of injuries – but I’m not so sure that I can place the blame for this crappy season entirely there. Our talent level remains abysmal, and it’s tough to expect this group of players to do anything but what they are doing – scraping by, sneaking a win here or there, but that’s it. Despite the encouraging statistical signs from two seasons ago, I’m thinking that perhaps that year was an aberration, rather than the beginning of a good trend. We stink.



Statistically, this team was just poor – four wins is just about right. We are still decent in stopping the run, but we don’t do anything else very well.

RB Rodenhauser was probably our best offensive star this year, with another solid effort. But we couldn’t get any additional production from the passing game, which I long to do now. QB Wayne England is just destined to be “upside down” every year, I fear – that’s the best he can do. TE Jerome Delrio might be the quiet breakout of the year – he only started 10 games, but became a pretty nice contributor – and will be our starter next year there, I suspect. The OL was ravaged by injuries – we couldn’t keep thing together there at all, and we simply don’t have the talent o depth to get away with patch-up jobs there.

The defensive front played okay – DE/DT Hardy Jannot was solid again inside, and probably has earned the job permanently (especially if 3-time pro bowle DT Carl Leal isn’t back to being his old self next year). LB Kerry Seiler had another excellent season, and is earning his paycheck as our top-paid player. But we couldn’t keep guys healthy around him – Alarcon played in 14 games, but nobody else stayed around all year. CB Jeremy Abrams had a nice season, but then missed the last couple of games to an injury, of course.

Whine, whine, whine. This team simply isn’t good enough to withstand injuries and play well. With our best players out there, we’re still worst in the league on paper – we need to take better advantage of what we do have. It’s tough to know whether this team has any shot to go anywhere…

Jon - I agree, the comparisons are obvious.

I'll confess -- based on the results was used to with my Miami team, I was expecting to harvest maybe one or two serious, solid breakout rookies every year or so -- and thinking that by year seven (just finished) I'd have perhaps ten solid, legitimate starting-claiber players on my team. As it stands, I think the count of such players is more like three or four. I can't get an offensive tackle to save my life, we cannot muster any pass rush for lack of anybody who can really play DE, and my receiving corps (one of the places I fully expected to be deep in) is really about a D minus worth.

I'm (selfishly) feeling like it's mostly bad luck... but also am starting to think that my expectations were too high. I'm dying for a breakout player at a key position -- dare I even dream of a QB who can actually play? (That would amdittedly make a HUGE difference)

By the way - I am totally junking the "stay in position" rule that I initially adopted for this team. BY virtual necessity I have had to scramble players on the OL and DL, and to mix up LB positions. At this point, I'm willing to play anyone, anywhere, period.

Quite the turnaround from your Miami squad. It should be refreshing to have to overcome a different set of challenges than salary-related ones.

Well, while I do like a challenge... my frustration with the IMT has always been the same: I don't feel like I really have a lot of control over making the improvements I need to make. I can look at htis team and easily say: we need a better QB, we need to get someone to play LT, we need a good pass-rushing RDE, and we need a better all-around safety. But under these rules, I can't act on those assessments -- I just sit back and wait to see if a good player happends to fall into my lap at one of those spots, that's really all I can do.

Sure, I can tinker with the game plan or depth chart, and fudge things as best I can that way -- but as far as "addressing needs" goes, I really can't do much at all.

Not to fear... I'm down, but not out.

Yeah it's very hard to win in any of the FOF series without good play from the QB. I think though that you are on the right track moving to a more conservative offense and trying to grind out the games. That probably is the best strategy to make up for the weaker QB play.


You have mentioned in your previous dynasties that you don't really want the FB and to a lesser extent the TE too involved in the passing game. This has made a lot of sense because you have had a premier QB and excellent WR's and you didn't want the FB taking throws away from the WR who are downfield and can gain a lot of yards. Here though, maybe having a strong pass catching FB would make some sense. These throws should produce fewer interceptions which is just killing you. Also, with a strong running game, you should be in third and short a lot and the lower yardage might still be enough to move the chains.

I understand that you don't feel like you have a lot of control over how things are going but maybe that just means you are going to have to get more involved in the details to make up the difference. Good luck.

Pretty good point. Indeed - my new starter at TE is emerging as a top threat, and with the weak options I have around him, I don't mind a bit.

2038

Sigh -- another firing to ignore… this is getting routine, now.


We hire a new head coach and offensive coordinator, trying to shake things up a bit. The new head coach is Kris Nixon, who has gone 105-107 with six different teams over 13 years, with 10 years as an offensive coordinator before that. Despite the mediocre results, he seems to be a great coach: rated EX in four out of five categories, and VG in motivation. We’ll hope he can help light a fire…


Great news, at least superficially – DT Cart Leal is back healthy, and it appears (so far) that he is fine after his serious injury. We will re-sign him for certain, and hope that he can step back into his role. With the play we have gotten out of Jannot in Leal’s absence, I’m excited about the prospects of putting those two run-stuffers in there side-by-side. We’ll see, though – Leal might now have the “injury-prone” tag, rendering him a part-timer at best.


In free agency, we land deals with all our target players pretty quickly – I don’t want to see anyone slip away this time. My last decision is with RT Howie Bugallo – he has been, frankly, terrible: eight-year starter, 2.2% sacks allowed, and only 31% KRBs. If I had a legitimate option, I’d go with that – but right now, this is the best we have – at least he helps with cohesion.


Fingers crossed for a godsend rookie…


No dice. I see a few guys worth a shot, but nobody who is an obvious breakout. Looks like another year of same old, same old ahead.


Well, we have a breakout after all. CB isn’t my position of the most dire need, but Eric Timpson looks like he has some real promise as a cover man.

WR Peter More didn’t have a great camp, but will make the team and might stick. RB Ike Turnbull looks like he will stick as a utility man – kick returner, special teamer, and occasional reserve runner. He and Bruce Bridges make our RB situation a bit crowded – might be tough on the veteran Gerald Bradford, who really has no role with us any longer.

DT Fernando Sawyer might have some upside – he’s too light to move out of the DT spot, but I expect his playing time might some at our RDE slot. If he and Alan Johnston platoon there, we might see them develop into a nice combo for us. OLB Bruce Hall is another possible suspect for some pass rushing duties.


For this year, the biggest adjustment I’m making is at QB – I want to go with Ted Tatum there, a guy who has at least a hint of promise. I don’t expect that he will do better this year than England would have, but if he plays and develop, maybe he has a higher upside. So, we’ll give that a try- at least for a while. I’m also starting two new faces at offensive tackle – Leon Bensen will start at LT, and Howard Knight at RT. Both my long-time starters have been lousy – we might as well go younger and see if things develop.


We promptly march out to an 0-4 record. Tatum hasn’t been bad, but not great, either. After he sits a week with an injury, Tatum comes back and gets us our first victory. We suffer a bit more, but then get on a little bit of a run, with a couple big wins to get to 4-7 on the year. Hey, 4-7 isn’t great, but it beats 1-10. Two more wins get us to the improbable mark of 6-7, with a .500 season actually in sight. But that’s the end of the dream run – we lose our last three, and finish up at 6-10 overall.



Well, by the numbers – the strong defense is back. Top ten in yards per play against both the run and pass, that’s encouraging. The offense, on the other hand, was pretty flat. We didn’t implode – but we are just not very good moving the ball, are we?

QB Ted Tatum managed more TD passes than interceptions – only the second time we have seen that on this team (ugh). It looks like it’s his job, now.

RB Rodenhauser had another solid season, as our most effective weapon – close to 4 yards per carry isn’t so bad, I guess. TE Jerome Delrio does indeed look like he’s developing into a go-to guy, and he remains a special teams demon, too. The receiving corps is dying for a leader – he might turn out to be that guy after all.

LB Jessie Mohon stayed healthy, and put up big numbers in the middle – partially a function of our shaky offense, but a 20% TkPct is very impressive no matter how you slice it. Seven sacks from the MLB spot, in this defense, says he’s doing something right. Jannot outshined Leal on the interior line, but that unit played fairly well I’d say. CB OJ Mills remains our top cover man, and Jeremy Abrams is showing signs of breaking down. But Harrison, McGregor and Timpson give us some decent options in reserve there. But again – without a viable pass rush, we are vulnerable, period.

this might be your toughest IMT yet. it's refreshing to see a quiksand team struggling, kind of gives me hope. i often try IMT's, and suffer through a decade of awfulness, and usually quit. so maybe it's not that i'm terrible. just a bad run of good drafting from the ai, perhaps (which is refreshing in its own right).

hows miami doing these days? and also, how has cleveland done with double picks? those teams never seem to prosper from it (which is always troubling, when you stop to think about it), but perhaps teams draft better lately. just a guess.

Quik,

Do you do any tracking of player ratings in-season? In one of my careers, I've started watching pretty closely and I've seen some surprising jumps in current and future potential midway through the season.

For instance, I had one veteran player (7 years) who's future potential rose 6 points in a 6 week span (mid-season). I thought this was peculiar and interesting, and almost certainly a great sign about the player's talent. Still, it just makes me wonder what we (FOFC as a whole) might be missing in terms of player development.

I also think there's definitely a lot to be inferred by players who develop rapidly vs. those who develop at a snail's pace.

Should have known that...
D'oh!

Anyway, I'm really surprised to see how little success you've had so far, Michael. Sure, the AI wasted a perfectly good run Dolphins, but at least you are unable to be a winner with the IMT restirctions, unlike we're used to see from your earlier dynasties.
It's early to make conclusions, but either the game does a better job to avoid all undrafted teams from becoming good, or the additional late free agency makes a big difference. Any third options?

To answer questions...


cth - No, I haven't been tracking ratings movement in-season... probably a hole in my game, but one that I'm not really interested in filling right now, I don't think. (Though, maybe that's the sort of thing I need to be doing to get this to work)


MIJB, I don't know what the explanation is, really. I haven't had any trouble keeping my players -- so I can't blame the missing "7-year contracts" that we could do in FOF 2001 (remember those good old days?). I'm still tallying this up to some bad luck, and maybe my not paying as close attention (see above) as I'd need to.


Probably won't make much progress today, FYI.

More on the mid-season 'future ratings' jump:

I had 4 players whose future potential rose midseason, ranging from 3-6 total points. Only one of those players had a mentor in his position group, and I have a number of other players under mentors who showed no real positive effects.

So i just wanted to say I think this is something that occurs outside the mentor relationship, and not something strictly tied to it.

2039

Another year, another “firing” to ignore. Sigh.


We have $40m in cap space, but a HUGE class of free agents to work through. By far, our biggest offseason – we might end up losing players, and I might have to use all of the cap.


Ogden, Garcia, Nyland, Abrams, Jannot, Mills, and Rodenhauser are all MUST-SIGN players. We would be really gutted if we lost any of them, I believe. Abrams and Gray are both injury problems now, but we need them for their leadership as well as production, as both are position mentors.

(wondering if I ought to be focusing more on chemistry issues than I have been…)


After seven weeks, our whole initial target list is re-signed. And we have $29m in cap room left – so no worried after all. The last two main targets out there are CB OJ Mills – who is willing to sign long term, but is looking for pretty big money (around $5, a year) – and C Jamal Garcia (whose asking price of $3m per seems a bit high). I expect I’ll get both guys back in the late FA period.


After the draft, we’re making our annual sift through the rookie class – trying to find a few guys who can stick. Alas – once again, I don’t see any sure things in the bunch. A lot of guys with exciting blue zones – but I know how most of them will turn out, and it’s not that exciting in the end.

We also get Mills and Garcia signed to long-term, bonus-free contracts – giving me plenty of flexibility. I don’t expect to cut either guy, but we might have to renegotiate down the line.

79 players is the most I have ever brought to camp – but we’re just trying our best to find a diamond in the rough. If that means sifting through two dozen cuts after camp to separate wheat from chaff, so be it.


Well – we have one breakout in this crop, yet another tight end. I don’t know what to do with these guys, but I’d be happy to trade two tight ends for, say, a defensive end?!?


I don’t have any major changes in plans for this year. I’m going to try to give a good look at rookie RB Brenden Sims – who wasn’t really a good candidate to switch permanently to WR, but has pretty nice receiving skills. If he ends up being a 3rd RB and reserve WR, he could end up being productive for us in the offense.

On the downside, DT Carl Leal is just not the same guy who was once a dominant force inside – he’ll be our top reserve, but is now backing up the younger Sean Spires at DT. CB Eric Timpson has moved up to assume control of the nickelback job – and should see the field quite a bit. He has promise to get as good as OJ Mills, I think.


This year – it’s another shot at the elusive .500 season. With Tatum in for this second year at QB, I’ll be hoping for a little more stability – it would be nice to see something like 2 times as many TDs as interceptions, for once… I guess an 8-8 season is all I can hope for, though – tough to see us getting any better than that.

When we lose LB Kerry Seiler, our single best player, to a preseason injury for the year – I think we’ll be adjusting those expectations downward a bit more.


There’s not a whole lot to report that you haven’t heard here before – we suffer several tough injuries (CB Abrams, S Von Oelhofen, and DT Leal all quickly out for the year, joining LB Seiler on the IR) and meander through another pointless losing season. We make yet another mini-rally late in the year, and get within one game of the .500 record I sought – but choke away a close one and fall short with a loss in the last game, as always.



Ted Tatum was just about on par with last year – he really didn’t develop at all. That’s disappointing – but not a real shock. RB Rodenhauser had another solid season, but grinding out 3.8-3.9 yard per carry isn’t enough to make this team go, it seems. Maybe we need to pass even more – go back to the all-aerial assault? WR Aaron Buckley is starting to emerge as our top threat – but we still really lack a go-to weapon in the passing game. RB Brenden Sims has real potential – but didn’t get onto the field as much as I had hoped he would – the game plan has shifted us out of many of our old 3-WR sets, where he would have been the slot wideout.

Our defense suffered from injuries, no doubt – but Eric Timpson stepped in well for fallen CB Jeremy Abrams, and is now a definite candidate to start from now on for us. 14 passes defensed is good – now he needs to bring down the passes allowed (from 48). LB Jessie Mohon played all year and did well, but had little help in the LB corps – with Seiler out and then Alarcon hurt later on, he had to do a lot himself. As the defending DPOY from last year, he’s up to the challenge, but still it’s a lot to ask. The defensive line again managed very little pass pressure – and that just undermines everything we are trying to do here.

Statistically – our pass defense was the strength, oddly enough. We need another presence at DT if we are going to get back to being tough to run against – assuming we get LB Kerry Seiler back and healthy next year (crossing fingers) then DT is probably the key spot to address there. But rushing the passer is a real need for us, and the riffraff we’re throwing out there – even long-time LDE starter Seth Nyland (who hasn’t had 5 sacks in any of the last 5 years) – just isn’t getting the job done.


No mention of Bucs on the season awards list – but Miami manages to get back to the Superbowl (led by a bunch of guys they signed as free agents – phooey!) losing to the Giants.

2040

Our first retirement – RT Howie Bugallo, who lost his job a couple of seasons ago, has hung up the cleats.

I decide to pursue a new scout. Jared Bernard is rated VG with young talent – maybe that will probe to be a boost for us. He’s a step down (AVG) with OL and LB, but there are trade-offs necessary here (options not so good). But he is very good with quarterbacks… maybe that can pay off?


DT Carl Leal, after another season-ending injury, is done. He’s still in the game, but he’s unplayable. He’s not a leader, nor a mentor – I can’t keep him around. Three pro bowls make him our most laurelled player – but his time is done after ten seasons.

FB Mel Brennan is my only free agent – he re-signs for three cheap seasons, and we’re ready to go.


Ooh, ooh, ooh! In the post-draft free agent market might be a big ray of hope! QB Dean Johnstone has some of the signs of a breakout – a great 40 time (4.33!) and a very good Solecismic test (40). This could be the guy! ***CROSSING FINGERS***


Well, we finally got lucky, it seems. QB Dean Johnston has some real potential to be the best quarterback we’ve seen – really just what we needed. The only question is whether we send him right out… but that might not be a tough decision, either.

It also looks like we have a good player in young punter Wes Rhodes. We’ll be doing a lot of punting, presumably, so that’s probably good. Wonder if he can rush the passer?


Among our last cut-downs are some familiar faces – depleted by injuries and time (and perhaps exposed a but by my new scout). S Frankie Von Oelhoffen missed last year with an injury, and couldn’t come all the way back. Two older veterans, LB Sam Freeman and C Omar Gray, are both cut candidates – but their mentorship keeps them aboard.


Well – it’s decision time. Dean Johnston is probably the best hope we have to take a step forward – would we be better off with him in the game, or on the bench? I don’t feel like we have all that much to lose – it’s not like this has been a playoff contender without him – so we’ll go ahead and throw Johnstone right into the fire. I’m going to start Brenden Sims at the flanker spot, where he replaces a rapidly declining WR Tony Redding.

On defense, Austin Alarcon is still hurt from last year – so we will slide tough linebacker John Allamon into the weak-side starting job, where he might prove to be pretty effective. Alarcon ought to be back in a few weeks, but we’re very thin at LB right now. At CB, I have veteran Jeremy Abrams playing as the nickelback – and hoping that limited use can help him stay healthy for us. I’ll dial up the blitz percentages this year, in hopes of manufacturing more pressure than we have been getting.

For this season – I don’t have expectations that the team is going to get better. Assuming we stick with our rookie QB, we ought to suffer more turnovers – but hopefully we will see some real growth along the way, too. I’m not going to worry about wins – we just want to see things coming together.


After an opening loss, we also lose starting safety Leo Koonce to an injury – pressing Jeremy Abrams into a start at strong safety. He responds with 3 interceptions and a TD, getting the game ball for our first win of the year. We somehow manage to get to the halfway point at 4-4, despite Dean Johntson’s 15 interceptions. But our run defense ranks #1, and is certainly helping us stay in the hunt.

We manage a run of three more wins, and stretch out to a staggering 7-4 on the season – we have never been 3 games ahead of .500 under my watch, this is unbelievable! We’re actually a game out of the division lead, and we’d be in the playoffs if they started right now. In week 15, we manage a tie with Carolina – locking up our first winning season so far – an unexpected result, but a nice surprise! When we finish with a win at New Orleans, we clinch our first playoff berth in my tenure here -- what a whirlwind season!



When I decided to go with rookie QB Dean Johnstone, my expectation was that we’d come out and throw twice as many interceptions as touchdowns, and that we’d essentially be giving away our season. Well, 22 to 15 is pretty shaky – but we were able to overcome the shaky results at QB (and Johnstone only threw 7 picks in the second half). Levon Rodenhauser is just becoming a lunchbucket guy for us – punching the clock, and getting the job done, once again. Dean Johnstone is fleet-footed enough to contribute a good deal to the running game himself, and that 500 yards helped make us one of the most effective rushing teams in the league (#2 in rushing yards is crazy for this team).

TE Bo Sikma regained the starting job, and was Johnstone’s top target on the year. WR Aaron Buckley was well under 50% catch rate of balls thrown his way – part his fault, part Johnstone’s, I suspect. Overall passing numbers were down, as expected.

More blitzing meant more sacks from LB Kerry Seiler, who stayed healthy this year, fortunately, and delivered. We once again got a disappointing effort from our defensive ends – but DT Fernando Sawyer played left DE mostly, and was pretty effective (more so than Seth Nyland usually has been). Sean Spires has stepped up into the role as our best interior defender – his 69+33 tackles is a great mark is outstanding, and made a big push toward our #1-rated rush defense (in both yards per carry and total yards allowed).

Moving Jeremy Abrams to strong safety turned out to be a great move – he played spectacularly well there, and was a nice step up (and back into the realm of the healthy connrtributors). Starting Mills and Timpson at the corners is fine – both guys had their best seasons yet, with PDPct ratings well over 21. Even utility safety John Allamon, playing in split time between safety and linebacker, gave us some quality time.

Overall, the defense was just tremendous -- #1 in yards per rush and yards per pass allowed, causing the most turnovers, and just playing great all season. With numbers like that, it’s certainly possible to see why we made the playoffs even with a shaky and mistake-prone offense.



Postseason

[i]Tampa Bay 30, Washington 9[i] – A big win in our first ever playoff game, we play it safe on offense (Johnstone goes 13 of 18) and play good defense – a strong formula for winning with this sort of team. OJ Mills puts it away with an interception return as the ‘Skins are trying to rally back into the game – and we move on.

Tampa Bay 14, Washington 10 – Erin Timpson returns an interception for a TD in the first quarter, and Levon Rodenhauser grinds out 124 yards on the ground, as we lock down another basically mistake-free effort and another playoff win.

Atlanta 24, Tampa Bay 3 – The dream finally dies, as our division rivals Atlanta find our weaknesses, cause three turnovers, and play their own error-free game to get the easy win (despite being outgained on the day).


Atlanta falls to Oakland in the championship game, 24-9.


How can we have anything but joy after this season? After getting close to giving up, and then resigning ourselves to a simple “building” year – we end up smashing through to new heights unimaginable before the year started. Unbelievable…

Congratulations on the post-season appearance.
It took you 11 seasons ... it took me 24 seasons to get the first one.

Now let's see if you can string several in a row together :D

Actually, I fear that this fluky season set the bar too high. My defense played out of its mind for one year -- better than it actually is, I think. So, even if my young QB gets better (which I expect), the defense probably regresses to the mean somewhat and we might be a legitimate 8-8 team.

But I think stepping up the blitzing made a big difference - I can't believe I hadn't made a big change there before... sigh.

Sounds like FOF2004 is indeed tougher, yet is beatable if one really, really, really takes a lot of time to tinker with the game plan and gets succesful (lucky?) to beat teams.

Actually, despite my initial claims -- I'm not really doing all that much tinkering with the game plans. Every two or three of seasons, I have made one or two significant adjstments, but for the most part this has been pretty straightforward.

Also, I basically set the depth chart at the beginning of the season, and only adjust if there is a real problem, or a serious injury. So, I spend a little time (on this team) trying to decide who will play at the WR, OL, and DE positions... but that's about it.

I wouldn't say that I have been micromanaging this team much at all. (I initially thought that would be a big part of this, but I either lack the patience to do it, or don't see the reward -- the two mesh together so closely, I can't even tell you which)

2041

Okay, so we had a couple of our prayers answered – our first winning season (and a nice playoff run to boot) and a promising young quarterback. Tough to ask for more, really – but it would still be nice to have a few more toys to play with…

Interestingly enough – I was still fired. Oh, well – ignoring the firing has become a routine for me, at this point.


K Bubba Wallace, oddly enough, made his first Hawai’i trip… as did CB Eric Timpson as a second teamer. I think Timpson’s is the first all-pro nod that we got that wasn’t deeply polluted by the “lousy defense=many tackles” issue – so that’s worth noting.


We have one retirement – DE Seth Nyland. On paper, he was the best DE this team ever had, but he never really translated that into big results. A decent starter for a decade, it’s tough to speak badly – but his was always a position we wanted to get more from.


Our free agent crop includes a number of guys we want to return – but I’m trying to be a little more selective. We have enough “old guys” around to keep cohesion high – I’ll return mentors, I think, but other than that, it will just be guys who can start. My tough cases this year are G George Richardson and S Deon Lake. Both are so-so reserves, neither is an affinity guy… I might be better served to give that playing time to young players who might develop. I’ll wait until the late FA stages to determine whether to re-sign them.


In the late free agency stage, I am amused by seeing a free agent QB – a guy I have noticed several times before in this career, who was drafted by and started for San Diego for many years. His name – Philip Rives. Pretty close, yes?

Anyway – looking for diamonds in the rough again. I think we have a good OL prospect in Vernon Leska – I hope he can move out from center and play tackle. A few others to bring aboard – but nobody else really has my heart racing, at least not before camp.


And so, it seems we might have two legitimate prospects on our hands – G Vernon Leska looks good, and so does T Vincent Lyle, who quickly receives a switch to the left side.


Preparing for this year – the defense just looks paper thin to me. We lose CB Joe Harrison in the preseason, and only have seven healthy DBs on the roster at all. I’ll again use the late-flourishing Jeremy Abrams as a starter at strong safety, but one more injury in the secondary puts us in real trouble. Fourth year S John Allamon has worked his way into the starting lineup as the FS – he has pretty good run defense skills, and should bring down his share if picks. I’m shuffling up front, too – with linebackers slotted at DE for lack of better options. We’ll see how this goes – staying healthy will be very critical to this group.

For this year, I’m trying to temper enthusiasm. I think we got a lot of luck last season, which made a decent season into a pretty darned good one. I think the team might be better overall, and still go 8-8. We’ll hope for a return to the playoffs, of course, but I’m trying to be forgiving if we come up a bit short of that goal.


In our opener, LB Kerry Seiler is out – we have Courtney Bullock and Paul Blanchard (two old hands) in to replace him. Blanchard surprises everyone with a huge day – 8 tackles, 1.5 sacks, an interception for a TD, and the game ball in our opening day victory! A week four road win over Atlanta gets us to 4-0 on the season – and for the first time ever, we are looking like a truly good team. Johnstone is still not lighting the world on fire, but we are playing well as a unit.

We continue on, without the perfect record, but we’re winning close games and staying relatively healthy (both signs of a charmed team). And even after a run of injuries (and a close loss) down the stretch, our battle is not for respectability – but for a bye week.



Okay, by the numbers, Dean Johnstone was okay – slightly more TDs than picks, up over 6 yards par attempt is fine. He had a very nice run in the middle of the season, but overall he was okay. But it’s hard to try to pin this team’s whole success on him – it seems like the team was just “ready” when he came along.

RB Levon Rodenahuser usually gets a mention here – but he’s underappreciated if anything. Eights seasons, never missed a start, and 8,857 yards (even after only 516 in his first year, when we passed nearly every down). He has three 1,300 yard seasons in a row – he has been very good for us, indeed. C Jamal Garcia and RG Christian Ogden each had over 30 KRBs, and could see all-pro recognition this year (even though we aren’t a heavy-running powerhouse team, we did run more times than anyone else this year).

The receiving corps is nothing too special – TE Bo Sikma has established himself as Johnstone’s favorite target, it seems. And he’s just about as productive with the ball as our wideouts, so there’s little loss there. RB/WR Brended Sims just continues to disappoint – I keep expecting him to break out into a dynamic passing game threat, but no such luck – he might start to see his playing time drop.

Defensively, we slipped in the run defense – I’m not wild about giving up over 4 yard per carry. But we made up for it by causing a great number of turnovers, 42. Abrams, Timoson, and Allamon all had great seasons, especially Timpson who could easily be back to Hawai’i. 44 sacks is good, too, though we didn’t add quite as many hurries and blocks as I’d prefer to see. But DE Alan Johnston gave us fill-time effort at RDE, and probably the best lass-rushing season we have gotten with this team – which really, really helps.

We get our by week, and await our home playoff debut.


Postseason

Tampa Bay 17, Washington 14 – 100 yards from Rodenhauser, 100 yards from TE Bo Sikma, and a 2-1 edge in turnovers means we followed the game plan perfectly, I think.

Tampa Bay 21, New York Giants 17 – on the road at the G-men, we get the win on a Jeremy Abrams interception TD in thee fourth quarter, and our defense holds the slim edge against their comeback attempts. We win the turnover battle 3-1, and get to move on to the big one.

Superbowl – Baltimore 34, Tampa Bay 28 (OT) – We get a 20-7 halftime lead from Rodenhauser’s punishing running, but the Ravens open up on us in the second half, and pull even on a long TD pass in the fourth. They get a long drive and win it in the overtime, to secure the championship, and foil our miracle dreams.


No way that I can be disappointed with that season, at all. Things look good – though it’s a little disturbing that what is “working” for us isn’t really consistent year to year – last season we were great on defense in the fundamentals – yards per run, yards per pass. This season, we fall back there, but become turnover specialists and pass rushers. Tough to figure – I’d rather have both, of course, but I’d like to know who we are, really. Turnovers might not be as easily replicable year to year, I feel.

Anyway, the team is playing well, and our QB ought to be improving – could be room tfor optimism.

Is Dean Johnston in anyway related to the other famous QB named Dean Houston ? ;)