Offensive/Defensive Gameplan Thoughts
 

I believe I've come across a pretty successful offensive/defensive gameplan strategy. Like Skydog, I won't give away the down/distance information, but here are the basic principles involved...

The offensive philosophy is to deceive the defense with lots of short/medium passes and mixing in long balls in surprising situations. While this is primarily a pass oritented offense, RB's do very well because the LB's are looking for those passes over the middle and the CB's are scared of the deep ball.

For this offense you want:

QB's with very high accuracy. Other helpful strengths are Short Passes, Medium Passes, and Sense Rush. Of course you want a QB who doesn't throw picks, but that might take some time to find out. Screen, Long, and Deep are good to have, but not necessary as long as they are semi-adequate (nothing less then 35 I'd say).

With WR's I would concentrate on Getting Downfield and Courage. Still, I wouldn't really de-emphasize anything. It's best to go for premium WR's in this offense. You can go cheap on other positions. If you can't get premium guys, then make sure your starters complement each other. Have a high Courage/Getting Downfield guy for those short passes, and then a deep threat with high Big Play Receiving for the quick strikes.

TE's will never pass block in this offense. That's a waste of a good TE. They will run block occassionally but are used primarily as receivers in this offense. Look for good receiving numbers, but especially good 3rd Down Receiving.

Likewise, FB's will do very little pass blocking, albeit a little more than TE's. They will run block, but again you want good pass catching skills, especially on 3rd down.

Again with RB's, look for good pass catching attributes. I had an RB catch over 71 passes in this offense once. For running skills, I would avoid tweener types and go after a guy maxed out in Hole Recognition and something else (I like elusiveness, but Breakaway is good too).
For offensive Linemen, focus primarily on pass blocking. The RB's will usually be running when the defense is off guard, so stud run blockers are not necessary. You just make sure your QB doesn't get killed since the TE's and FB's won't be picking up the blitzes.

The defensive philosophy is to focus mostly on stopping the run. With a pass oriented offense, the worst thing that can happen is for your QB to be sitting on the sidelines picking his nose. Don't let them control the clock. Make them go for the 80 yard TD. If they get it, then at least your offense is back out on the field.

For this defense, you want to focus on a secondary. The agressive run stopping nature will bait offenses into passing alot against you. If you have a good secondary, you're now forcing them to go against your strength. I usually get a run stopping MLB and a mixture on the line (two run stoppers, two pass rushers) . I wouldn't worry about OLB's much. Just make sure they can find the field.

As Skydog did, I'm gonna run two test seasons. One with an team specifically drafted with the offense in mind, and one with a randomly drafted team.

Here is the "Ideal" Test. Notice how often the opponent decides to throw the ball, with very limited success. And despite the fact that I rarely made my Backs or TE pick up blitzes, the opponents had a very low pass rush %.

And here is the "random" test. Still won the SB, but not quite as dominating. Obviously, the problem here was a QB who threw too many INT's. Still, you can see some facets of the gameplan working. The TE was the leading receiver and the backs caught alot of balls as well. The defense looks much worse here, but the focus on run stopping seemed to be enough to get us by.

What if your starting QB gets hurt? Here's a test I ran using the "ideal" squad, but cutting the stud QB before Week 1. The replacement was a 22/38 rookie.