FOFC OFFENSIVE GAME PLAN LIBRARY
 

NOTE: If you have questions about these, please post here publicly. You'll get a much faster response by posting in this thread, where any one of the hundreds of people who have read this thread may be able to answer your question within minutes, rather than waiting for one guy to respond to a PM. Thanks!



Thanks to the guys in the FOFL, especially Subby, for inspiring me to get this done. The idea behind this library is to give people some baseline offensive game plans to either use out of the box, or tweak. These game plans will be somewhat similar to an offensive philosophy that you've seen one team or another use in the last 20ish years--all but one in the last 10. A few notes from the start:

• For all game plans, I've only tweaked the "Basic Offensive Game Plan" and "Miscellaneous Offensive Settings" screens--the two offensive screens that Rex changes based on your players' skill sets and the upcoming opponent. Adjustments aren't used at all (I'll explain why later), and the Personnel and Formation Use screens are all just the standard recommendations, which do not change from team to team. Tweaking the other screens can absolutely have a positive or negative impact on your team, but that's probably for more "advanced" game planners. This library is intended to put everyone who uses it in the "intermediate" range, if you will.
• All six game plans should sound fairly familiar to you just by name. However, they may not match your perceptions of what such a game plan is. (For example, "West Coast" is a mixed passing/running offense, not a heavy passing offense.) I didn't go over-anal on these and try to get them to match up perfectly with a specific NFL team, but be assured that the run/pass splits and passing distances should roughly match at least one real-life team in our memory that used that philosophy. That's why adjustments were turned off, so that in testing, the resultant splits wouldn't be skewed by a team winning or losing a good bit.
• Run directions were left completely generic intentionally, to be tweaked in accordance with the skills of your backs/linemen.
• The variation in number of wins between the five-season tests I did with the same team--one that had big red bars all over the place and can run any philosophy--on each game plan was statistically insignifanct. In other words, my tests of these heavily implies that while these produce radically different statistics from one another, there's no significant "best" or "worst" to be found among these. So, the gamer should feel safe just to pick one he likes, and get the personnel to make it work. Or, if you're wanting to use this on an existing MP team, just pick the one that best fits your personnel. One of the best changes in the 6.0e/6.1/6.1a patch cycle is the fact that there's no longer a "best" winning offensive strategy.
  
• As I said, these are rough matches. Don't be coming to me with "THE WEST COAST IS 49.5% RUNNING. YOUR GAME PLAN ONLY PRODUCED 47.5% RUNNING!!!!" To give everyone an idea of what to expect in general, I ran five 16-game seasons with each game plan, and here's some relative information about what to expect with each plan:
  

NAME	RUN%	COMP%	PassYPC	SHORT	MED	LONG
West Coast	MEDIUM	VERY HIGH	LOW	VERY HIGH	MEDIUM-LOW	LOW
SmashMouth	VERY HIGH	HIGH	HIGH	MEDIUM HIGH	MEDIUM	MEDIUM-LOW
RunAndShoot	VERY LOW	VERY HIGH	LOW	HIGH	MEDIUM-LOW	VERY LOW
Balanced	MEDIUM	MEDIUM-HIGH	MEDIUM	MEDIUM	MEDIUM	MEDIUM
PlayActionVertical	HIGH	LOW-MEDIUM	VERY HIGH	LOW	HIGH	VERY HIGH
GreatestShowOnTurf	MEDIUM-LOW	MEDIUM	HIGH	MEDIUM	MEDIUM	HIGH

Keep in mind that these are RELATIVE terms. "Very High" running in smash mouth, for example, means that, without any adjustments, you can expect a team using that game plan to run roughly 59% of the time--well above the NFL average and in the range that only a handful of teams in the last decade have run the ball. "Very Low" for the Run and Shoot means that you should expect to run it roughly 36% of the time--right around Oilers/Falcons territory in the seasons mentioned. In the posts that follow, I'll break down each game plan.

NOTE: For each game plan, I'm going to show you a season with the 2007 Colts, because their players' skill sets indicate that they can do it all. Obviously, don't expect the level of success that you're going to see with the Colts, but do expect that if your players have the right skills, to see these philosophies work well.


DOWNLOAD LINK: FOFC Offensive Game Plan Library

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY

Mixture of running and high-percentage passing. The high-percentage pass may be used interchangeably with the run in some situations.



DESIRED SKILL SETS
In general, in this offense one wants to avoid drops and negative-yardage runs, to avoid 2nd or 3rd and Long.


QB: Screen, Short, Accuracy, Timing

Backs: Running Skills + Getting Downfield & Avoid Drops. Low elusiveness is not a bad thing in this offense.

WRs: Getting Downfield, Avoid Drops

TEs: Getting Downfield, Avoid Drops, Run Blocking

OL: Balanced Run and Pass Blocking. Slightly more emphasis on run blocking.

SMASH MOUTH OFFENSE
 

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY
Run-first philosophy. Passing is used to keep the defense honest, taking a few shots down field, but mostly staying conservative..



DESIRED SKILL SETS


QB: Third Down Passing. Two Minute Offense. Short Passing. Medium Passing.

Backs: Running Skills.

WRs: Third Down Catching. Avoid Drops.

TEs: Run Blocking.

OL: Run Blocking..

RUN AND SHOOT
 

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY

Pass-first philosophy, heavy on the short stuff, a little medium. Very little downfield passing. Running game is mainly used just to keep 'em off balance. (NOTE: This offense mimics the '90 Oilers and '95 Falcons quite well in testing.)



DESIRED SKILL SETS

QB: Screen, Short, Medium, Accuracy, Timing

Backs: Route Running, Getting Downfield

WRs: Route Running, Getting Downfield

TEs: Route Running, Getting Downfield

OL: Pass Blocking

BALANCED OFFENSE
 

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY

50/50 Run-Pass split on first and 10. Uses all areas of the field. Great for teams with lots of big red bars, as it isn't likely to give familiar messages since it doesn't do much of any one thing.



DESIRED SKILL SETS

As per the name...well-balanced skill sets do best in this.

PLAY ACTION VERTICAL PASSING
 

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY
Uses the run to set up downfield passing. Someone at FOFC coined the phrase Run-N-Stun to refer to this style of offense. (NOTE: This used to be the single most effective style in FOF, no matter what your players' skill sets, but this was changed in 6.0e and forward. It still can work, but now it's only if you have the right players.)



DESIRED SKILL SETS
QB: Medium, Long, Deep, Third Down, Read Defense
RB: Running Skills
FB: Good blocker
TE: Blocking skills, Third Down Catching, Big-Play Receiving
WRs: Third Down Catching, Big-Play Receiving
OL: Run and pass blocking skills

GENERAL PHILOSOPHY
A pass-first offense that uses the entire field. The run is used enough to keep the defense off-balance, and no area of the field is neglected with the passing game. (NOTE: The splits and pass distances here have been tested to closely resemble the results from the 2001 Rams' season---with the right players. I wouldn't try this offense without some players with big ol' red bars.)


DESIRED SKILL SETS
QB: big, red bars all over the place
RB: Running Skills + Getting Downfield
FB: Pass-Catching Skills
TE & WRs: big, red bars.
OL: Pass blocking skills.

COMMENTS
 

Much thanks for this. Should be a popular thread.

Thank you thank you thank you I was just looking for something like this. I really wish there was a button to hit to let the coaches just set the defensive game plan (or just the offensive, whatever you like). I really don't like setting all these things for the defense every week, and to me the computer does a pretty good job of it.

Okay I assume Rex is the recommend button? I'm guessing I'm out of the loop on an elitist joke here... ;- )

Really happy to see this coming together - this is something a lot of envisioned with the release of 2k4 and mp - we even had a gameplanning forum if I remember correctly (wasn't CT the mod?)

Anyway - just a great start and I hope lots of multiplayer (and singleplayer) teams will take advantage...

Thanks again, Ben.

Yeah that's it :)

Great stuff. My offense is really, really similar to your Smash Mouth one. I would say there are very few %'s difference, thats it.

Great read though and thanks for taking the time to do this.

An excellent, and sadly overdue, contribution to the community. Shame it has essentially fallen to one guy to continue bearing the standard - but I don't think there's anyone better to do so. Nicely done, and many thanks, Ben.

Wow! Very impressed with this. Good job SkyDog!

Great, great stuff. Thanks.

i'm puckering my lips, and i want you to kiss them.


this is exactly what this game needed. this is probably the most important thread in this entire community. excellent job to all involved.

SkyDog...great post, as usual. Now, where is your singleback only gameplan? ;)

I'm also anxiously awaiting some defensive gameplans because I've been focusing on that as of late and still can't come up with anything useful to me or the community. Ugh.

thanks, ben. i heart you.

Amazing. Thank You.

Wow.

Great job.

Awesome stuff.

Thanks!

Thanks, guys, for the kind words. I actually had a lot of fun doing it, especially fiddling with strategies I myself hadn't really tried in earnest. The "Greatest Show On Turf" was particularly fun to fool with, since I'd never done anything like it in SP or MP. My hope is that this will help with the idea of establishing a philosophy and acquiring players to build around it.

For the purposes of this thread, I wanted to leave everything as-is on the formation usage screen. That being said, the all single-back is nothing magical at all. I haven't played with it much, and I've never used it in my SP career or in a MP game, but my impression is if you use something that's pretty balanced overall, and your QB knows four or five of the single-back formations, just use the ones that makes sense when running or passing.

Yup. I just tried the updated Greatest Show On Turf on a team with a great all-around RB. He had 74 catches for 650 yards on the season, and 7.47 yards per target.

One general note about offensive game planning is this: FOF allows us to set game plans well outside the range of reality, but if we do get too far away from reality, we won't succeed. Real-life run/pass split ranges are probably more narrow than most of us would expect. A standard deviation range is roughly 40%-50%, and all but two NFL teams this year are in the 38%-54% range. Minnesota (55.1%) has the highest run percentage and Detroit (34.4%) has the lowest run percentage by a pretty wide margin. Next-lowest is GB at 38.8%. Here are the current numbers for this season, if anyone is interested:

	PT	CMP	ATT	YD	YPP	TD	INT	RSH	YD	YPR	TD	RUN%
Detroit Lions	308	337	524	3855	7.4	18	19	275	1104	4	12	34.4%
Green Bay Packers	394	350	519	4123	7.9	27	13	329	1255	3.8	11	38.8%
New Orleans Saints	331	378	550	3819	6.9	25	15	351	1291	3.7	12	39.0%
San Francisco 49ers	191	251	468	2458	5.2	11	16	304	1268	4.2	8	39.4%
Atlanta Falcons	188	291	486	3007	6.2	12	14	333	1294	3.9	5	40.7%
Chicago Bears	250	283	488	3214	6.6	14	19	335	1066	3.2	6	40.7%
Arizona Cardinals	326	298	498	3559	7.2	26	22	342	1250	3.6	8	40.7%
Cincinnati Bengals	323	339	522	3699	7.1	22	17	359	1324	3.7	8	40.7%
Seattle Seahawks	325	321	514	3626	7	25	10	363	1308	3.6	7	41.4%
Miami Dolphins	235	273	475	2890	6.1	9	16	342	1375	4	13	41.9%
St. Louis Rams	220	298	503	3146	6.2	15	23	365	1362	3.7	5	42.1%
Kansas City Chiefs	196	281	472	2956	6.3	14	19	346	1132	3.3	5	42.3%
Philadelphia Eagles	281	297	501	3397	6.8	20	14	374	1721	4.6	11	42.7%
Baltimore Ravens	242	309	497	2938	5.9	11	14	379	1511	4	9	43.3%
Houston Texans	322	314	475	3564	7.5	21	17	364	1350	3.7	9	43.4%
New England Patriots	523	353	511	4288	8.4	45	7	400	1609	4	14	43.9%
Dallas Cowboys	429	300	462	3868	8.4	35	17	366	1597	4.4	13	44.2%
Cleveland Browns	368	262	469	3418	7.3	26	15	378	1596	4.2	13	44.6%
New York Giants	300	273	496	3014	6.1	19	17	403	1780	4.4	12	44.8%
New York Jets	249	270	454	2917	6.4	13	17	377	1434	3.8	6	45.4%
Denver Broncos	292	286	447	3358	7.5	19	13	383	1737	4.5	10	46.1%
Indianapolis Colts	402	300	470	3669	7.8	28	14	405	1540	3.8	17	46.3%
Carolina Panthers	223	255	454	2585	5.7	16	15	400	1575	3.9	5	46.8%
Washington Redskins	275	274	463	3109	6.7	14	11	429	1634	3.8	12	48.1%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	292	265	410	2962	7.2	14	6	399	1698	4.3	15	49.3%
San Diego Chargers	359	248	416	2845	6.8	19	16	414	1772	4.3	18	49.9%
Buffalo Bills	222	238	389	2548	6.5	10	11	390	1545	4	7	50.1%
Tennessee Titans	275	252	412	2648	6.4	9	16	468	1884	4	15	53.2%
Oakland Raiders	255	224	389	2540	6.5	15	16	449	1854	4.1	10	53.6%
Pittsburgh Steelers	331	251	391	2911	7.5	29	12	454	1952	4.3	7	53.7%
Jacksonville Jaguars	334	246	405	2940	7.3	20	7	471	2094	4.5	15	53.8%
Minnesota Vikings	305	190	332	2294	6.9	9	9	408	2239	5.5	18	55.1%
	9566	9107	14862	102165	6.874	610	467	12155	49151	4.044	336	45.0%

It's pretty clear to me that the engine is based on real-life splits, and therefore that when creating an offensive game plan, one should be very careful about getting outside of real-life splits--especially if your QB knows a low number of formations.

This is probably the most helpfully thread for new players that you have writen about FOF in a looong time, and knowing the usual amount of time you expend on investigating the game and sharing your thoughts in the board, it means a lot.

HUGE thanks for this, it was really needed as starting point.

Now if you or somebody would do the same about defense... At least for me, defense remains to be the biggest mistery in FOF gameplanning, i seem to struggle always against the pass even having what i think is the right personal against it.

Great post SD. Now I await the Defense Plans and i'm all set.

Let's try to keep this discussion on offense. For those interested in discussing defense, check this thread.

Excellent job, Ben. This is a wonderful contribution to the community.

OK. I hope this post serves to remove some potential confusion, rather than create it. :p I didn't post this at first, but I stripped the information out that I'd expect to create the most confusion, and am posting the rest now. I say that because this sample size is fairly small. I ran each game plan five seasons with the same team. Only five seasons should give you a general idea of what to expect over the long haul, but one a game-to-game, even season-to-season basis, there can be significant variation. (To be blunt, I question the mathematical skills of anyone who'd abandon or embrace a philosophy based on less than around a half a season's worth of usage.)

OK, with those caveats in place, these are the splits that each of the game plans produced over five seasons each:

NAME	RUN%	SHORT	MED	LONG
West Coast	47.5%	69.8%	21.5%	8.7%
SmashMouth	58.7%	55.4%	31.0%	13.6%
RunAndShoot	35.9%	65.3%	27.2%	7.5%
Balanced	48.2%	50.9%	33.3%	15.8%
PlayActionVertical	52.2%	36.8%	35.6%	27.6%
GreatestShowOnTurf	43.5%	48.5%	31.1%	20.4%

I did some screwing around with a SP team I have as I was curious about the West Coast comment that it is good for developing young QBs. While each tested season was a little different, my young 39/46 QB (with mentor) went up to 57/57 after one test and ended up around 50/50 with unfilled green bars in most other sims.

I haven't tried the other GPs as much, and I haven't pinned down the exact things that contribute to QB development (wins? yards? TDs? completions? etc), but this is good news for teams with young QBs to develop quickly.

I see much addictive testing and playing in my future, thanks Sky.

Thanks SD, glad you put the caveat in about the lack of variance in wins as well, I've always found the Colts to be a nice ego boost for my offensive gameplanning prowess during testing. :)

I'll have to mess with these a little and see how they stack up against a few of my personal brews. Great contribution.

I think he meant it was good for QBs that are developing (i.e. not very polished passers at the moment) and not that the gameplan actually aids development. By throwing a lot of high percentage passes the young QB with shaky skills isn't forced to make throws that will get him into trouble in that gameplan.

Correct. It's "safe" for a QB like that. While I'm open to the possibility, but I've yet to see compelling evidence that performance helps development.

I was giving you a little bit of a hard time...thought maybe you were holding out on us...LOL!!!

I actually used a gameplan that only used singleback and the 5 WR spread (20% for each formation in every situation) for a preseason game and it wasn't all that bad and there were only two "familiar" instances...both with the 5 WR spread formation. I don't think it's something I'll use during the regular season as my QB is pretty raw at this point but, like you said, tweak it to use appropriate formations to match the scenario seems like a great idea and should work if implemented correctly.

Interesting thought. Now, this is obviously a small sample size, but we're through Week 4 of the pre-season over at the NAFL and I just had my young QB jump 2 points in his current rating after a win and a solid game. The previous two games were losses in which he didn't play particularly well and nor did his ratings increase.

Sure, it could be the cumulative effect of playing in three games but I guess it could also be the positive effect of winning and playing well.

I smell a study coming on...

Absolutely brilliant work here Ben. The amount of work you put into your research is much appreciated and a thread like this will undoubtedly encourage those on the fence to purchase the game.

Jim owes you some sort of Christmas bonus in my opinion! ;)

Wonderful stuff and many thanks.

Did 2 quick 10 season sims with the PA vertical (w/Rex game adjust) and WC (no adjust).

QB 39/46
After season:
Avg. Rating TD/Int Avg.
Vertical 47.8 28.5/15.4

West Coast 51.0 19.1/11.6

While the vert. offense produced some great numbers and more wins on average (probably because of the no adjustment in the West Coast when behind in a game), the West Coast offense led to better QB development on average. This is a small test, but it may have potential. I have to try with a rookie QB who is poor next.

One of the best things ever on FOFC. This inspires me to play some single player again.

Oh no! Mercury Morris got 440 carries using the Smash Mouth offense. The end is nigh!

The hard bit is working out how far into the system concept you can go with a low formation QB.

Great job, interesting read.

Good question, and not something I tested for at all, but from experience, I'd say that the more imbalanced the system, especially toward passing, the worse off you'll be. So I'd tend to avoid "Run And Shoot" and "Greatest Show On Turf" with such a QB, and be careful about "Smash Mouth" and "Play Action Vertical." I would think that "Balanced" and "West Coast" would be the least likely to create problems with a low-formation QB.

Very nice, SkyDog. Thanks for this.

I'm getting curious to see if my gameplan has improved with the recent patch or if it's only because my team is loaded (tho my SP are always loaded). I'm getting far better results right now with my modified Play Action Vertical that I've been using for seasons with my Mohawks.

this thread was very useful in me determing what the hell i can do with my MP team, as I lost my 81 rated overall QB to FA and was left with my 52/63 backup to be my starter this season. low bars in every category, except being in the 90's for accuracy (and before the switch to 2k7 he was rated in the 90's in "avoid INTs" also, but that's now a hidden bar). based on my personell i see which offense i should be running. obviously the "desired skills" isn't written in stone and is mostly SD's take, based on his research i have no reason to believe i should be weighing heavily on his suggestions for which ratings translate best into certain gameplans. this thread basically saved my season.

what was the cohesion ratings for your team, btw? i have low cohesion on my O-line and backfield, so i'm not assuming i can completely replicate the expected results from these gameplans. cohesion plays a higher role than i previously gave it credit for.

I don't have time to do an extensive test right now, but I have a suspicion that a mediocre QB can run the Greatest Show as long as he knows lots of formations.

I just ran it with a veteran QB rated 39/39 (low in everything but timing), but he knows 14 formations. He finished the season with 4371 yards, 35 TD, and 8 INT.

Note: The RB numbers are also awesome. He caught 79 passes for 731 yards, 7.61 Y/Targ

Very helpful thread. Nice to see common sense applied to game planning.

Ran the Greatest Show with the 98 Dolphins (15th year declining QB, Only one good WR, Crappy RB's and average TE). Interesting numbers...

Heh. Interesting there. That sounds like a case I hadn't thought much about. I presume McDuffie has high endurance and route running, and he's playing flanker. That looks like a situation where a great WR (probably masked at least somewhat) is sucking up a heavy percentage of the targets (35-40%?) when he's on the field, which is making things go better than we'd expect. What's the passing cohesion?