[QuikSand]

...I open up the 20-page pdf User Guide. There is, it appears, not a single word about where I am in the game, trying to sign free agent players. Okay then.

I do a prophylactic "Save" before hitting "Advance," thinking maybe I'm in some sort of twilight zone stage before free agency actually starts. (FOF has those, they're stupid AF but by now I just know where they are)

Okay, this seems to have helped. I now have a screen that, I guess, will populate with FA bidding information as stages progress. Okay, I can work with this.

I got back to DB Derrek Thomas's page...but I still can't do jack. I go back, game says "Click on a player to view his card, then click on contract tab to sign him." Did those things, nothing on the contract tab responds to a click, nor can I enter data anyplace. Hmmm. Well, I was able to add him to my "watch list." Fat lotta good that will do me.

Oh, okay. I find a button called "open bidding." Clicking that brings me to a new window where players are featured, and I guess we have a live, auction-style bidding system. From that page, I go to CB Thomas, and then I hesitantly click "Offer Contract" which sounds like an end rather than a beginning (and I still don't know what the offer is). BTW, Adobe confirms the word "Offer" doesn't even appear in the user guide.

Okay, this seems to work. Now I have a page with his wishes, and some space for me to enter my own information. The numbers come from a tediously long pull-down menu, in increments of 10,000...so for me to get from his ask of 2.35M down to my offer of 1.40M, I have to scroll through scores of possible entries. This can't possibly be the wisest programming move, can it? Anyway, I put in a 4yr offer to him, and that seems to stick. Got it.

So now I want to make a "splash" signing. Is anyone out there worth signing, who isn't a fledgling castoff or a past-use-by-date old? Can't I find somebody like G Brandon Scherf to overpay and try to shore up my weakling OL with some serious young muscle?

Short answer... apparently not. Lot of 34-and-up old guys who didn't even play last year but remain "available" for some reason. And a fair number of these young hoppers who, I guess, match onto real life people I've never hear of because they were never legit NFL players of any consequence. Great.

So, this is puzzling. Not sure what to do. Can't find a youngish receiver anywhere near as good as.. Marques Colston?

As an aside, I have to assume this is a function of someone just importing an old database, and not having a proper "fade/retire old players" routine. I don't know if these guys just sit around until the end of time without ever feeling the effects of father time, but for right now I'm steering clear of them. We'll see if Terrance Newman and Marques Colston and LeGarrette Blount get tasty new deals in this offseason process. I'll sit it out.

With two FA offers in, I click on "Finish Current Day." Seems right, like a "stage" in FOF. Nothing new, but it appears I have the leading offer on both guys I targeted. Looking around, it appears that these old stars are asking for too much money, the AI teams aren't willing to pay them. Heh, I guess that works, as long as I ignore them too. Sigh.

After 3 stages, I sign a free agent OL for $650K, 4yrs. Only bidder. I have no idea if this process is 5 stages or 50 at this point, so no clue where we are - I presume still the beginning. I think that's the only FA signing that has happened leaguewide. But After 5 (I think) times clicking the "Finish Current Day" button, it switches gears - maybe we're done? I switch screens, and see that a total of 5 free agents got signed, including a certain Colin K to New England, heh. There's still a "Free Agent Report" with two players listed, including CB Thomas who favors my offer but hasn't signed.

So, I really don't know what to do here. I'll click in the "ADVANCE LEAGUE" area, that usually seems to be thing to do when I feel this way, rather like in Football Manager.

When I click that, it asks if I'm sure I'm done with the scouting stage. Well, no I'm not sure of anything, pal, I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing. Scouting? Where is that?

Okay there's a segment called Future Draft Scouting - that must be it. Like interviews in FOF, got it. I'm drafting #1 overall, duh, so I'm drilling down on the top QB and WR. Each draftee has a page (of information I can't see otherwise, and can't sort by, frex) that includes scout (letter) grades in Physique, Athleticism, Technique, Football IQ, and Intangibles. Also number grades from each of my three staff members, whatever. Oh Jesus, ther are other screens...and it looks like each player has a WORD listed for each of the ratings he will eventually have. So, rather than a spreadsheet saying 50 or 80 or 100, we get a giant wall of words: Pedestrian, Great, Terrible, Awful, Unscouted. Mac Howard would love this, it's like the real world only more useless. Good heavens who thought this was a good idea, the HatTrick.org people?

Okay, exhaling. I guess it's sortable, and eventually you probebly manage to do the mental conversion needed to make sense of the words. I mean, I get that Awful is low, and Incredible is really good. But this seems to me like a ham-fisted way to avoid using numbers just to dodge their implicit precision, which I applaud in spirit but deplore in practice, done this way. And, now that I look.. sorting by the words merely puts them into alphabetical order, it's like the developer is saying hey come look closely at the point of this stick, so you bend over and you do, and then he jams it right into your eyeball.