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04-15-2020, 12:30 PM
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#51 | ||
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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FA2/Camp
QB Buddy Weber is holding out.  He's back to wanting the $13-15m/yr deal he wanted before. Seems like a perfectly reasonable number for a starting QB. It's just not what we do here. LB Seth Thomas is holding out as well. He was one of the bigger changes in a defense that went from dominant to pedestrian. He went from dominant to pedestrian. Now he's holding out. It's a gut punch because we need him pretty badly with Blackledge leaving. (I still haven't cut/dump traded him but there's no way to make it work. He wants MORE than the tag money.) Anyway, those are two shitty holdouts. I'm not sure the Dom Ellis era is quite ready. He's hitting the roster at 9/33. (Perfect for us?) We lost a lot of sneaky good talent this year. DT Isaiah Jacobs was an understated guy with a lot of time on the field. RB Glen Scott was good depth. S Alec Sexton got a little squeezed out of playing time but signed a big FA deal to leave. We're going to be suddenly very thin on the D-Line. I think having Blackledge's body on the roster let my eyes skim past that a little. Thomas is basically a DL for us so that holdout stretches us further. We're obviously continuing to pull good players out of our asses but cycling in undeveloped/no cohesion guys is a bad business to be in. Guess we waited too long to trade Blackledge too. No General Manager expressed interest in the player. Sweet. So... we do some truly destructive and weird shit. We're keeping Blackledge. We capped out LB Henry, SS Ted Matthews (who we officially converted to a CB just now), and RT Sean Flowers. None of those moves individually looks terrible, but cumulatively, they add up to some meaningful future year increases. The cherry on top is we're too far over this year still to get anything done with Blackledge other than a massive bonus 3 year deal where his hit balloons to $28m in the two years after this one. We're going to have problems next year and we're already set to lose some absolute favorites like DT Jace Wolcott and WR Donnie Farmer. I don't know exactly what we're doing. There IS a Steam badge Bruce Smith challenge for trying to get one of your guys 171 sacks in a career. Blackledge is at 100... It feels like we were gonna turn over in a major way this coming offseason anyway. We're lucky as hell that the last few drafts have turned us toward a OL and WR talent base, and a little bit away from a highly paid DL talent base. The most workable way to do this probably still relies on establishing and spending on the OL to avoid the low dev churn there. Having enough WRs to compete or finding some way to be successful running the ball... which I think we just didn't have the OL for early. If we could get the OL to a place where you could still use the occasional 1st/2nd on the defensive side I think you can stay talented enough there too. The secondary gets tough. I'm not sure you can have truly GOOD CBs picking late, and I really don't think you can by trying to farm mid-rounders. I might start moving toward just getting big interception bars onto the field there to see if we can reverse a career-long trend of bad takeaway numbers. A lot to unpack there. Plus, holdouts! |
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04-15-2020, 01:11 PM
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#52 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
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Quote:
Thanks for the feedback. On that one tiny thing, I fiddled with reverses in one career... came away with a sense that using WRs on reverses in FOF was just broken and useless. But slotting a RB into the assigned-guy-for-a-reverse in the gameplan was... potentially more promising. |
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04-15-2020, 01:43 PM
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#53 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We jumped the shark a little with contract shenanigans. We extended DT Wolcott on a 5 year albatross too. I think we're just going to clean house next offseason but might as well throw a party if you've already got the red cups strewn all over the place. We still have the holdouts. |
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04-15-2020, 03:10 PM
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#54 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Weber held out until Week 10. The kid was horrendous the first few games. Then honestly started looking like he could be pretty good, in a less throwing focused way. We were 8-2 or something so we stuck with him. Then a real rough patch hit to end the year and we limped into a wild card berth. Thomas came back very early. The pass rush was back in a big way too, but the sack totals were down from our salad days. Just chalk it up as an lol at this point, but yeah, we went on a magical playoff run. The Bowl was probably the one game we really dominated, with good yardage and a clean offense backed up by 5 picks and great defense. The rest were weird ones we just happened to win? Code:
I'm kind of punting on the playoff results. The 10-6 team with the QB experiment is who and what we are. The weird return to defensive form? Beats me mostly. Looking back through the logs we may have had some really poor safety play from guys who shouldn't have been out there a year ago. We slotted our two very good ones in almost every formation this year. Does that explain the #1 to #23 to #1 pass rush ranking progression the last three years with a ton of personnel continuity? Maybe. QB Dom Ellis is the Bowl MVP and WR Donnie Farmer is a 2nd Team All Pro with 250 targets and a 5.52 y/tar mark. *mmm hmm* |
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04-15-2020, 04:13 PM
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#55 |
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High School Varsity
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Cincinnati, OH
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You are slaughtering... maybe you should have signed the LS to half cap contract and simmed a couple years to truly get in trouble.. :P
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Email: [email protected] |
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04-15-2020, 07:48 PM
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#56 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
Yeah, I mean, the challenge aspect of the cap crunch is definitely annoying me thoroughly and creating a lot of tedium. We're overwhelmingly talented because I keep crushing the draft every year. I think I underestimated just how much more talented we are. Eyeballing even the good teams, and you're looking at 6-10 guys who are future rated 60+ by my scout. We're carrying 28 right now and bottoming out the rest of our roster in the 50s and mid 40s. We're running a complete mess at QB who might grow into a neutral situation bottom 3rd starter or something. And we have limited cohesion, guys still developing, etc. We've had some mildly positive chemistry going. Trying to avoid conflicts, fixing on the fly to sprinkle in some good vibes without descending into long term planning stuff. (And apologies for the long quote response, Chas, really just talking to any/everyone who's skimming through here.) I think we're helping on the gameplanning front, or I thought we were until I checked other rosters. I'd like to keep tweaking and focusing there. I don't really want this to morph exactly into a "what can I do with cripple QBs and monster rosters" neverending story. I think that probably means bagging the cap crunch aspect at some point in favor of something simpler. Maybe some kind of 3 Dragons gimmick where we're only adding 3 rookies a year. I really am trying to learn some things and I think I'm stretching into an environment that is a little too unique the further we let this drift into a no cohesion draft crushing churn. I'm not sure anything we learn about gameplanning in this setup is applicable in more normal settings basically. So we've got a roster in place I've got some attachment to, which is always a good start. I think I'll run this offseason like this: -3 Dragons, we add three guys from the 4th round of the draft. I think that's the sweet spot of where I can still get mid tier LBs (hell yes), there's an occasional starter quality QB, but the true 70+ type talent is picked through. -Can reneg anyone with at least 2 years left on a contract. Forcing earlier decisions I guess. -Nothing in FA1 but we can do whatever in FA2. I'm pretty sure it's a wasteland in SP but if we're killing it here in the future we'll revisit. I see this as depth/leaders/roster fitting. And probably a few UDRs every year. -No more franchising/trades, beyond what we do to basically pick at 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 every year. Cool. We can let Blackledge chase 171 sacks. Do other weird stuff. Talk about the little men in the computer like they're my friends, etc. #COVID19 |
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04-16-2020, 01:13 AM
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#57 | |
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High School JV
Join Date: Mar 2015
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Quote:
i've been looking at reverses a lot lately. i'll post here if i find anything interesting. what i know so far is that the AI gets 3.1 yd per reverse, so much less than the 4.1 ypc from the running game. |
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04-16-2020, 07:54 AM
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#58 |
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lolzcat
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
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There's this sort of funny cat and mouse game in the background of FOF, right?
Developer creates an element that matches up with something in real football. Deion Sanders plays a season or two part time at wide receiver. Users suggest this sort of thing needs to be present in a football sim. Two weeks after the game is released, some assclown is out here running a dynasty thread with a 4,500 yard receiver because for some reason him playing every down at CB is helping and not hurting his endurance, or whatever. So, with reverses. We know it's kind hard to hit the nail on the head with "familiarity" - a concept we want to mirror what we'd expect a real NFL coaching staff to do, if they were to see (or even scout) an opponent that has overbearing tendencies. That seems, for whatever reason, to be hard to model in this game. Now if you give me the keys to the car for gameplanning, and you give me a chance at putting a WR reverse in as one of my plays as a high-risk high-reward thing... it's just a matter of time until I (or more likely some other asshat) ends up running 40 reverses a game, for 120 points on 700 yards, because or reasons. So, the safest thing for the developer to do, it seems, is put the reverse as an ingredient into the game... neuter it so it really is just for show... and move on to another programming subroutine. |
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04-16-2020, 10:43 AM
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#59 |
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High School Varsity
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Cincinnati, OH
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Apologies as I'm sure this has been discussed, but does the new version make the old "Island of Misfit Toys" challenge any different?
__________________
Email: [email protected] |
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04-16-2020, 12:21 PM
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#60 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
Yeah no doubt. The game is littered with all kinds of "should I care about this because it's here" stuff. I think reverses are probably the window dressing you're talking about. Unfortunately, the window dressing stuff tends to be less robust at times if there is an effect. And you can find some ways to get the game outside its comfort zone and suddenly that effect becomes powerful. I wouldn't have even messed with this if I didn't see it in some IHOF gamelogs. If somebody having success is doing something, try it on. Oakland runs slot reverse out of 014t multiple times per game, and they're a good offense. Oh the slot guy is an RB. Ok, so we've got multiple layers of somebody making quirky little decisions and they're having success. It's pretty clear this isn't the key driver of their success but whatever. It's fun to chase it down a little and see what shakes out. tzach does a bunch of cool stuff. He's got a stud WR in an RB spot in the depth chart. You can't even do that in SP as far as I can tell. I'm assuming he position changed the guy, slotted him in the spot, deleted the position change from the edit export screen, and the dude just crushes out of the backfield as a receiver. I love it, that's hilarious. I like that gameplanning/play construction/etc is out in the open at least. If you're bored enough to stare into the tedium for awhile, you can pick out a lot of interesting things. Staring at tedium is kind of my thing though, so your mileage may vary, etc. |
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04-16-2020, 12:31 PM
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#61 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
I don't think so. I think it's still a great challenge. The flow tends to be a build toward leveraging cohesion into the really powerful force that it is and eventually seeing success. I don't really know what I'm doing here. It could turn into something like that. I'm still trying to play while learning a few things that might port over into MP leagues or something, so I haven't bit down completely on "make this SP setting as challenging as possible" or intentionally set play parameters on a path that's going to give me a really weird roster. It's clear I've ended up with something like a really weird roster by overpowering the draft, so tweak it a little I guess. Misfit Toys is great. I'll probably play one again soon. 2020 is the best. |
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04-16-2020, 12:45 PM
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#62 | |
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High School JV
Join Date: Mar 2015
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Quote:
i don't like where this thread is going! :-P i swear this is realistic https://www.kansascity.com/sports/nf...122957799.html Last edited by tzach : 04-16-2020 at 12:45 PM. |
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04-17-2020, 01:02 AM
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#63 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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So I think the 4th round part was a good idea. Our first 3 Dragons...
   These guys all look like future contributors without being studs. QB Richey seems like he could grow into something. Honestly took him as much because there weren't clear standouts at other positions, but I think he would be our most talented QB yet if we let him develop. |
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04-17-2020, 01:55 AM
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#64 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We're still pretty loaded outside of a few positions. We will probably expedite that with some thinning after this year. We should look pretty different a few years from now, with likely a couple sentimental holdovers. I'm not totally sure who to play at QB this year. The rookie Richey got a lot of reps in preseason. Ellis obviously played the spot last year. Weber is still in the picture. We'll flip a coin.. |
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04-17-2020, 02:32 AM
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#65 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Ok, right. THAT'S A GOOD TEAM. We just handed the rookie the keys and he was an absolute stud. We actually won the turnover battle. That might be a first for this career. We tie Outer Banks for the best record in the conference at 14-2, but we beat them during the year so we are the #1 seed. We'll watch this team morph as we cycle out parts of this thing, but it's nice to see a clean looking dominant campaign out of them first. Note to self that good QB play is a value add. |
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04-17-2020, 02:51 AM
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#66 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
So that was fun. Here's a screenie of our Bowl MVP, where he went 35-43 for 389 yards, 6 passing TDs and 1 rushing TD.  Monster rookie season. Dude was definitely more developed than most when he hit the roster as a 24 year old draftee, but that was tremendous. Only "1 Late Heroics" but it was in the conference title game so he made it count. He also won League MVP, OPOY, OROY, and 1st Team QB. WR Gerald Beeson was also a 1st Team All Pro. DE Arnie Blackledge added 11 more sacks and is sitting at 119 for his Hanalei career.  He's held his ratings pretty well. 10th year though. 52 sacks away from 171. We'll let him die on the field but it feels like a long shot. |
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04-17-2020, 03:55 AM
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#67 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2041 Draft
   It's obvious that as our stud crew moves on that we're going to have the hardest time getting WR talent in the UDR pool I think. Maybe there will be some 40 rated veterans in the pool at the end of FA2, but we're probably well-served taking shots on receivers if we like guys with these picks. We like these guys. The tackle looks fun too. We'll find a spot for him. We didn't break them down, but our crop of UDRs was kind of interesting last year. And yet they were such a far cry from our beautiful star babies that we're going to have to set free over the next season or two. QB Richey will turn water into wine in the next phase of his career. Right now he's turning wine into a drunken orgy. I think we'll be able to find RBs in that pool. We did last year. I think we'll be able to get by with marginal TE talent. We'll need to draft some defensive players eventually but I'm going to keep moving the goal posts on when and how I let those guys walk away. (I swear I'm not extending anyone this year. Maybe Blackledge to keep retirement out of his head.) I don't think we'll be able to get legit pass rushers from the UDR pool but we might be able to cobble some position switch starters from the safeties and corners floating around. We'll see what happens. It's a problem for the future, but we're slowly losing pieces from the juggernaut. |
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04-17-2020, 03:56 AM
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#68 |
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Mascot
Join Date: Jul 2016
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Great thread this. Almost persuading me to give SP a whirl in this lockdown
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04-17-2020, 11:46 AM
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#69 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
WR Arredondo is holding out. We've basically stopped giving contracts to the "older" guys until they fade off the team. My guess is that keeps us good to very good for at least two more years. We should be good this year. The depth is thinning quickly but we still have a lot of very good players across the starting spots. Blackledge with a little step back in camp but he's on scholarship. Last edited by MalcPow : 04-17-2020 at 11:47 AM. |
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04-17-2020, 12:18 PM
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#70 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Yep. Enjoy it while it lasts. Really impressive stuff and we're the #1 seed again. Back to the negative turnover differential because it's just a philosophy we have. |
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04-17-2020, 12:37 PM
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#71 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
It was tough going in the first two games, and Richey had to bring us back from the brink in the 4th against Chesapeake. Then the Bowl was silliness with great play on both sides of the ball. Two punt return TDs from Pollinger just to get weird too. QB Richey wins all the awards he can win again. WR Beeson is a 1st Team All Pro. 9 more sacks for Blackledge on the year. He is up to 128 for the career. The career record for this universe is currently 136, so I'm hoping Arnie comes back to at least grab that. I think we've helped his productivity by slimming some of his workload, but he was on the field for fewer plays than the year before by a pretty good chunk. Helped his PRPct, but if we're chasing sacks I probably need to look at making sure he's out there a tick more. We've got one more year with Beeson and some of the other holdover WR talents. After that we'll have to rely on the guys we just drafted. The defense will have some key names but we're thinning quickly. Hopefully there's some draft talent we can grab to be ready/patch it together. The DL could be weak/thin as hell as early as next year. I would guess we step back from what this was but are still very good next year. It's tough to build on 37 points per game and 17 allowed. We'll get mortal pretty quickly after next year though, if it doesn't happen sooner with some ageing dings. |
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04-17-2020, 01:01 PM
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#72 |
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High School JV
Join Date: Mar 2015
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this is getting more and more interesting.
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04-17-2020, 01:15 PM
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#73 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Yeah, it starts this year with losing DE Padilla (70/70) and DT Skelton (64/64) from the D-line. G Colby Shockey (65/65) has been a starter for us all four years with the team as well. The defensive guys were a bit of an embarrassment of riches for a stretch there, and they were getting most of their time in lesser formations. They were key for us last year though and the year before as well. Next man up in those spots is not looking good enough. We're probably nabbing a couple bodies at the end of FA2 for the D-line. The secondary is about to get extremely shaky too. I think this needs to be a D year for our draft picks. Hope we get a little lucky on what's there for us. |
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04-17-2020, 03:05 PM
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#74 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2042 Draft
   There's stuff to like about all three of these guys. I think they'll all be big enough to have LB/DE versatility for us. Pelletier should be a pass rusher. We will need one soon. The other two have very little pass rush potential that I can see. A little disappointed with what was there for us this year. I felt like this was kind of just going for some value/BPA, especially taking Mills as the third LB for this class. We will need the depth/bodies but there are some other spots where we will need real players and they just weren't there. So far I think it's bearing out that the secondary might be a spot we just can't add a real player to without some big time luck. Late FA2 veteran scrubs and patching it together look like the path there. Fine for now, but we're gonna lose our safeties and Ted Matthews soon. Will be a wasteland then. |
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04-17-2020, 06:58 PM
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#75 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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FA2/Camp
We get holdouts from LB Seth Thomas and CB Jerry Borders. The Thomas holdout sort of clears the way for SLB Kristopher Cambini to take over as the primary DE pass rusher opposite Blackledge. The CB Borders holdout is a bit of a dagger. With him, we mostly hold together a pretty good core four back there. Without him, we're probably weak and rotating multiple spots. Not enough to kill us but stretches us in the wrong matchup for sure. He's only got a year left with us but was hoping to get the full season. We sign a few veteran CBs to try to cover over some of this. We're able to bring CB Jalen Sewell back in FA2, so we do. We sign two outsiders in CB Javier Tirado and CB Aiden Frederick. They're all mid-40s guys and I'm hoping they kind of blend into the background but this is probably the future of how we solve the secondary going forward. It could be worse, but it could be better. We bring some big future rating UDR Centers into camp. Going to look to bulk them up and convert them. Just play them out of position? I don't really know what the right answer is exactly and we probably won't learn this year anyway. We've got better solutions in place for another season or two. I think we bring 12 LBs to camp. LB Thomas and CB Borders both come back for the last week of preseason. Here's the roster ahead of Week 1: Code:
Unless something strange happens, we should be pretty good again. RT Sean Flowers, whose trade bloomed a thousand Bowl wins, has taken a step back in camp this year. Old friend LB Devan Henry continue a fade that started a year ago. We will lose a bunch of receivers and Borders and FS Flannery from the secondary. I think this is our last great team from a raw talent standpoint. |
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04-17-2020, 07:44 PM
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#76 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
15-1 and the #1 seed. We still ended up with an impressive 32.8/18.6 ratio on points scored/allowed. We didn't feel as dominant and Richey had a lesser year than his first two campaigns. We made a conscious effort to try to involve our future generation of WRs, and I guess there's probably some loss of efficiency there by trying to get Botta and Aguiar more involved at the expense of more talented/developed/cohesed options. The defensive numbers jump out when the yardage stuff makes us look awful. I thought they held their own. We play high possession games with this group. Number 1 in completion percentage against and middle of the pack on YPA. 18.6 points allowed per game. The bottom didn't fall out. We lost a step, but not two. Blackledge got the career sack record in Week 14. His 11.5 are his highest total in the last five seasons. At 139.5 in his 12th year... well, 171 will keep looking a little impossible unless he keeps coming back. |
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04-17-2020, 07:58 PM
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#77 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Clean wins early, and then a tough one for the boys. Up late, Richey threw a pick-6 with under 3 minutes to play to give Tucker a one point lead in the Bowl. They drove back on the next possession and had a chance, but a 56 yard field goal went wide right. WR Gerald Beeson was a 1st Team All Pro and CB Ted Matthews earned 2nd Team honors. Last edited by MalcPow : 04-17-2020 at 08:05 PM. |
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04-17-2020, 08:03 PM
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#78 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Blackledge comes back.
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04-17-2020, 09:37 PM
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#79 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We're thinning out for sure. I know we had some kind of new rules declaration back there a few offseasons ago, but we've really just stopped giving contracts to anyone who was here "before." I think we'll hold tight forever to QB Richey and LB Rhodes and anyone we want to really from the transition onward, but we've had a good mix of contract timing and aging bringing our monster roster down to a more normal place. I probably would have made an exception for T Sean Flowers or LBs Seth Thomas/Devan Henry, but they're all either breaking down or pulling holdout bullshit. The last few guys on the roster with some sentimental exception candidacy are CB Ted Matthews, LB Cambini, and C Fariman. I would have loved to hang onto one of the safeties we took in the 1st awhile back, but we're losing Flannery right now and Bordley never really grabbed the hearts of the fans you know. I'm guessing those two were critical at the back of our defense and we can learn something from losing them too. It truly sucks losing CB Borders. We did get him in the 5th round in 2039. Maybe that means we can pull another 70 CB out of our, um, hats in this draft. |
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04-17-2020, 10:44 PM
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#80 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2043 Draft
   More D. We're resigned to vet retreads in the secondary I think. We need more rotation pieces up front. I think we'll get an RB or two out of the UDR pile too. |
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04-18-2020, 09:16 PM
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#81 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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FA2/Camp
We filled out with some veteran secondary scrubs. Signed Richey to a big extension. LB Rhodes held out but we signed him to a big extension too. We're so nice now. I'm sort of glad that this is LB Devan Henry's last ride with the squad. He was an early pick of ours and extremely talented, but he has been fading and the last few years he's popped up as the D Front leader every offseason. It's been an annoying problem. Teammates HATE him. (Learn this one weird trick that...) So we're glad to be done with that. We're also going to lose MLB Donald Reynolds who has remained a mega-stud from a ratings standpoint. What does he actually do? I have no idea. Would the game engine just squirt lemon juice in my eyes if I ever got a peek at how LBs actually impact things? Probably. I don't know if years left on the deal matter, but we signed Blackledge to a 3 year deal just to give this thing a chance. 32 sacks in 3 years? We've got a shot. 32 sacks in 2 years? Not bloody likely. 32 sacks this year? Never tell me the odds. Here's the roster as we get through the Pre-Season. Code:
We kind of boxed ourselves in by not adding WR talent. I could probably scramble now and throw some bad veterans at the problem. But it might just be a learning experience to see how much it sets us back. 21/29 Al Greenwood is in line for a bunch of targets. Just bad by me. Sort of forgot we hadn't finished working through everything and picked up today thinking I could just advance on through. We'll see what happens. |
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04-18-2020, 09:58 PM
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#82 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We were 10-2 at one point. Feet up on the desk. Then we kind of came back to earth the last four games of the season. Lost our chance at the division (and a bye) to an 11-5 Oakland team that beat us twice. WR Al Greenwood was an absolute bright spot. 66 catches on 102 targets, 8.12 ypt. We were solid. I think the offense taking a step back helped the defense show a tick better. Fewer possessions, fewer complete shootouts where they're defending 50 passes, etc. We faced 43.7 pass attempts per game last year. This year it was 36.5. That helps all the yardage stuff for sure. Blackledge got 9.5 sacks. He's at 149 and this little side quest is setting up to come short of anything that matters. Another participation trophy for the lobby. We've got Chicago on the road in the Wild Card round. |
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04-18-2020, 10:11 PM
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#83 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We win in the WC Round. Then we take on the Conference #1 Seed in their place. The Chits beat us with a late field goal. A little bit the end of an era, but we will build back. Chesapeake, as is their custom, lose the Bowl game. WR Tyrus Aguiar is a 1st Team All Pro and WR Mercury Botta is a 2nd Teamer. They both broke 1000 yards and probably suffered a little from all the volume we had to send their way. If performance counts for anything in development, Al Greenwood should explode after this. QB Richey snuck onto the 2nd Team as well. We're definitely in the version 8.3 world when an 85 rated passer jumps onto the Awards list. He had a sneaky good year rushing, and he led the league in yardage for the 4th straight year. |
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04-18-2020, 10:26 PM
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#84 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Herb is starting to get a little cheeky. He dropped a "4" on our roster strength at the end of last year. End of an era indeed.
Along the same lines, RT Sean Flowers, who played a lot of LT for us and dominated all manner of trade musings, hung them up after 11 seasons. He's one of the guys who won 5 rings with us. We made the playoffs every year after he came aboard. I don't know if he'll get HOF consideration but he was a big part of what we did. Also...  Blackledge called it quits too. He retires with 149 sacks, and he's the career record holder for sacks and hurries in this universe. We were chasing 171, and he had 22 in his playoff career if you want be a little expansive. I guess that was enough of an excuse for him to wriggle out of his fundamental duty to wither away chasing stats for my amusement. He'll be a surefire Hall of Famer and we'll clap politely. On to the next one. There might be a new 171 challenger in this draft. |
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04-18-2020, 10:41 PM
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#85 | |
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lolzcat
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
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Quote:
eat a bag of dicks |
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04-18-2020, 11:15 PM
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#86 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Tough roster snapshot. We're losing a bunch of guys, but they've also faded quite a bit too. That's just as tough really. Our precious little ones, walking away and a bunch of them probably a crappy camp from dropping below 50. CB Ted Matthews. LBs Seth Thomas and Devan Henry. DT Jace Wolcott. That crew was right in the middle of things for us, and they're starting to see the end. LBs Donald Reynolds and Kristopher Cambini are still pretty studly. We'll miss them because they're still really good. If somehow one of these guys makes it to FA2, you can bet pretty big we'll sign them. (We even made one-time hero QB Dom Ellis suffer the indignity of ending up in FA2 before getting his courtesy deal to hold a clipboard.) I don't think that's happening though. I'm going to think about treating the guys left on the roster as fair game for extensions when we see where we are in FA2. It's LT Sawyer (68/68), C Fariman (76/76), and SS Bordley (77/77) that are left. I can't tell if I'll want to keep them to satisfy some mix of sentiment and staying reasonably competitive. We're losing a lot of guys this offseason. I think we'll be in a better spot as time goes on for some of our shitbirds to develop some continuity to help us through. Last edited by MalcPow : 04-18-2020 at 11:17 PM. |
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04-19-2020, 12:11 AM
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#87 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
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04-19-2020, 12:26 AM
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#88 | |
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High School JV
Join Date: Mar 2015
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Quote:
i feel a bit silly to ask, but how do you produce these outputs? |
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04-19-2020, 10:48 AM
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#89 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Maassluis, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
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Quote:
__________________
* 2005 Golden Scribe winner for best FOF Dynasty about IHOF's Maassluis Merchantmen * Former GM of GEFL's Houston Oilers and WOOF's Curacao Cocktail Last edited by MIJB#19 : 04-19-2020 at 10:48 AM. |
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04-19-2020, 10:54 AM
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#90 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Maassluis, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
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Quote:
__________________
* 2005 Golden Scribe winner for best FOF Dynasty about IHOF's Maassluis Merchantmen * Former GM of GEFL's Houston Oilers and WOOF's Curacao Cocktail |
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04-19-2020, 12:12 PM
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#91 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
Yep exactly this. Print button in the bottom left of the roster screen. Select/set up a generic text printer. Open the file it produces in notepad. Copy/paste into the post box. Put CODE tags (# button) around it all. |
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04-19-2020, 01:57 PM
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#92 | |
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High School JV
Join Date: Mar 2015
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Quote:
thanks guys -- i'm using an oracle virtual machine for windows, so i'll have to figure out how to get the text output. seems more handy than running my scripts sometimes (as it involves copying the files from windows to mac). |
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04-19-2020, 06:56 PM
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#93 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2044 Draft
   I think both of the CBs are starters for us. They both look like they're going to tend toward being ballhawks over pure cover guys, with a heavier lean toward interceptions/punishing hitter/endurance than the standard coverage bars. I'm hoping they're solid enough to survive in the coverage stuff. I'm curious to kind of see if we can impact our lack of takeaways in this career by just flooding the secondary with interception bars. We've faced as many passes as any team in the league and our pick totals have ranged from pedestrian to putrid. The FB is looking at a conversion. I looked at a few different guys, and we really haven't utilized the TE spot a ton. Just seemed clear that Dennis was the most talented guy on the board. Anybody else was likely to be comparable to our FA2/UDR options. We haven't really taken a fresh look at the offense in a bit either. Might be time to do that and bring our TE spot back to life as well. OC Deandre Hopkins is a 68 play capacity genius, even if his playcalling bar is below average. We've got the flexibility in our balanced attack to try some new stuff. (Or we'll be lazy and roll it over again. There's probably 60-70 TE targets in there if we just set the personnel screens right.) |
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04-19-2020, 11:42 PM
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#94 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2044 FA2/Camp
WR Al Greenwood (rated 27/29!!!) is holding out and I'm dying. I'm signing the dude to a 5 year deal no matter what it takes. (It ends up taking quite a bit, damn.) LB Seth Thomas made it through to FA2. Seth has held out twice. We have still played him a ton and let him steal sacks from Blackledge. He honestly had his best year in a while last year with a 10.1% PRPct and 7.5 sacks. His Loyalty rating is a really exuberant "1". We're gonna make it worth his while and bring him back. Side note, my draft stuff felt like this guy was one of the best prospects I've ever seen, so I thought I'd flag him:  I swear I'm not looking for some bullshit excuse to trade all our worthless draft picks for a generational talent. UNLESS... I mean really if the people demand it.... *crickets* Right. What a great idea to just sort of follow him from afar while we lose games. Very intriguing. |
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04-20-2020, 11:41 AM
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#95 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
Roster look after the Pre-Season. I don't hate us. I'm not really sure where our separators are, and we're suddenly thin in places I didn't really expect until we were putting depth charts together. Moe Porter at MLB is a key spot for us manned by a flawed, not completely developed player. I'm not used to being short LBs but I see how we got here. |
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04-20-2020, 12:23 PM
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#96 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We end up with the 1 seed. Hard to complain about that or going 12-4. The defense was a different flavor than some of our teams. #2 in takeaways. We've mostly been in the bottom half of the league there it feels like. So we ended up +7 in TO margin. We were extremely soft on the yardage allowed front. Some of our numbers and how we got there make me pretty wary of our playoff chances. We didn't, and don't, really have an answer for a good QB. I'm glad we have the bye because there are only so many shootouts you can hope to win. The pass rush took a step back but we got a monster season out of LB Troy Pelletier, who basically took over Blackledge's spots in the depth chart. 12 sacks, 46 hurrries, and a 12.1 PRPct. Good stuff, even if it came at the expense of Seth Thomas fading into Bolivian at the RDE spot (5.1 PRPct). The offense has held. We've sort of sneakily become a hyper-efficient running team, with QB Richey bringing 500+ yards and 9 TDs to the table this year. We spent some time trying to get better red zone passing in the last few years. We've ended up with excellent production (5.2+ pts per visit the last three years and 5.5 per visit this year) by having a lot more balance down there. We were basically an even split this year between pass/rush there, but some of that is Richey taking off on his own. His rushing in general could also be a little bit of a function of a slight decline in our pass blocking the last few years. We need to bring somebody in there this offseason, especially if we let LT Sawyer and C Fariman walk. We'll take the bye. Cross our fingers on running into any good QBs. We were undefeated at home this year. Another sign we're probably a little soft with the 4-4 road record, but we're not complaining. Last edited by MalcPow : 04-20-2020 at 12:28 PM. |
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04-20-2020, 12:54 PM
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#97 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
The home games really helped. We also clearly have some kind of playoff juju at this point. We just were not this good during the regular season. Richey only had two games with 3 passing TDs all year. Then he went 4-4-3 in the playoffs and the Divisional and Conference rounds were hyper efficient where we were this dominant 500 yards team. The defense found another gear as well. If there are any effects for playoff experience, either on the player or staff side, we're going to be in a good place. (There was once some kind of staff continuity effect, and we've had this exact same crew for many years. The only change in the entire career was when we lost our OC a number of years ago to a HC job. If Devin McCourty is ever a head coach, I'm probably betting the money line on his boys in the playoffs.) Former Dragon CB Jerry Borders ended up with the Bowl MVP by picking Richey off twice. Richey ended up winning MVP, OPOY, and 1st Team QB. There were better passing seasons in the league, but the rushing value must have put him over. WRs Botta and Aguiar were 2nd Team All Pros. Big years from these guys and I think we found a better target balance. LB Troy Pelletier gets shut out, probably because of positional stuff but there were some very good pass rush seasons this year. We're set to lose the last of our holdover guys in C Fariman (77/77), LT Sawyer (67/67), and SS Bordley (78/78). I'm still conflicted about letting all three walk, but we've weathered the bulk of these departures so far. In a somewhat odd twist, LB Seth Thomas is the only player who has been a part of all 6 Bowl wins. |
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04-20-2020, 04:46 PM
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#98 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We lose C Fariman, LT Sawyer, and SS Bordley. We even lose QB Dom Ellis and some backup types. So we're a very different roster heading into the draft. I think we're all generally convinced at this point that if we've got QB Richey and two competent WRs (Botta and Aguiar in this case), we're probably going be at least ok. We can fill RB after the draft pretty consistently it looks like, and we're stocked up already. FB/TE is not a priority unless we really turn the ship in a different direction. We could use another WR target. We got 6.57 ypt production out of Al Greenwood again, but a third real WR would probably stabilize us going forward. We need to address the OL. We can be opportunistic at any level on the defense. A nice way of saying we're kind of mediocre across the board. Losing SS Bordley at the back is a big blow to a secondary that had already drifted beyond bend-but-don't-break territory and into break-but-don't-break-every-time. I'm not totally sure what will happen there. He was a stud run defender too. I don't think we'll be able to come even close to replacing the big time run/zone/everything but interceptions bars he had. We might have to patch it together by getting better run D out of the MLB spot, and then looking for more traditional safety skills for our SS. If anybody feels like they've got the secondary figured out, I'm all ears. We've basically thrown talent at the problem for most of this career. Probably going to have to settle for targeting complementary skillsets from here on out or a system of some kind. |
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04-20-2020, 06:49 PM
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#99 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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2045 Draft
   I think we land our WR3 here. I'm not totally sure Riley is a long term answer at safety, but I think he's as good as we've got with the chance to maybe pop. Bradford will play a tackle spot for us, even if he's a bit undersized. |
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04-20-2020, 08:36 PM
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#100 |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: San Diego
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Code:
We brought in a fringey vet to possibly help us at tackle this year and he busted out in camp, dropping from the high 40s to the high 20s. I'm pretty concerned with what we're going to do at LT this year. Will be a great referendum on the value of that spot. We're going to go from a top 5 guy in Sawyer with a lot of cohesion to a converted rookie with sub-10 current blocking ratings and a lot of green. Would be a desperation move really. I think we're going to have to play our massive RT at LT and move the rook to the other side. |
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