FOWL 101 - your day to day guide

[Sef0r]

Hey Everyone
This is just an idea I was having to help with the promotion of the league. I think some people just don't get how some things work.
Obviously open to changes or removal all together.


This is a run down on the day to day duties a GM in the FOWL league goes through.
Next to each stage is an estimated time you will likely spend on the export.

Day 1 – Monday
Staff hiring (5-10 minutes)

Most owners will probably only export this stage 2 to 3 times every 5 seasons – if you think coaches make a difference. Obviously this can be skipped.


Day 2 – Tuesday
Ticket prices/summer/franchise (5-10 minutes)

Unless you have a player to franchise or send to summer league this is essentially another rest day.


Day 3 – Wednesday
FA1:1-12 [renegs and RFAs only] (10-30 minutes)

If you use gstelmack FOF 2k7 Utility Suite then this is your important stage. You get to see the draft class and extract to be viewed in draft analyzer.
Take a look at your roster, resign your RFAs and/or renegotiate contracts for some of your vets to clear up some CAP space.

Note: You only get stage 1. Stages 2 to 12 are run by the commish. If you didn’t sign any of your UFAs before the season ended say goodbye as the AI teams will sign them.

TIP #1
Talent is readily available. It is rare that you can't fill some kind of void in free agency. There is start-able talent available at almost every position. So don't be afraid to let vets go free and add new bodies.

TIP #2
Cap Management matters. A lot. The aforementioned vets are asking for more than ever and you'll have to make tough decisions about who to keep. If you run close to the cap you'll be unable to compete for much in the Free Agent Frenzy that is FA:2


Day 4 – Thursday
FA2:1 (20-60 minutes)

Hey, what happened to the draft? The commish basically runs the draft manually and puts the worst 224 players onto each team. The rest of the rookies, which are all the good ones are placed into free agency for the next 3 days of bidding frenzy.

The first day of FA2 is important as this is where you will be offering the minimum 3 year contracts out to rookies and veterans.

Most of the players will not be bid on too highly, they will get the minimum 3 year $2.7 mil with 700k bonus. Some good players you may have to pay a bit to land their services. As for the so called studs just take a look at some of these.

WR

2044	Atlanta	Late FA1	Offer withdrawn due to lack of cap room: 3yrs, $18,000,000.
2044	Atlanta	Late FA3	Offer withdrawn due to lack of cap room: 3yrs, $45,000,000.
2044	Houston	Late FA3	Signed as free agent: 3yrs, $29,410,000.
2044	Arizona	Late FA3	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $26,540,000.
2044	Idaho	Late FA3	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $3,330,000.
2044	Reno	Late FA3	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $20,910,000.
2044	San Francisco	Late FA3	Turned down a contract offer: 5yrs, $30,000,000.

DE

2042	Bakersfield	Late FA1	Signed as free agent: 3yrs, $36,530,000.
2042	Arizona	Late FA1	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $30,300,000.
2042	Indianapolis	Late FA1	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $12,410,000.
2042	New York	Late FA1	Turned down a contract offer: 1yrs, $410,000.
2042	Reno	Late FA1	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $12,000,000.
2042	San Francisco	Late FA1	Turned down a contract offer: 3yrs, $21,000,000.

Don’t be put off by the large contracts they get offered and think you won’t be able to land some. Just remember to look at the other teams CAP situation, some teams won’t be able to offer too many large contracts to the studs.

TIP #3
If you didn’t already know, you can see what a rookies pre TC bars are by filtering by any CURRENT attribute. Lets say I was looking for a high ‘getting downfield’ WR. I would search for WRs, with CURRENT GETTING DOWNFIELD and include at least 4 year vets. The results of your search will place any rookie in between veterans where their attribute bars are matching, more or less.

If a rookie player fits in between a 2^nd year WR with 86 GD and a 4^th year WR with 80 GD it means the rookie’s GD is between 80 and 86. This is just Pre TC, he could go up or down depending on the results of Training Camp.


Day 5 – Friday
FA2:2 (10-20 minutes)

This is essentially where you get to see if you signed any players and see how your offer is stacking up against the competition. You make adjustments to your offers if the player is unsigned. You look for other talent if one of your targets has signed elsewhere.


TIP #4
Don’t be fooled by the lack of contract offers from other teams. Just because you are the only one with an offer on the table to some players before the final stage gets run, it doesn’t mean you don’t have those smart, lurking owners ready to pounce on your player for FA2:3-5.

Many owners have lost out on players because of those lurking (albeit smart) owners.


Day 6 – Monday
FA2:3-5 (10-30 minutes)

You have a better idea of your CAP space, what players are left and where your contract offers compares to other teams. This is your second to last ditch effort to land your stud player.

Don’t forget to up your offers slightly more if you think there will be interest in your targeted player who only still have just your offer. Trust me, if you think he is a good to great player – there is a GM waiting to pounce.


Day 7 – Tuesday
Training Camp (10-20 minutes)

The 3 year minimum contract rule DOES NOT apply to this stage. Find the players left over from FA2 stages and offer them whatever you want, can be 1 year deals, whatever.


Day 8 – Wednesday
Pre Season (10-20 minutes)

This is where you get to try and get a gameplan ironed out. You can change your playing time settings to give some backups some playing time. Yes, the whole pre season gets simmed in 1 day.

Day 9 – Thursday
Regular Season (10-30 minutes)

All that work is about to pay off. Don’t forget, with no injuries on you can set you playing time to 100% on all your players if you don’t care to give your backups playing time. Some owners have scrubs for backups so its benefitial to them to play their top 22 at100% of the time. Of course with 6.3a your subs will play, maybe not a lot, but they will play. Don’t always have scrubs as back ups.

Some owners like to watch each game through the game itself, some like to see the box scores for each game and some just want to see all up what their record is and if they made the playoffs.

Day 10 – Friday
Post Season (10-20 minutes)

If you made the playoffs congrats, now comes the decision. Do you change the gameplan that got you to the playoffs or do you stick it out and see what happens?

[Bako]

Nice job Sef0r. This type of guide would have been beneficial to me when I first started. My first season was rough, as I didn't know what to expect, and I took it on the chin. I could see why a lot of players bail early on. The guide could be a great tool or manual to help them be successful early on.

Bravo.

[Sef0r]

Thanks Bako, if you have anything else to add to this please add it to the thread and I'll update the guide as we go.

Anyone else want to provide some suggestions to be added to the guide are most welcome, this is our league after all.

[TheMeat]

Absolutely top notch. I have often thought the new guys could use something like this. Fantastic work. I think this should definitely be included in the setup info sent to all new players, and probably stickied.

[Sef0r]

Can you guys give some feedback to what I have on day 3? Regarding turning off AI signing during FA1:2-12 stages?

[TheMeat]

AI is ON during those stages and they will grab any noteworthy vets. Even though I think it'd be cool to turn the AI teams off during FA:1, this would add some boring ass minutes to Ben's day and probably isn't worth it.

On second thought it is kind of cool that I can watch some old vets go play for the computer where I know they'll get to shine. And it definitely makes the CPU teams a little more competitive (I blame this for my wildcard loss to Denver ) and that's a good thing.

The reason I came back to the forums tho was to post some advice I think would be good for new players, regarding FA:1, coincidentally. Moreso, it's regarding talent/cap management in general. The fact that since the biggest differences about this league are the following:

1. Talent is readily available. It is rare that you can't fill some kind of void in free agency. There is start-able talent available at almost every position. So don't be afraid to let vets go free and add new bodies.

2. Cap Management matters. A lot. The aforementioned vets are asking for more than ever and you'll have to make tough decisions about who to keep. If you run close to the cap you'll be unable to compete for much in the Free Agent Frenzy that is FA:2

Those things will make this league very different from any other MP or SP game the player has likely played.

[Sef0r]

Originally Posted by TheMeat

1. Talent is readily available. It is rare that you can't fill some kind of void in free agency. There is start-able talent available at almost every position. So don't be afraid to let vets go free and add new bodies.

2. Cap Management matters. A lot. The aforementioned vets are asking for more than ever and you'll have to make tough decisions about who to keep. If you run close to the cap you'll be unable to compete for much in the Free Agent Frenzy that is FA:2

Updated with these notes. Thanks Meat