GroupThink - 1999 Little Rock Rollers

[QuikSand]

This is a continuation of the GroupThink career, managing the Little Rock Rollers. The career started in 1990, and has been jointly managed by several of the regular FOFC members, with input from numerous others.

All are welcome to download the game files, and join in the discussions. (Note: the game files will rename your cities and teams, so back up your own universe directory before overwriting those files)

GroupThink Original File


For the detailed history of the Little Rock Rollers, here are previous threads that can get you up to speed:

GroupThink beginnings
1991 offseason
1991 regular season
1992 offseason
1992 regular season
1993 offseason
1993 regular season
1994 season
1995 offseason
1995 season
1996 offseason and season
1997 offseason and season
1998 offseason and season


Here is an updated version of our house rules:

House Rules:

General:
1. Must take 60 players to training camp each season.
2. Must keep at least 53 players on the roster all season long.
3. Players can not start out of position at the beginning of the season, and replacements for injuries must be made within position groups, if possible.
4. At the start of the career, all players under contract on the team must be offered a new contract or released.
5. No one can sim games except for the specified simmer for that week. That person can only sim once, the official results will be obtained from that sim.
6. When offering a contract to a player requesting a signing bonus, we must either:
- offer him exactly the deal he demands, or
- offer him a signing bonus at least as large as the largest yearly salary.

Trading:
1. Draft-pick-for-draft-pick deals can only be initiated during the draft. (plus potentially more restrictions)
2. We can accept any AI-initiated trade, if it meets the “fairness test”
3. We can shop a player, and then can only make one trade offer, to the top interested team-- if that offer is rejected, we must release the player.

Free Agents:
1. All offers to free agents who are new to the team must come prior to week 1, and may not be altered afterwards (except to withdraw the offer).
2. "Fan Favorites" or "Idolized" players who are the most popular players in their position group on our team must be offered at least their requested contract in week 1 of the 20-step process. These players may not be traded or released.
3. After our offers to players under #2 above are resolved, we may pursue one player at a time through free agency, from either within the team or without.
4. After week 10 of the FA process, we may no longer initiate offers to players outside our team.
5. Only undrafted rookie free agents may be signed outside of the 20-Step Process, and only to a one-year deal.

Renegotiations:
1. Renegotiation allowed only in last year of contract in the case of a "Classy Veteran" defined as:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- In the 10th year or later of his career.
- Has played 5 full seasons on our team.
- Has a Loyalty rating >75.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. No "classy veteran" whose Play For Winner Rating is 60 or above can be renegotiated with following a season when the team didn't make the playoffs. He can only be re-signed via the 20-Step Process.
3. No "classy veteran" who is unhappy or has a conflict with a teammate can be renegotiated. He can only be re-signed via the 20-step process.

And, in case you’d rather cut to the chase – here is the club’s record of success to date, after our taking over the franchise in 1990 (after the original one-player universe settled into maturity):

Year  Team  Eval  Perf  Diff  Proft FrVal Record    Playoffs  
1998  LTR   88    90    65    100   83    16-2-0    Conference Final       
1997  LTR   80    100   66    77    75    19-0-0    Bowl Winner
1996  LTR   71    90    67    61    70    14-3-0    Division Final         
1995  LTR   72    90    68    75    62    14-4-0    Conference Final       
1994  LTR   74    95    70    75    62    15-4-0    Conference Champion    
1993  LTR   73    95    72    86    50    15-4-0    Conference Champion    
1992  LTR   70    100   75    90    35    15-4-0    Bowl Winner            
1991  LTR   54    66    76    80    22    12-6-0    Division Final         

After staying among the league’s elite teams following our first Bowl win in 1992, we made history with a monstrous perfect season in 1997, and stretched the winning streak to 33 games before tumbling. However, in the late stages of that season, we suffered a serious loss—our superstar QB Otis Coghill has a very serious injury that will carry into this year and possibly beyond. Adds some intrigue…

So, read on, play along, join the staff or just let us know what you think!

[QuikSand]

1999 offseason

We have one retirement from the team. LB Gerald John was once a star for us, but came back for an extended second tour to play some reserve, and even another year as a veteran starter. He was always a “good fit” for our system – solid against the run, and very good dropping back into zone coverage, as we have asked our LBs to do a lot.


We stand pat with our front office – after a 33-game winning streak, these guys deserve some credit, after all. Both are doing fine.


We’re not going to take the easy way out and use the franchise tag – no, we plunge headlong into free agency.

Here’s some very good news: QB Otis Coghill, as we start free agency, is listed as “good” under his health. And his ratings are very strong – I cannot detect any permanent slippage from the injury. So, it’s at least possible that he has just made a dramatic recovery from is injury last year – but at the moment, it appears that we can look for him to be with us opening day, and in good form. WHEW!

Some more good news. A quick perusal of the player roster shows young QB Antoine Sawyer having a whole lot more apparent potential than he had when we took him with a late round pick last year. Check this guy out – he might be the real deal for down the road, and he may very well prevent us from feeling the need to pay real money for a #2 this year.


Overall, we have 33 players on contract, and $$68 million in cap space to work with. We do have some real work to do here – we have to deal with several fan favorites in this mix: CB Austin Maffet (who will want a fortune), WR Wayne Hill (again this year), WR Karl Dockery (assuming we need to pursue both our top SE and FL), and S Ty Lincoln. Those guys could easily eat up pretty much all our cap room right there.

I’ll post the game files to let everyone catch up – but you have the big news at the QB position. Double-barreled good luck there, it seems.

[QuikSand]

File #1

[QuikSand]

File #2

[QuikSand]

Perhaps I shouldn't have bothered.

[wade moore]

Er, somehow my post before I left the house didn't go through..

I'm definately still in, i just can't d/l the files until the morning so I couldn't say much yesterday..

However, I went to d/l this morning and file 1 states that it is invalid or corrupt..

[QuikSand]

Second try: File #1

[primelord]

I am still interested in going forward, but I am starting wonder if there is any point. We had statements from people last season where they were happy we lost a game and that these results were ridiculous. Which I am not arguing with, but I am wondering how this is fun if we are just going to complain about winning. It almost seems like if Jim just programmed it that good teams would randomly lose a game here and there we would be happier. We wouldn't know that was all he did and we would think the AI was better.

[QuikSand]

I think yoou know my feelings on this sort of thing... in myopinion, the best way to play is this:

#1 - make your rules
#2 - play all out within your rules, and root for your team to succeed
#3 - if you aren't happy with your challenge, go back to #1 and revisit the rules


But I'm willing to let this go if there aren't people interested in playing or participating. Or, perhaps, I'll just keep playing the team in a dynasty thread, post game files as needed, and accept input from anyone who cares to chip in.

[primelord]

Well I still want to keep going so assuming everyone else does too we can just move on. It just seems like some of the people involved aren't having any fun with this anymore.

[primelord]

Well the good news on defense is we only have 4 guys on the entire defense that are unsigned and while I like Brent Rau and Ben Howen I think we will be ok if they leave.

The bad news is the other two free agnets Ty Lincoln, and Austin Maffett are both fan favs and both want over 60 million over 4 years. That is going to eat up a ton of our cap space. However once we ink them the defense is pretty set for next season.

[wade moore]

What is the priority for them? With our new rules don't we need to decide where our priorities lie with each player?

[primelord]

Originally posted by wade moore
What is the priority for them? With our new rules don't we need to decide where our priorities lie with each player?

We resign all fan favs like we always did and then we set priorities on who is left. Both Maffett and Lincoln are fan favs.

[cthomer5000]

what kind of money will we have after our inital offers to those we have to re-sign? And have we decided whether we have to keep both the top flanker and split end, or just one receiver?

[QuikSand]

I'll try to do some basic math here, and come up with some numbers to help better frame this discussion.

WR Wayne Hill's deal hits us for $10.4 this year
CB Maffett's costs us $10.0m
S Lincoln's deal costs is $16.0m
WR Dockery costs us $13.7m

Those four, if we sign them all, will cost us something like $50 million. That would seem to leave around $6m left over for everything else, as we have $68m in cap room, and a $12m draft cost projected.

The figures above reflect a one year deal for Lincoln, and long term deal for the other three. I could reshuffle a bit - pssing more costs to the future, but that seems a bit unfair (considering where we seem to be with this team anyway).

[wade moore]

Sorry, had some "issues" this weekend so I couldn't check in..

That puts us in a real bind with 6 mil left over.. do we feel like any of these guys will get serious interest from other teams (btw, I think in the name of challenge it may be a good idea to keep the top FL and SE, but that pretty much means $20mil plus ever year for the rest of the dynasty at WR..)

[primelord]

So where are we at with this? After we sign those guys and our rookies it's not even possible to get to 60 without cutting or trading someone. So I guess who would be the prime target to cut/trade?

I hate to say it, but Blaine Houston may be a good place to start. It's a shame to lose him, but we did draft Rusk in anticipation of not being able to keep him after this season anyway. And with the amount of money he is already asking for I don;t see how we can keep him next year. Perhaps we trade him for draft pick in a future draft. That will free up another 4 million.

Any thoughts?

[QuikSand]

I can, if we're settled here go ahead with the initial free agency stages. I can get us through our obligatory contracts, and then we can look at the free agent market (not that we can afford to be real players there).

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I can, if we're settled here go ahead with the initial free agency stages. I can get us through our obligatory contracts, and then we can look at the free agent market (not that we can afford to be real players there).

I think we're settled. I guess we're offering contracts to both receivers?

[QuikSand]

I put in our four initial offers. WR Dockery and CB Maffett sign immediately, and Wayne Hill the next week. S Ty Lincoln makes it a clean sweep in a remarkable three weeks - that was very quick.

So, it's week four of free agency, and here we are:

37 players signed
8 draft picks coming up

$16.2m in cap space remaining
$4.4 m after accounting for the expected draft cost

It's true... we cannot afford to go to 60 with our current roster - we will need to make at least one or two cuts/trades. Our DC has offered CB Houston - who is good, but would give us some $4.4m in cap room if we traded him away. (Or, if we're going to follow our tightened rules, we release him) That's among the very highest of our non-fan faves on the team, and we do have a backup in CB Tyrell Rusk who is being groomed to take over.

I'm not thrilled about it, but it might be our best move. Any other thoughts?

[QuikSand]

Here's file #1 for an update

[QuikSand]

File #2 - if anyone wants to check ouut the updated FA pool, to see what players we can't afford...

[primelord]

It will be a shame to lose Houston, but we were probably going to lose him anyway after this season. Although I forgot our house rules say we can't trade him. That makes even tougher since we will get no compensation. Still Rusk can use the playing time and we just flat out need the money.

[primelord]

Dola,

We have said this many times before, but I will say it again. This may be the year all our rules finally catch up with us. It looks like we are going to move through free agency without upgrading anywhere and losing a star CB in the process. Plus we are losing a little depth on the Dline and we have no many to replace them either.

[primelord]

Things do not look promising.

[QuikSand]

It's hard to maintain my own enthusiasm when it doesn't seem to be shared.

[Bee]

I admit I've lost interest. The game is just too easy even with all of our rules. Watching as QS resigned our fan favorites in just 3 weeks seems to have pretty much made our new rule from last season relatively ineffective.

While we will need to cut a couple of players to make room for bringing in a full team of 60, I don't see that as too challenging. Our core players will still be there and we will pick up enough talent in the draft to make it at worse a "breakeven" off season IMO. Building a team to win it all can be interesting, but after you've reached that point it becomes just too easy to maintain that level indefinitely.

[cthomer5000]

Originally posted by QuikSand
It's hard to maintain my own enthusiasm when it doesn't seem to be shared.

i'm still quite intersted in this, but I'm handicapped by the fact I have almost zero time to actually look at the game files. I can't do this at work, and have about 3 hours nightly after my commute to handle everything else in my life. I think someone just needs to charge ahead when things slow down. Clearly there is less input on how to maintain a 15-1 team then there is on how to improve a 5-11 one, so I'd guess thats a reason for a lack of input.

If this dynasty is worth anything, it's at least good for displaying how ridiculously beatable FOF4 is.

[primelord]

Well shall we just move on? I don't think we can afford to sign anyone else so maybe we should move on into the draft and go from there.

[cthomer5000]

cut the CB we talked about, and charge ahead to the draft.

[primelord]

Taking a look at the draft it looks like a pretty thin draft in terms of defense. However I wonder if it would make sense to take a guy like SLB Sedrick Guthrie and try to make him into a DE. He is 270 lbs so should make the switch ok and has 100 potential in pass rush technique, 50/50 in pass rush strength (maybe a breakout), and is a punishing hitter. I would suspect he would be there with one of our 1st round picks too.

[QuikSand]

Okay, we go ahead through free agency, and into the draft. I saw a DT I would have iked to sign, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards for us this season - we'll just have to rely on a number of rookies this year.

By my reckoning, here is a quick need summary:

RB - need potential #2 ball carrier
FB, TE - need reserve to fill roster
WR - need extra reserve for injuries
OL - need T,G,C to fill in - need potential contributor at LG
LB - need OLB to fill roster, guy to play as 4th LB
CB - need fourth guy, some PT as reserve

I don't see a critical need spot - several holes to fill, but we'd be okay adding help mostly anywhere. Some long-term help on the OL would be nice.

[wade moore]

Sorry guys.. I had both internet and illness troubles (sick now)... I need to try and d/l the files and catch up..

[primelord]

So I guess we are done with this?

Quik if you were going to continue this dynasty on your own I would like to read that. I am interested to see what happens to Cog and some of our other guys.

[QuikSand]

I think this is dead.

It took us 15 days to get through last season, and after making the intial offseason update, it went days without anyone downloading the files.

It was bound to run out of steam eventually, but I'll tally the death knell to the game's total lack of providing a competitive environment for a reasonably astute gamer. We practically crippled ourselves with house rules, and still only suffered setbacks at the hands of quirky things like injuries.

I don't plan to continue... I think I have gotten any remaining itch to play FOF4 out of my system for the time being.

[cthomer5000]

well, it was fun while it lasted.