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Old 07-21-2005, 04:01 PM   #1
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Push Button Rams - a FOF 2004 "challenge" career

Push Button Rams

I have been itching to start up a new FOF dynasty – so I am doing so with a new set of rules. I have no idea where the term “Push Button” came from, but I’m using it to describe this challenge concept for now.

My guiding rule here will be that the only multi-year contracts we can sign with any player will be the rookie deals with drafted players. Every other player gets a one year deal, and that’s it.

No renegotiations, no backloaded deals, no franchise tag, no backdoors. Every player who does well gets a chance to test the market after each year – and I’ll only keep him if I’m willing to outbid the world for him.

More details to come as needed.


Last edited by QuikSand : 07-21-2005 at 04:01 PM.
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #2
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Cleaning House

Our first order of business is to take over a new team, and completely emasculate them by cutting every signed player on the roster. I am stepping into a mature career here, and after I get through with the Rams, they have just over half this year’s cap space available. That’s fine – I don’t expect to build this team overnight.

So, this is essentially empty cupboard – though I am going to allow myself to sign free agent players to one year deals. That should get us off to a quicker start.

I decide, for no particular reason, that my coaching staff will all be fresh new guys – nobody with outside experience. We end up with a pretty mediocre staff – I’m thinking that might be an interesting (and simple) house rule for staff hiring, for those interested in such things.
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #3
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Free Agency

Since we have a completely empty roster, it’s an opportunity to build the team from scratch. I think that we’ll try to build a pretty balanced team – I’m not interested in trying anything too outré here. Actually, I have rarely built an FOF team on outstanding offensive linemen – so maybe that can be an angle this time? (Might be hard to keep them together, though)

We have $41 million (of the $75m cap) to spend – so I don’t feel at liberty to make a big splash with one or two big time free agents. instead, I think we will wait a while in free agency, and try to pick up some value players after the big bidding wars have calmed down.

I do start out with bids to a number of 3rd year players – these are guys who, after playing one year with us, will still be restricted free agents, meaning I would get an unfettered chance to re-sign them for the following year. Nobody here is really great, but we get a few rosters fillers early this way.

After we get some of our bargain bin players signed early, I look out for some value additions. I am not too worried about QB – there seem to be several solid veterans floating around, and I expect we will ultimately lock up one decent guy for no more than $2m. No budget busters welcome here.

We manage to fill several of the tough-to-fill positions, getting two starting caliber cornerbacks and two starting caliber defensive linemen for under $1m each. Not too bad.

I keep on the cheap, and manage to fill in quite a lot of the roster for under $1m a player. We get to the rookie draft with 31 players signed, and $17m in cap space remaining.
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #4
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Rookie Draft

Planning for the future with a team like this is unusual – everyone we have could be gone next year. My thinking is that we’ll just try to get foundation players wherever we can – it’s probably wisest to spend our top picks on positions that tend to be particularly expensive in free agency, like CB, DE, and WR.

When my top pick comes up, I am perplexed – the top CB available is a horrible mismatch for my intended scheme, and the WR I had been eyeing got napped up two picks ahead of us. I decide LB Daryl Jeffries can help us, and looks like a solid pick here – he’s our man.

Code:
Amateur Draft Report: Rnd 1 - Daryl Jeffries, OLB, Washington Rnd 2 - Herman Cochrane, WR, Auburn Rnd 3 - Wendell Schanne, OLB, Southern California Rnd 4 - Sammie King, RB, Evansville Rnd 5 - Everett Chelius, QB, Troy State Rnd 6 - Edwin Irwin, DT, Florida State Rnd 7 - Duane Buchanan, S, North Carolina

I don’t really have a good read on this lot – we just picked up value where we could, and will be hoping to see a couple of these guys look as good as their draft day scorecards indicated.
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #5
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Late Free Agency

We fill up the remaining roster holes with late roster additions. I’m also open to high quality players who might be willing to take one year with us, in the absence of a solid multi year deal.

Oh, and a starting QB. We need one of those, too.

I decide to move my two rookie linebackers to the inside (they are both tough against the run) and that we will use a 3-4 front. I decide that I want to give them a mentor to help bring them along, so we sign a veteran MLB to try to help things out.

At QB, we end up with two veterans, both signed pretty inexpensively. Alvin Gammon is a guy with pretty solid ratings and decent stats thus far, while Deion Brock is on the downhill, but was a total monster during his prime. (If you’re a serious diehard, you might remember him from my [url=http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showthread.php?t=18145]Akron/Cleveland dynasty some time ago – this career sprang from those game files) Anyway – Deion Brock has a career passer rating of over 98, and while he’s in his 15th season, he still looks like he might be able to get it done. I might give him a chance as our starter this season.
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #6
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Training Camp

Here is the nutshell camp analysis:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Exp CE FE CE FE dCE dFE Gammon, Alvin 11 QB 9 61 61 61 61 0 0 Brock, Deion 19 QB 15 51 51 51 51 0 0 Fisk, Dwight 9 QB 1 20 46 25 50 5 4 Chelius, Everett 13 QB 1 18 47 20 42 2 -5 Bartell, Stephen 4 QB 1 12 51 15 51 3 0 Crain, Leonard 40 RB 8 42 43 42 43 0 0 Keyes, Floyd 29 RB 7 40 43 40 43 0 0 Horvath, Trent 34 RB 3 33 41 34 41 1 0 King, Sammie 47 RB 1 26 39 26 35 0 -4 Garber, Willie 30 FB 12 44 50 44 50 0 0 Alton, Lenny 48 FB 3 34 47 35 47 1 0 Fisk, Dennis 89 TE 3 40 46 41 46 1 0 Bensen, Terrance 84 TE 3 20 45 23 45 3 0 Brannan, Gino 86 FL 4 47 51 47 51 0 0 Cochrane, Herman 88 FL 1 29 51 29 48 0 -3 Crooks, Artie 81 FL 1 10 25 12 27 2 2 Miller, Devin 82 SE 6 48 49 48 49 0 0 Haines, Lee 87 SE 1 12 32 13 28 1 -4 Gomez, Greg 53 C 6 40 53 43 53 3 0 Schwartz, Karl 51 C 3 30 50 32 50 2 0 Cunningham, Ted 60 LG 9 48 51 48 51 0 0 Huntley, Wesley 79 RG 4 39 49 42 49 3 0 Barbour, Don 67 LT 14 49 53 49 53 0 0 Voncannon, John 61 LT 6 31 34 31 34 0 0 Rasmussen, Kevin 78 RT 3 33 47 34 47 1 0 Blade, Kevin 14 P 1 42 63 45 64 3 1 Wallace, Charles 5 K 1 29 53 30 49 1 -4 Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE 4 49 54 52 54 3 0 Irwin, Edwin 73 LDE 1 17 40 19 37 2 -3 Steele, Sammie 72 RDE 6 51 52 51 52 0 0 O'Neill, Bart 71 LDT 4 49 50 49 50 0 0 Burgess, Dave 75 RDT 5 52 52 52 52 0 0 Colon, Cris 91 RDT 6 22 45 24 45 2 0 Callis, Nolan 70 RDT 1 21 30 21 31 0 1 Whitfield, Pat 96 RDT 1 10 39 11 39 1 0 Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB 1 17 52 20 48 3 -4 Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB 1 29 69 33 69 4 0 Fisher, Jackie 58 MLB 13 45 47 45 47 0 0 Selby, Rodney 55 MLB 6 27 34 29 34 2 0 Wynn, Lewis 99 SLB 12 48 48 48 48 0 0 Parrish, Clifton 59 WLB 3 37 49 40 49 3 0 George, John 93 WLB 12 35 38 35 38 0 0 Rickles, Bruce 95 WLB 14 32 35 32 35 0 0 Ellison, Blaine 98 WLB 1 11 33 12 31 1 -2 Woodcock, Isaac 37 LCB 5 52 56 55 56 3 0 Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB 6 51 51 51 51 0 0 Bensen, Chris 20 LCB 3 32 50 36 50 4 0 Fulcher, Brandon 28 RCB 1 16 37 21 41 5 4 Moulton, Fred 36 RCB 1 17 39 19 42 2 3 Fisk, Rick 49 SS 14 50 53 50 53 0 0 Newton, Toby 26 SS 13 45 50 45 50 0 0 Buchanan, Duane 33 SS 1 17 39 18 39 1 0 Swatek, Tom 42 FS 9 40 40 40 40 0 0

My top draft pick held up okay, but the other young ILB doesn’t look so hot. We have a couple minor breakouts at CB and QB – indeed, QB Dwight Fisk might be worth a look for us down the road.


I don’t have terribly high hopes for this team this season – indeed, my expectation are that we’ll end up with a fairly vanilla year. I think the talent level is okay (though our roster rating is only a subpar 30) but I don’t think we have any cohesion to work in our favor, in a league where there will be plenty of teams with lots of long-time starters. So – we will do our best, but I suspect this will be a losing campaign in our first year.

The fun really begins when all these one-time cheap free agents get a full year of starting experience, and decide they are really worth some money!
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Old 07-21-2005, 04:02 PM   #7
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2027 season

Any doubt about our QB situation is erased in the preseason, as Alvin gammon goes down with a broken ankle. Deion Brock is clearly the starter now, with rookie Dwight Fisk in the #2 slot, under Brock’s tutelage.

Through the early season, we seem to be a very average team. Deion Brock is a solid, mistake-free QB (10 TD and 1 Int through six games), but we don’t have a truly explosive offense. Our defense, on balance is pretty poor – that is our real weakspot, probably due to an utter lack of any cohesion at all.

We run the strong out, about where I expected us to be – not the bottom tier, but a sub-.500 team through and through.

Code:
2027 Summary for St. Louis Rams Record: 7-9 Winning Pct.: .437 St. Louis Rams Team Rank Rushes 453 19 Rushing Yards 1851 20 Yards Per Carry 4.08 20 (T) Pass Attempts 503 22 Completions 302 24 Passing Yards 3466 26 Yards Per Attempt 6.89 20 3rd Down Conversions 42.3 25 Points Per Game 19.8 20 Turnovers 22 13 (T) Turnover Margin -1 17 Opponents Team Rank Rushes 461 19 (T) Rushing Yards 1849 11 Yards Per Carry 4.01 7 Pass Attempts 524 17 Completions 334 27 (T) Passing Yards 4100 31 Yards Per Attempt 7.82 30 3rd Down Conversions 44.7 18 Points Per Game 21.2 18 Turnovers 21 20 (T) Week Team Versus Oppnt 1 27 SFO 17 2 13 at PIT 38 3 37 at NYG 12 4 14 at DET 16 5 14 GBY 24 6 17 CHI 10 7 14 at MIN 17 8 10 ARI 15 10 28 at SFO 17 11 6 at SEA 21 12 19 at CLE 13 13 21 ATL 28 14 20 BAL 27 15 27 at ARI 24 16 14 CIN 28 17 36 SEA 33 Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int 19 Brock QB 379 224 2458 6.48 18 9 11 Gammon QB 124 78 1008 8.12 6 5 **Team --- 503 302 3466 6.89 24 14 Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD 34 Horvath RB 307 1280 4.16 7 40 Crain RB 76 327 4.30 3 **Team --- 453 1851 4.08 13 Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD 86 Brannan WR 109 66 956 14.4 145 9 30 Garber FB 78 50 333 6.6 147 3 82 Miller WR 85 44 776 17.6 70 3 88 Cochrane WR 57 33 449 13.6 105 2 34 Horvath RB 45 28 160 5.7 67 0 89 Fisk TE 32 17 153 9.0 24 2 40 Crain RB 23 16 113 7.0 52 2 **Team --- 503 302 3466 11.4 730 24 Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn 90 Jeffries ILB 107 33 2.5 3 1 11 99 Wynn OLB 84 32 8.0 2 1 9 37 Woodcock CB 73 25 0.0 0 2 15 26 Newton S 69 20 0.5 0 3 12 59 Parrish OLB 64 26 1.5 1 1 4 49 Fisk S 60 18 0.0 0 1 8 75 Burgess DT 50 14 3.5 7 0 0 21 Gumphrey CB 45 22 0.0 1 2 5 74 Copeland DE 44 17 12.0 17 0 0 58 Fisher ILB 43 22 0.0 0 0 4 54 Schanne ILB 34 12 0.0 0 0 4 72 Steele DE 32 20 3.5 4 0 0 36 Moulton CB 30 5 0.0 0 3 1 71 O'Neill DT 24 10 4.5 4 0 0 42 Swatek S 20 7 0.0 0 0 3 **Team --- 879 294 37.0 40 15 78

We end up basically below average in most everything – though we are slightly better than average in stopping the run. Deion Brock got hurt down the stretch, and had to come out for the last few games – now we know what we have with both veteran guys here.

WR Gino Brannan was a great value pickup in late free agency, but after a 900+ yard season, I don’t know if he’s going to be affordable. He and Trent Horvath (another guy we found in late FA) were the real engines behind this team. Horvath just might stay affordable – he doesn’t have many high ratings to drive the buyers crazy.

We got a very productive season out of journeyman LB Lewis Wynn, whose 8 sacks more than double his career total. LB Daryl Jeffries looks to be on pace for a solid career in the middle of our defense, and might take down DROY honors for his standout season. DE Ronnie Copeland was the real pass pressurer for this team – his 12 sacks also more than double his career total. The defense ended up being passable – we’ll see who is willing to stick around and be part of something here in St. Louis.


Year one: about as expected
Ahead: hopefully, this will get tough quickly
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Old 07-21-2005, 06:00 PM   #8
CraigSca
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Not Delaware - hurray!
Interesting. Do prized free agents usually accept lucrative one year contracts? I have never even attempted something like that.
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Old 07-21-2005, 09:41 PM   #9
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
You have to pump up the deal a good bit. If he's seeking 4yrs, $36m... I might have to offer something like $3m salary plus $5m in bonus -- then he will at least consider that offer. (Actually, with a one year deal, I have the liberty of pushing everything but the minsal into a bonus, making it even more attractive, I guess)

So far, I'm just going after guys nobody else wants. BUt next seaosn, we might have the money to go after an impact player here or there... don't know how the cap will fit yet, really.

Last edited by QuikSand : 07-21-2005 at 09:45 PM.
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Old 07-21-2005, 09:47 PM   #10
Poli
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Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Wentzville, MO
Quote:
Originally Posted by QuikSand
Push Button Rams

I know it's not similar, but a "push button" in the Navy is someone who makes E4 automatically out of school. I myself am a "push button."
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Old 07-22-2005, 12:02 AM   #11
Peregrine
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
Interesting idea, Quik. I'll be reading, as usual.
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Old 07-22-2005, 08:09 AM   #12
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Thoughts on “Planning”

With a team that’s up for contract every year, it seems hard to really make long term plans. But I think I have to do some of that to get this to work.

I am thinking that in year two, I will try to lay some groundwork for a long term plan with this team – and that the foundation will be to bring aboard some guys that I plan to keep for a long time (at least 3-4 years, if not more). Signing top quality starters or stars with this in mind is not the right approach – I don’t want to be in a situation where I have to overpay certain players to keep them around, so instead, I will try to build a foundation with players who really aren’t that good (and therefore won’t be in high demand on the open free agent market). So, at pretty much every position group, I will be looking for players who fit one or more of the profiles here:

-Veterans with high leadership who can become position leaders
-Players with single skills good enough to be used as reserves
-Players with special teams or return skills
-Players who will contribute affinity with established leaders
-Players who can mentor younger players at their position

So, my thinking is to try to find a single player that I can install as the position leader – ideally a decent reserve-quality veteran – and then try to build the position group around him. A good example might be RB Leonard Crain. He’s currently in his 8th year, has a decent 53 rating in leadership, and is my position leader. He doesn’t have great ratings, but he is pretty solid in elusiveness and hole recognition, two specific skills I value for a backup RB. So – I might want to plan to keep Crain around for the years to come, and try to plan my backs around his leadership – I expect that Crain will never attract big interest from other teams, so I probably can count on him being willing to re-sign year after year with us… lending some stability to the position group. If I can get comparable guys (especially with higher leadership and perhaps mentoring ability) at other position groups, I think I can start to do some long range planning.

That is my top goal of this offseason – to start to develop a structure for this team, despite the lack of long term contracts that would add security.
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Old 07-22-2005, 12:24 PM   #13
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2028 offseason

On our retirement list – I’m looking for Deion Brock’s name. He’s a QB mentor, and if he sticks around, I’ll be inclined to re-sign him for another season.

Brock does not retire – that’s good news. S Rick Fisk and LB Bruce Rickles do – and Fisk was a guy we’d have preferred to keep around. So, a bit disappointing there, but no major shock.


As I enter the free agency period, I want to note the players who are priority re-signings for us. Guys who either performed well for us, or who might fit into the long-term planning I described earlier, in one way or another. Here’s my working list:

QB Deion Brock – mentor, potential starter, solid player
QB Dwight Fisk (RFA) – promising
RB Leonard Crain – possible long term position leader
RB Trent Horvath (RFA) – productive RB, but might be tough to re-sign
TE Dennis Fisk (RFA) – decent skills, might be good long term asset
WR Gino Brannan – very productive, may be too expensive
WR Devin Miller – very solid, starting quality guy
LT John Voncannon – OL leader, quality reserve, played well
DE Ronnie Copeland – will be expensive, but a solid pass rusher
DT Bart O’Neill – solid reserve quality guy, good leadership
DT Chris Colon – solid run stopper, potential to develop
LB Daryl Jeffries (signed) – anchor LB potential
LB Wendell Schanne (signed) – complementary LB, good skills fit
LB Jackie Fisher – mentor at ILB, decent skills to start/backup
LB Lewis Wynn – very productive, might be expensive after big year
LB Clifton Parrish – good complementary player (playable at LB and S)
CB Benjamin Gumphrey – starter, mentor, good skills match
CB Chris Bensen (RFA) - solid skills match, cheap starter
CB Fred Moulton (RFA) – some potential, good skills match, bargain
SS Toby Newton – good skills match, starter quality player
FS Tom Swatek – position leader, mentor, starter – guy to build around


Actually, our secondary is probably the best-assembled position group on the team right now. With Swatek as our position leader, we have a mentor at each position, and we have four affinities within the group (and no conflicts). This is the model for how I’d like the team to look in the long run. We just have to keep everyone together – my biggest worry is with CB Isaac Woodcock, who may have too much talent to be willing to re-sign with us for an affordable one year deal. I’m ready to insert Bensen as the starter, and to go with Moulton and Fulcher as the reserves (both of them are very promising youngsters with affinity to Swatek – a perfect combination).

So, where do we need help? I guess the spots we need to work on are the OL and defensive front, most of all. I am hoping that LT John Voncannon can be our long-term position leader on the OL (though his contract demands are a big high right now, I expect we will land him eventually) so I will look for guys who will work with him. And on the DL, we will let go of DE Sammie Steele (high demands, low production) and will instead be looking for more players who fit well with Bart O’Neill, who I expect will take over as the position leader on the departure of Steele. That should resolve the conflict between Steele and LB Jackie Fisher, who we hope to bring back as mentor to the young ILBs on the roster.

So, do I need to go out and sign any veteran players to become position leaders? Maybe at WR/TE.

I think I find my ideal guy in WR Jeff Sasa. His skills are mediocre – he could probably be okay as a 3rd or 4th WR option. He’s only a 6th year guy, but he has very high leadership and intelligence, and is already a position mentor. Perfect. His demands are modest – this is a guy we might be able to keep around for ten years. We put in an offer, and will hope to build around Sasa at the position group – just what we wanted!

The downside with Sasa is that QB Fisk doesn’t like him – an immediate conflict. I’d prefer to avoid conflicts on the team if we can, so I look a bit more at the appropriate receivers. 5th year Curtis Carter is a similar guy – but has the same effect with QB Fisk. There is really no other good fit here.

I end up going with Sasa – hard to say whether QB Fisk will be around that long, but Sasa is just too good for hat we want to do with this team. Leader, mentor, and young enough to be here forever – it’s too good to pass up. We put in a bid, and hope to land him.
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Old 07-22-2005, 12:25 PM   #14
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Free Agency

With that, I am ready to go ahead into the open world of free agency.

After putting in early bids for a number of our own players, I make a few overtures to free agents we’d like to bring aboard. DE Chris Franz looks good enough to start for us at the RDE spot, and isn’t looking for a wheelbarrow full of cash. CB Emanuel Hanson looks like a good fit for our secondary scheme, and we put in a modest offer for his services. DT Dustin Hammond looks like a solid run stopper, perfect for our NT slot, where we anticipate losing our starter from last year.


After the first week – no big surprises. CB Woodcock is fielding big offers, and he will be gone for certain. We have a battle for DE Chris Franz, and will have to up our offer there. But we look pretty good for the other dozen or so early offers we have out there, including immediate deals with LB Jackie Fisher and S Tom Swatek, two veteran mentors we definitely wanted back.

DT Dave Burgess is the nest player of ours (from last yea) to accept a huge multi year deal, so he is gone (as expected). DE Chris Franz now had five offers on the table – ours is solid, but only one year and he has four year offers to choose from.

Along the way, we re-sign WR Devin Miller and RB Leonard Crain, both important offensive weapons we wanted to keep aboard. WR Gino Brannan isn’t getting any attention from the FA market, so we may well be able to get him to re-up as well, which would be great.


With the group leaders as I forecast them, here’s the grid I will use to guide my affinity judgments.

Code:
AFFINITY ANALYSIS # Sign Begin End Affs Conflict Leaders 1 Aries 3/21 4/20 3 8 11 2 Taurus 4/21 5/21 4 12 7 3 Gemini 5/22 6/21 1 8 6 4 Cancer 6/22 7/23 2 12 9 OL 5 Leo 7/24 8/23 6 9 10 6 Virgo 8/24 9/23 5 9 3 7 Libra 9/24 10/23 1011 2 RB,D7 8 Scorpio 10/24 11/22 1 3 12 WR 9 Sagittarius 11/23 12/22 5 6 4 DB 10 Capricorn 12/23 1/20 7 11 5 11 Aquarius 1/21 2/18 7 10 1 12 Pisces 2/19 3/20 2 4 8 POS Affinity Affinity Conflict RB 12-1 1-2 4-5 WR 3-4 5-6 2-3 OL 4-5 2-3 11-12 D7 12-1 1-2 4-5 DB 7-8 8-9 6-7 QB 12-1 and 1-2 best, 4-5 worst

In particular, I’m going to try to build some OL affinity around Voncannon – so we’ll be looking for decent, reserve-quality players at the affinity slots there. Sagittarians need not apply.


Moving forward in free agency, we land DT Bart O’Neill, and WR Jeff Sasa – both guys I expect to become and remain position leaders for us. In week five, we land a few more players, including DE Chris Franz, who finally relents to our bonus-heavy one year offer over the three and four year tenders he got from other teams. Great news, we expect to slot him as a starter immediately. DE Ronnie Copeland has not yet signed, but doesn’t have any other offers – so I suspect we will land him eventually.


In week 7, we have a challenge for C Greg Gomez, our solid starting center from a year ago. I am befuddled by one thing – Gomez appears to be a candidate for affinity with our position leader Voncannon, but it doesn’t show up (Voncannon was born 6/30, Gomez 3/18). Gomez has been solid – I put in an offer intending to retain him, despite the mysterious lack of affinity.

In week nine, our outstanding bids all get resolved – in our favor. C Greg Gomez accepts our offer to return, and both WR Gino Brannan and DE Ronnie Copeland accept our deals, too. That covers our top priority signings – now we can work through the remainder of the roster, and look for guys who would fit in with our increasingly established position groups.


At this point, through FA week 9, we only have 22 signed players – but I feel like it’s all coming together. I think a lot of our guys who have not yet received any offers at all will be fairly easy to re-sign, it’s just a matter of waiting them out.

Interestingly, I am not recording a conflict between WR Sasa and QB Fisk, and I’m pretty certain I was notified of such. Odd.


In an effort to work out my OL affinity issues, I make an offer to a new potential position leader in veteran C Randy Walker. He takes our bid, and everything falls properly into place again. Walker becomes our group leader, and we suddenly have four affinities with him – much, much better.

That reinforces the importance of re-signing starting RG Wesley Huntley, a 5th year veteran who gets along great with Walker. We get in a one year bid, and lock him up quickly.


Our remaining trouble area is RB, where FB Lenny Alton sits as the position leader, and nobody likes him. I sign and release him on a RFA contract – and that clears up the position group issues quickly. With Leonard Crain as our position leader, we have an affinity with FB Willie Garber, so there is potential there. However, Deion Brock doesn’t get along with Crain – so there is one potential short-term conflict situation there to worry about.

I also have a problem, that DT Dustin Hammond, our proud new signing to start at DT, does not get along well with DT Bart O’Neill, our position leader along the defensive front. I like Hammond a lot – maybe the answer is to bring in a veteran who will assume the leadership role and get along with both guys. I find just the guy – DE Rick Peterson is an 11th year player, good enough to get backup playing time, and is a mentor at the DE position. Ideal. We get him signed, despite Pittsburgh’s efforts to lock him up with a three year deal.

So, our affinity grid now has changed a bit:

Code:
AFFINITY ANALYSIS # Sign Begin End Affs Conflict Leaders 1 Aries 3/21 4/20 3 8 11 2 Taurus 4/21 5/21 4 12 7 OL 3 Gemini 5/22 6/21 1 8 6 D7 4 Cancer 6/22 7/23 2 12 9 5 Leo 7/24 8/23 6 9 10 6 Virgo 8/24 9/23 5 9 3 7 Libra 9/24 10/23 1011 2 RB 8 Scorpio 10/24 11/22 1 3 12 WR 9 Sagittarius 11/23 12/22 5 6 4 DB 10 Capricorn 12/23 1/20 7 11 5 11 Aquarius 1/21 2/18 7 10 1 12 Pisces 2/19 3/20 2 4 8 POS Affinity Affinity Conflict RB 12-1 1-2 4-5 WR 3-4 5-6 2-3 OL 6-7 2-3 9-10 D7 3-4 10-11 8-9 DB 7-8 8-9 6-7 QB 3-4 best; 1-2,5-6,7-8,10-11,12-1 good

So, as things stand right now – we have four personality conflicts on the team. Three are from quarterbacks, where it’s just going to be tough to get things to work since I have such a hodgepodge of signs involved, and the other is from TE Dennis Fisk. Fisk is a guy I had slotted as a “long term” keeper, but now I think I’m going to cut him. He doesn’t have great talent, and TE is a pretty easy position to fill via free agency, especially if I’m willing to settle for a mediocre player. Sorry, Dennis – Jeff Sasa says you have to go. (Actually, Fisk isn’t even signed – I just won’t b offering him a RFA contract)


We may be able to avoid the conflict with Deion Brock, too. QB Alvin Gammon has gotten no love on the open market, and would probably re-sign with us for the coming year. He has just become a QB mentor, meaning that I’d be comfy going with him (one affinity, and mentor) as our starter ahead of Fisk (promising youngster, chemistry neutral). That leaves out the sentimental story of Deion Brock, but he’s got one or two years left in him at most, and admittedly has lesser skills than Gammon. If I’m committed to chemistry – this is probably the way to go here.


We have reached the end of the early free agency period, and our team still has $24 million in cap space. Admittedly, with all my attention paid to chemistry matters, we didn’t really go out and make any big splash free agent signings. There is still time – especially at the QB position – to do so, so our options are not totally exhausted.

So, in week 19, we go ahead and work out a one year deal with CB Karl Hulton, who has been a standout through most of his 12 year career. he has been a pro bowler twice, and has 70 interceptions, for a 20.0 PDPct on his career. He should be a solid starter for this year, even if our hopes of re-signing him are likely nil.

I make a much smaller splash with TE Bryan Brown, who looks like he might be a great fit for us – great long snapper, good special teamer, and certainly good enough to be our reserve TE, if not a starter. He takes a cheap deal, and he generates affinity with WR Sasa – bullseye.

I also lock up new deals with starting offensive linemen Barbour (a mentor tackle) and Cunningham, getting our line almost ready for the season ahead. We need a starter at RT, and to lock up reserve OT Rasmussen, but both guys we have in mind are restricted – so we ought to be able to work them out in late free agency. We can fill in with affinity guys as needed, and be good to go.

One guy I let slip is DT Cris Colon – I failed to get in a bid for him, and he got signed away in week 20. We were getting deep at DT for our 3-4 setup anyway – so it’s not a crisis.
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Old 07-22-2005, 12:25 PM   #15
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2028 Rookie Draft

I already have the sense that the free agency period is FAR more important in this challenge than are rookies, but here I get a chance to at least lock up a few players to multi year deals. My first round picks need to be valued starters, the rest can just be fillers and reserves (as usual).

As for need areas – not many, really. This team looks pretty complete to me, assuming we ultimately re-sign everyone we expect to re-sign. We could use a long term presence at the RB position, and maybe a quality OL to groom, especially at LT (where our expected starter will be a 15th year vet). We currently have “system” guys at safety – a star caliber addition there would be welcome as well.


Our pick is at #14, where we will probably have missed our chance to nab a major impact player, unless we see a guy slip through at a spot like safety or TE. I will be willing to move up if needed – especially if we can get a perfect fit somewhere in a need spot.

After a look at the draft, I see an offensive lineman in our future. Several solid tackles in this draft, and it seems very likely that we will see at least one or two of them at pick 14, especially since there are lots of glittery quarterbacks who are sure to go in the early selections.

I watch the top two offensive linemen, including the guy I liked bet go between picks 11 and 13, along with the top WR whom I fancied a bit as well. Suddenly, in the space of three picks, we are over the cliff. Ugly.

The best-looking OT left happens to be in the conflict group – and I’d prefer to avoid that, having made such an investment into the team chemistry already. I decide, eventually, to deal out of this year’s first round to pick up a first rounder next year, and advance a bit in the second round of this draft. I just don’t see many (any?) sure things in this crop, and I’d rather wait than reach.

In early round two, I am tempted by the best TE left – but I really like a guy I think I can get later, perhaps in round three or four (he is the third-ranked TE on the remaining list – I may have to get him in round three).

I end up using our top pick on the best OL I can find – he’s a natural center, I expect to see him switch to guard at 299 lbs. The TE I covet is atop the position list when I pick in the middle of round three – so I pull the trigger there and grab him, hoping we have a sleeper pick there.

Code:
Amateur Draft Report: Rnd 2 - Gino Reeves, C, Arizona Rnd 3 - Cary Schulz, TE, Georgia Rnd 4 - Jeff Dole, ILB, Rutgers Rnd 5 - Byron Kraemer, S, Stony Brook Rnd 6 - Bruce Sutter, FB, Michigan Rnd 7 - Kim Devine, DT, Purdue

In round four I was enamored with two receivers, but rolled the dice and took my LB prospect instead – both got snapped up (from way down the WR sort) before my selection in round five, to my surprise and dismay.
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Old 07-22-2005, 02:04 PM   #16
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Late Free Agency

Now, with all our rookies quickly signed, we have 36 players on board and $14 million to spend. We can still afford to sign a solid quarterback, and the prospect is awfully tempting. QB Vince Winslett is a 14th year veteran, the defending superbowl MVP, and is sitting around waiting for his phone to ring. He looks very solid, and is certainly affordable – I suspect a $3m deal would lock him up. I put in an initial offer – and decide that we will pursue him, possibly in addition to one of the guys currently on the roster.

I also target 14th year veteran LB Curtis Bergsman – possible starter for us, a good fit for our coverage scheme, and an affinity guy with the front seven leader. Great fit, ideal signing. 5th year LB Keith Woodard is probably a guy we won’t be able to hold on to long term, but he is also amendable to a one year contract, and is also an affinity plus. These are great additions to our club – Woodard would be great to keep around, if possible.

So – those are my main targets in free agency, and we lock them all up pretty smoothly. In week six, I work out deals with mot of our returning restricted free agents, to try to settle out our cap situation once and for all.

I’m a little surprised, but my RFA re-signings take up pretty much all our remaining cap space. I am left with something of a quandary – as we only have one veteran QB signed currently, and that’s Vince Winslett. If I want to work out a deal with Alvin Gammon (which I do) I probably have to cut Winslett to do it – his $3.3m is the easiest way to make some cap space on this team, for certain.

In the end, it looks like Winslett is going to be our man, leaving both Deion Brock and Alvin Gammon on the sidelines. I’m okay with that – Winslett has been pretty steady in his later years, and perhaps he can be with us for two or three seasons, as we continue to develop young Dwight Fisk (who looks just fine as our reserve for this year).

I give it some more thought, and decide that the best route to go is to try to clear out space for Alvin Gammon. In the process, I clean out the two young QBs who contribute personality conflicts with group leaders, and end up with a clean slate in that regard. That gets me to $940,000 in cap space – still not enough to lure Gammon in. I decide the next guy to go is LB John George – that does the trick, and we get Alvin Gammon inked to a $1.5 million contract.

We will carry only 49 players into training camp, so we don’t have a lot of margin for error – but I’m ready for the season ahead and like hat we have on hand. We had more turnover at LB than I had imagined, but the losses of Lewis Wynn and Clifton Parrish will be nicely offset by additions of veterans Curtis Bergsman and Keith Woodard, both of whom will probably land in starting positions right away.

My last problem is that I don’t have the cap space for CB Brandon Fulcher – a guy I really want to keep, as he is a double bonus with affinity and growth potential. I let go of CB Hansen, a 13th year vet who probably figured to be 3rd on our depth chart, but didn’t contribute all that much right away, and doesn’t have much of a future. That frees up the space to sign Fulcher, plus we now have $480k in cap space – enough to work out a deal with a fill-in rookie if we need one down the line (fairly likely, actually).

We head into training camp now with 49 players – and are ready for a look at this new group.
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Old 07-22-2005, 02:04 PM   #17
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Training Camp

Here is the snapshot from training camp:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Exp CE FE CE FE dCE dFE Winslett, Vince 1 QB 14 62 66 62 66 0 0 Gammon, Alvin 11 QB 10 61 61 61 61 0 0 Fisk, Dwight 9 QB 2 32 52 36 52 4 0 Crain, Leonard 40 RB 9 39 41 39 41 0 0 Horvath, Trent 34 RB 4 36 42 37 42 1 0 King, Sammie 47 RB 2 25 31 26 31 1 0 Garber, Willie 30 FB 13 41 47 41 47 0 0 Sutter, Bruce 39 FB 1 19 42 21 45 2 3 Brown, Bryan 85 TE 7 35 40 35 40 0 0 Schulz, Cary 83 TE 1 28 58 31 62 3 4 Brannan, Gino 86 FL 5 47 50 47 50 0 0 Cochrane, Herman 88 FL 2 30 45 32 45 2 0 Sasa, Jeff 80 FL 6 30 33 30 33 0 0 Miller, Devin 82 SE 7 47 48 47 48 0 0 Walker, Randy 57 C 11 54 54 54 54 0 0 Gomez, Greg 53 C 7 46 52 46 52 0 0 Schwartz, Karl 51 C 4 32 49 34 49 2 0 Cunningham, Ted 60 LG 10 48 50 48 50 0 0 Reeves, Gino 56 LG 1 26 62 30 65 4 3 Huntley, Wesley 79 RG 5 48 50 50 50 2 0 Barbour, Don 67 LT 15 49 53 49 53 0 0 Val, Ernest 62 LT 1 22 34 25 38 3 4 Rasmussen, Kevin 78 RT 4 38 47 38 47 0 0 Blade, Kevin 14 P 2 55 65 56 65 1 0 Wallace, Charles 5 K 2 34 47 36 47 2 0 Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE 5 49 51 49 51 0 0 Irwin, Edwin 73 LDE 2 20 34 21 34 1 0 Franz, Chris 95 RDE 5 51 54 51 54 0 0 Peterson, Rick 72 RDE 11 37 42 37 42 0 0 Hammond, Dustin 76 LDT 5 50 50 50 50 0 0 O'Neill, Bart 71 LDT 5 48 49 48 49 0 0 Devine, Kim 92 LDT 1 22 28 23 28 1 0 Callis, Nolan 70 RDT 2 22 31 23 31 1 0 Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB 2 24 45 26 45 2 0 Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB 2 42 68 44 68 2 0 Woodard, Keith 52 MLB 5 49 55 51 55 2 0 Bergsman, Curtis 50 MLB 14 45 45 45 45 0 0 Fisher, Jackie 58 MLB 14 43 45 43 45 0 0 Dole, Jeff 97 SLB 1 14 50 17 48 3 -2 Ellison, Blaine 98 WLB 2 11 27 13 27 2 0 Hulton, Karl 31 LCB 13 68 72 68 72 0 0 Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB 7 50 50 50 50 0 0 Bensen, Chris 20 LCB 4 36 50 38 50 2 0 Moulton, Fred 36 RCB 2 24 45 27 45 3 0 Fulcher, Brandon 28 RCB 2 24 45 26 45 2 0 Newton, Toby 26 SS 14 42 46 42 46 0 0 Buchanan, Duane 33 SS 2 18 38 19 38 1 0 Swatek, Tom 42 FS 10 37 37 37 37 0 0 Kraemer, Byron 49 FS 1 21 33 22 32 1 -1

Looks like we might have hit with a couple of our draft picks. TE Cary Schultz does indeed seem to have some real potential, and so might FB Sutter. My new LG Reeves has promise that I didn’t really expect, though some of the camp gain might just be recovering from the position switch from C to G. LB Dole might end up a disappointment – should have grabbed one of my sleeper receiver there instead.


I decide to make a fairly radical decision – we need a pure strong-side linebacker, and Keith Woodard is the most logical fit. So, I permanently move the 5th year player to that spot – his current ratings drop from 51 to 15, but he holds his potential, and I hope he can play well there this year and perhaps be a guy we use there for a few years. I also move young CB Fulcher over to play at strong safety – he is a solid hitter and ballhawk, I think this is a better slot for him and he will still get mentoring there.

We are ready for the season ahead – one last thing to show here. Since we invested so much time into managing the team chemistry, we might as well show it off a bit:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Playing Time Chemistry Winslett, Vince 1 QB QB Content Gammon, Alvin 11 QB Content 1 Affinity with lea Fisk, Dwight 9 QB Content Crain, Leonard 40 RB Content Backfield Leader Horvath, Trent 34 RB RB Content King, Sammie 47 RB Content Garber, Willie 30 FB FB Content Affinity Sutter, Bruce 39 FB Content Affinity Brown, Bryan 85 TE Content Affinity Schulz, Cary 83 TE TE Content Sasa, Jeff 80 FL Content Receivers Leader Brannan, Gino 86 FL FL Content Cochrane, Herman 88 FL Content Miller, Devin 82 SE SE Content Walker, Randy 57 C C Content Offensive Line Lead Gomez, Greg 53 C Content Affinity ##Schwartz, Karl 51 C Content Strong Affinity Cunningham, Ted 60 LG LG Content Reeves, Gino 56 LG Content Huntley, Wesley 79 RG RG Content Affinity Barbour, Don 67 LT LT Content Val, Ernest 62 LT Content Rasmussen, Kevin 78 RT RT Content Blade, Kevin 14 P Content Wallace, Charles 5 K Content Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE LDE Content ##Irwin, Edwin 73 LDE Content Devine, Kim 92 LDE Content Peterson, Rick 72 RDE Content Defensive Front Lea Franz, Chris 95 RDE RDE Content Hammond, Dustin 76 LDT NT Content O'Neill, Bart 71 LDT Content Callis, Nolan 70 RDT Content Affinity Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB Content Mild Affinity Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB WILB Content Fisher, Jackie 58 MLB WLB Content Bergsman, Curtis 50 MLB SILB Content Affinity Woodard, Keith 52 SLB SLB Content Affinity Dole, Jeff 97 SLB Content Ellison, Blaine 98 WLB Content Affinity Hulton, Karl 31 LCB LCB Content Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB RCB Content Strong Affinity Bensen, Chris 20 LCB Content Moulton, Fred 36 RCB Content Mild Affinity Newton, Toby 26 SS SS Content Fulcher, Brandon 28 SS Content Strong Affinity ##Buchanan, Duane 33 SS Content Affinity Swatek, Tom 42 FS FS Content Secondary Leader Kraemer, Byron 49 FS Content

Looking forward, we can probably improve at the WR group, as this year we really don’t have any reserves, and therefore didn’t focus much on filling in with affinity guys. Ideally, I’d like to get a solid receiver/returner to slide in as a long term answer at the WR position – a guy who doesn’t have great skills, but can contribute and add an affinity. We’ll be looking.


So, with plenty of team chemistry, but still not much in the way of cohesion (still last in everything), we head into our second season. Our roster rating is still a pretty low 43, and I suspect we will be in the middling 8-8 range again this season – but there are foundations in place now. A lot probably rests with QB Vince Winslett – if he can put up a 29 TD season like last season in Oakland, we might have a chance to exceed expectations a good deal. We will need the defense to get the job done, too – tough to expect from a ragtag bunch still settling in together.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:56 PM   #18
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2028 Season

Regrettably, our biggest injury of the preseason is to SLB Keith Woodard – the guy we needed to “grow into” the SLB role. That leaves us a bit thin at LB, but we will patch by. Next guy to go down for the year is DE Chris Franz – so our pass rush is now seriously compromised.

Our secondary gets absolutely hammered by injures – boy, could we use a veteran like CB Hansen, the last guy we cut in preseason. In week five, we have an undrafted rookie fill-in already seeing playing time at CB and S, since we are literally running out of live bodies.

We are in tatters as we reach the halfway point, but a two win streak has us at 4-4. RB Trent Horvath has been surprisingly effective, with 658 yards in 8 games, ahead of last year’s pace even. Vince Winslett has 12 TDs, but also 12 picks – the sort of inconsistency that has long plagued him. We are mounting nearly zero pass rush – we have 7 team sacks in 8 games, and that is a major problem on defense.

With Winslett now out with an injury – we decide to go young and insert Dwight Fisk as our starting QB. I don’t feel the team is likely to be a playoff contender, so we’ll see what we have in this young QB. I think his development trend is good enough that we may have to consider him a player to build around – this season may tell the tale.

In the second half, the injuries continue to pile up – it’s downright dreadful. For a team that’s as thin as we are, we just can’t have guys getting hurt three or four times a season. Just won’t do. S Tom Swatek has probably had five separate injuries this year – and he’s not the only one. It’s awful.

And yet – we still manage to limp our way to 7-7. By luck of the division draw, we are not in the playoff hunt, even though the 7-7 Giants and 7-7 Redskins (and even the 6-8 Eagles) are still battling for their spot. We can’t catch San Francisco, so we will sit out this postseason again. We wrap up the season at a level 8-8, more or less as expected, and will move ahead with at least one thing in mind – Dwight Fisk has probably earned the starting QB job for the foreseeable future.

Code:
2028 Summary for St. Louis Rams Record: 8-8 Winning Pct.: .500 St. Louis Rams Team Rank Rushes 476 9 Rushing Yards 2115 7 Yards Per Carry 4.44 5 Pass Attempts 524 15 Completions 316 14 Passing Yards 3688 12 Yards Per Attempt 7.03 13 3rd Down Conversions 42.0 20 Points Per Game 21.1 12 (T) Turnovers 30 26 Turnover Margin -6 24 (T) Opponents Team Rank Rushes 465 19 (T) Rushing Yards 2116 28 Yards Per Carry 4.55 31 Pass Attempts 516 14 (T) Completions 300 9 (T) Passing Yards 3368 8 (T) Yards Per Attempt 6.52 9 (T) 3rd Down Conversions 44.1 20 Points Per Game 22.6 27 Turnovers 24 15 (T) Week Team Versus Oppnt 1 28 ARI 18 2 14 NYJ 31 3 6 at WAS 20 4 26 at NOS 23 5 6 CAR 17 6 35 TBY 38 7 34 SFO 24 8 28 at ARI 14 9 16 at ATL 37 10 16 SEA 13 12 14 at BUF 10 13 17 MIN 21 14 31 at MIA 33 15 35 at SEA 34 16 23 NED 13 17 10 at SFO 17 Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int 1 Winslett QB 272 160 1786 6.56 12 12 9 Fisk QB 239 145 1770 7.40 13 12 **Team --- 524 316 3688 7.03 26 24 Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD 34 Horvath RB 306 1380 4.50 11 40 Crain RB 86 315 3.66 2 9 Fisk QB 42 184 4.38 0 **Team --- 476 2115 4.44 15 Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD 86 Brannan WR 112 64 961 15.0 100 3 82 Miller WR 97 48 677 14.1 114 7 34 Horvath RB 76 47 350 7.4 146 5 30 Garber FB 54 45 293 6.5 101 4 88 Cochrane WR 56 32 508 15.8 93 5 85 Brown TE 45 29 313 10.7 62 1 40 Crain RB 30 24 197 8.2 33 0 **Team --- 524 316 3688 11.6 768 26 Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn 90 Jeffries ILB 120 31 4.0 5 0 10 50 Bergsman ILB 84 15 4.5 5 0 5 54 Schanne ILB 74 25 1.5 0 0 3 28 Fulcher S 58 13 0.0 1 0 2 21 Gumphrey CB 55 21 0.0 0 2 6 58 Fisher ILB 53 22 0.0 0 0 4 31 Hulton CB 48 13 0.0 0 4 11 72 Peterson DE 43 17 4.5 17 0 0 36 Moulton CB 37 12 0.0 2 3 3 26 Newton S 35 11 0.0 0 2 5 76 Hammond DT 34 15 0.5 6 0 0 71 O'Neill DT 26 9 0.5 6 0 0 42 Swatek S 23 9 0.0 0 1 3 74 Copeland DE 23 15 4.5 28 0 0 48 Manard S 17 6 0.0 0 0 3 **Team --- 826 254 21.0 71 13 59

It’s a little bit odd – last year we were basically below average in everything except stopping the run, where we were surprisingly strong. This year, turn it inside out – our running game was very strong, and our offense in general was solid. What couldn’t we do? Stop the run.

The group of hoboes we put out there at DB for half the season kept opponents to well under 7 yards per attempt – in the league top ten. I don’t see any way to explain that. CB Karl Hulton was pretty good, actually, but nobody else put up much of a season, statistically. My young guys Fulcher and Moulton – nice reserves, admittedly – had to play 413 and 370 plays, respectively, and neither one got close to a PDPct of 20 (18.7 and 19.4, respectively).

In any event – the development of QB Dwight Fisk was good to see. My scout has edged him up to 44/52 – 8 points of growth since training camp in current ratings. I’d like to see that potential continue to climb, but for now I am settled that this is my guy. Hopefully, he will not cost us an arm and a leg to keep aboard.

It’s a Bay area affair in the superbowl, as defending champions Oakland (behind a new QB, they went with Winslett at the helm last season) make their second straight title game, but lose this time to San Francisco, 26-25.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:56 PM   #19
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2029 offseason

RB Sammie King, who suffered a horrific injury last season, has retired. He’s the only guy from my roster who appears on the retiree list this go-round.

I keep my front office in place – I had thought about replacing the HC and looking for an improvement in that ever-critical “avoid injuries” rating, but my guy is already rated “very good” and it won’t be easy to improve on him. So, we let it ride with the guys on hand.


We head right into free agency – and are once again faced with a legion of important players without contracts. I won’t belabor this as much as I did last year – now we have the structure I want in place, so there is a good deal less to do here than last season.

My objectives will be to retain contributors wherever possible, maintain our heavy affinity status, and to bring aboard a few more players to add decent depth (as we clearly need it).

A few specific goals:

-retain a mentor QB to bring along and back up Dwight Fisk
-improve our return skills and add a key special teamer or two
-improve our depth on the front seven
-improve our chemistry in the receivers group


Looking at the contract process – I’m not going to detail every single deal. I will try to bring back as many of my solid players as I can – I will note ones who get lured away and those I have to fight for, the things that are really worth mentioning. I’m not going to detail every new deal we hammer out with a minsal veteran that nobody else wants – and there will be a lot of them, it seems, if experience is a guide.

We do have one big thing looming on the background. The Chicago Bears, our trade partner last season during the draft, turned out to be the worst team in football – and we suddenly hold the #1 pick in this year’s draft. It wasn’t deliberate – but through the backdoor we have gained a chance for a young impact player. I have a look at the draft preview, to see if there’s an obvious target to use the top selection on – NT Kelvin Green (45/87) looks like a very serious candidate, so we will keep that in mind as we manage our free agent activities.


With our position leaders already in place – our affinity grid looks the same as it did going into last year:

Code:
AFFINITY ANALYSIS # Sign Begin End Affs Conflict Leaders 1 Aries 3/21 4/20 3 8 11 2 Taurus 4/21 5/21 4 12 7 OL 3 Gemini 5/22 6/21 1 8 6 D7 4 Cancer 6/22 7/23 2 12 9 5 Leo 7/24 8/23 6 9 10 6 Virgo 8/24 9/23 5 9 3 7 Libra 9/24 10/23 1011 2 RB 8 Scorpio 10/24 11/22 1 3 12 WR 9 Sagittarius 11/23 12/22 5 6 4 DB 10 Capricorn 12/23 1/20 7 11 5 11 Aquarius 1/21 2/18 7 10 1 12 Pisces 2/19 3/20 2 4 8 POS Affinity Affinity Conflict RB 12-1 1-2 4-5 WR 3-4 5-6 2-3 OL 6-7 2-3 9-10 D7 3-4 10-11 8-9 DB 7-8 8-9 6-7 QB 3-4 best; 1-2,5-6,7-8,10-11,12-1 good

One twist here is that C Randy Walker suffered a serious injury late last season, and he is now hardly worth mentioning as a player. We may retain him as a position leader, but he’s not a starting caliber player by any stretch now. For now – I will operate under the assumption that he comes back and remains our position leader.

On the good side, it appears that DE Chris Franz has come back healthy after missing all last season, and LB Keith Woodard looks solid as well (though his shift to SLB still leaves him looking like a project player). We will try to sign both of those guys – whose absence certainly hurt us a lot up front last season. (The injury proneness is a concern, but we do what we can)


I put in a bid for a new strong safety – Tyrell Slaymaker is an 8th year guy who I see as a new starter, and standout kick returner. He would be a great addition, I think, and isn’t asking for a fortune. I’m still bidding for Toby Newton, who essentially occupies that dual role now, but he’s a 15th year vet, and I need to be thinking about that. I also put in a bid for CB Jimmy Sprehe – a solid corner with standout punt return skills. We got chewed up in the secondary last year – he could help on a lot of fronts.


In the very first week, I am not surprised to see CB Karl Hulton signing a big deal elsewhere – he was a one-year guy all the way. QB Vince Winslett looks like he will land a big deal also, in Denver.

We are going to have to battle for RG Wesley Huntley – Chicago has a bid in for him, which we will have to outdo. It works, as we re-sign Huntley for a solid $1.4 million.

DE Chris Franz has suddenly taken an offer from Arizona, and we miss out on our chance to bid for him. He never played a down for us – but his departure leaves us even thinner at DE and needing an influx there for certain. It’s a bit disappointing – last year we battled hard to sign him, but he fell to an injury and never saw the field for us.

CB Jimmy Sprehe does sign – he won’t exactly replace Hulton’s skills, but Sprehe might be a guy we can keep around for a while, and who should make a pretty solid swing man in the CB and PR slots.

Detroit is now pursuing QB Alvin Gammon, after Denver already signed our other veteran/mentor Vince Winslett. We want a mentor QB around this year – I had planned on it being Gammon. I now see that there is a likely cheap option out there – a 5th year guy who isn’t good enough to play, but is a mentor. So, I have that on the back burner – but would still prefer a solid backup and mentor all in one bundle (like Gammon). Detroit’s offer for Gammon is over $5m a year – I can’t possibly keep pace with that, especially since Fisk is thinking about a number like $3 million this year already.

DT Bart O’Neill is the next guy I need to defend, while DT Dustin Hammond is being pursued hotly and is probably out of reach. Hammond signs a long term deal with Seattle, and we are left to scramble a bit for O’Neill. In the back of my mind, I am imagining the standout rookie stepping right in at NT, though – so that is comforting to us.

I am stunned when S Tom Swatek up and signs with Jacksonville – there goes a position leader and my whole affinity structure in the secondary. Emergency! I hadn’t seen it coming – he’s a pretty marginal player, and the type that frequently just goes unnoticed by the AI rivals. I decide to try to rescue the affinity structure by pursuing CB Ian Meyer – he is hurt and will miss most of this season, but he would become our position leader and reinstate the affinity losses we suffered by Swatek’s departure. Easiest solution I could muster on short notice. Meyer is delighted to get a contract, and he comes aboard. (We now lack a mentor safety, though)

We do manage to coax LT Don Barbour and DT Bart O’Neill back into the fold, with solid one year offers that they choose over competing multiyear tenders.

CB Chris Bensen is the next departure – and I am again surprised. We are now left with only three healthy corners for this season – and I fear that will not be enough under any circumstance. We will plan to use S Byron Kreamer again as a reserve CB (not a big hitter, good cover guy) but I would prefer to add one more guy there – either in the draft or via free agency.

Incidentally, Alvin Gammon’s contract offer from Detroit has vanished – meaning we may have another backdoor chance later on to sneak in and hold on to him, which I prefer. Detroit has instead set their sights on RB Trent Horvath and FB Willie Garber – both of whom we will try to hold on to with our own offers. We are successful, and hold on to our starting backfield duo.

We work out several deals in the waning days of free agency before the rookie draft, but we do see two offensive linemen depart: LG Ted Cunningham and C Karl Schwartz. Cunningham was a starter, but young Gino Reeves is definitely ready for that slot now. Schwartz was a good reserve, but too expensive to do battle over at more than a million.

We head to the draft with 30 players signed, and probably another 10-12 whom we simply expect will be re-signed before training camp. We draft 8 rookies, and we will be just about at our capacity – before we even consider some of the late stage “value” signings that look like they are going to become a big part of what we do in this career.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:57 PM   #20
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2009 Rookie Draft

The toughest decision is trying to figure out whether it’s worth spending this much money on any one player – not whether NT Kelvin Greene is the guy to select. Last year’s top pick, a DE, got a $15 million signing bonus for a 5 year deal – and will eat nearly $4m in cap space this year for Indy. He’s a great-looking player, but that’s a huge chunk – and a huge risk.

I decide to pull the trigger – and we lock up our franchise defensive centerpiece with this selection.

There are two corners whom I covet, and I watch through picks 12 and 13 to see if one may fall to me. I think if one gets taken, I must move up to take the other one – it’s a need position for sure. At #14, Chris Hageman Jr. (son of a HOF QB from earlier in this career) is the first of my two target CBs to go – and I initialy decide I need to move up from #19 to #15 to land the other guy I like a lot. however, I look closely – my guy is about 7th on the remaining sorted list (2nd CB listed) and I suspect he will slide to #19. I decide, after reflection, to roll the dice.

Code:
Amateur Draft Report: Rnd 1 - Kelvin Green, DT, Clemson Rnd 1 - Bart Ikuma, CB, Texas A&M Rnd 2 - Chad Burns, WR, Iowa Rnd 3 - Lonnie Gonzalez, CB, Arkansas State Rnd 4 - Bo Spry, RB, Oregon Rnd 5 - Ben Rainwater, DE, Rice Rnd 6 - Josh Hanes, WR, Central Washington Rnd 7 - Winfred Mikatarian, T, Shippensburg

I am very pleased with the pair of corners we acquired here – I am optimistic about both guys. I wanted to wait on Gonzalez another round, but didn’t want to let him slip away, so I “reached” a but down the list to grab him.

RB Bo Spry seemed intriguing to me – scout rated him 40/43, with some decent-looking skills. A guy that highly developed seems like an anomaly – worth a stab, at a position I needed anyway. Both receivers Burns and Hanes will be affinity additions to our receiving corps – Burns may actually turn out to b a solid starting-caliber player, too, while Hanes is a versatile guy with some return skills.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:57 PM   #21
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Late Free Agency

Our top priority in free agency is to improve along the DL, ideally with another pass-rushing DE.

If we have to, we can use LB Grant Witte in the DE spot – he is a standout OLB, and my offer is very affordable. I have trouble seeing how he is unclaimed at this point, really.

We have competition from New England for Witte, no surprise, but they aren’t in with big money. I juice up the bonus in our offer, and it looks like we ought to get him. I’m right – and he comes aboard. Witte has the highest current skills rating of anyone on our team – and this isn’t even a jackpot super value deal (though I doubt he’ll stick around past this season). Ideally, we will start him at SLB, and we will find a solid reserve DE – but we now have some depth that could help at DE if need be.

We also work out a new deal with QB Alvin Gammon – so our mentoring and backup QB roles are locked down, to my delight.

I find a veteran DE who might be okay – not quite an impact player, but Alan Castleberry has a 57 rating in pass rush technique, and a career PRPct rating of 5.2 – which isn’t that bad. DE Jesse Paraiso is another decent player (though no run stopping skills) and we also pursue him.

It would also be nice to bring aboard another cornerback – though I am pleased with the look of our rookies, who probably slot as our #2 and #5 guys for this season at CB. Actually, I suspect we will be okay with Gumphrey and rookie Ikuma as our starters, and with Sprehe and Fred Moulton as our top reserves – it’s not as bad I had been thinking (( overlooked the signing of solid veteran Sprehe). So – things look pretty good there, after all.


As we approach training camp, we still have not signed DT Kelvin Green, but we have a massive $29 million in cap space remaining. This year, we simply did not find any “big splash” free agents to sign, as I am generally comfortable with most parts of the team. There are a couple veteran QBs and RBs still available – but I am not moved to replace either starting position this year.

We have 58 players signed (plus Green pending) so we will have a deeper roster coming into training camp than in past years. I am a little disappointed about players who left the team for other spots – we clearly had the money to keep anyone we wanted this year, so it’s disappointing to watch a few guys go for better deals when I could have spread around a couple $4-5m deals to keep them as needed.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:57 PM   #22
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Training Camp

I bump up our time in the training room a bit – hoping that might help us out with injuries, which just savaged us last season.

Here is the training camp nutshell:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Exp CE FE CE FE dCE dFE Gammon, Alvin 11 QB 11 62 62 62 62 0 0 Fisk, Dwight 9 QB 3 49 56 54 56 5 0 Grant, Jumbo 3 QB 1 10 50 13 46 3 -4 Spry, Bo 43 RB 1 38 40 39 39 1 -1 Horvath, Trent 34 RB 5 38 41 38 41 0 0 Crain, Leonard 40 RB 10 34 36 34 36 0 0 Garber, Willie 30 FB 14 36 42 36 42 0 0 Sutter, Bruce 39 FB 2 24 47 26 47 2 0 Schulz, Cary 83 TE 2 35 60 38 60 3 0 Brown, Bryan 85 TE 8 36 40 36 40 0 0 Brannan, Gino 86 FL 6 47 50 47 50 0 0 Cochrane, Herman 88 FL 3 35 45 37 45 2 0 Sasa, Jeff 80 FL 7 30 33 30 33 0 0 Miller, Devin 82 SE 8 47 49 47 49 0 0 Ratto, Ronald 87 SE 4 30 52 33 52 3 0 Burns, Chad 89 SE 1 27 64 30 67 3 3 Hanes, Josh 81 SE 1 17 38 18 37 1 -1 Gomez, Greg 53 C 8 46 52 46 52 0 0 Walker, Randy 57 C 12 39 39 39 39 0 0 Reeves, Gino 56 LG 2 33 67 36 67 3 0 Huntley, Wesley 79 RG 6 56 56 56 56 0 0 Barbour, Don 67 LT 16 41 45 41 45 0 0 Val, Ernest 62 LT 2 31 41 33 41 2 0 Harper, Brandon 64 LT 1 14 41 17 45 3 4 Mikatarian, Winfred 60 LT 1 8 34 10 31 2 -3 Rasmussen, Kevin 78 RT 5 37 47 37 47 0 0 Blade, Kevin 14 P 3 62 65 62 65 0 0 Wallace, Charles 5 K 3 36 45 37 45 1 0 Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE 6 49 51 49 51 0 0 Paraiso, Jessie 94 LDE 7 40 42 41 42 1 0 Irwin, Edwin 73 LDE 3 23 35 25 35 2 0 Devine, Kim 92 LDE 2 20 27 21 27 1 0 Castleberry, Alan 95 RDE 11 42 46 42 46 0 0 Peterson, Rick 72 RDE 12 33 39 33 39 0 0 Rainwater, Ben 77 RDE 1 16 45 18 41 2 -4 Hickl, Brett 76 LDT 14 58 58 58 58 0 0 O'Neill, Bart 71 LDT 6 48 49 48 49 0 0 Green, Kelvin 75 NT 1 45 87 44 87 -1 0 Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB 3 29 41 32 41 3 0 Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB 3 53 67 56 67 3 0 Bergsman, Curtis 50 MLB 15 39 40 39 40 0 0 Fisher, Jackie 58 MLB 15 37 40 37 40 0 0 Witte, Grant 51 SLB 12 65 65 66 66 1 1 Dole, Jeff 97 SLB 2 17 47 20 47 3 0 Woodard, Keith 52 SLB 6 15 54 18 54 3 0 Ellison, Blaine 98 WLB 3 13 28 14 28 1 0 Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB 8 49 49 49 49 0 0 Gonzalez, Lonnie 24 LCB 1 20 43 21 39 1 -4 **Meyer, Ian 42 RCB 10 52 55 52 55 0 0 Moulton, Fred 36 RCB 3 40 47 43 47 3 0 Ikuma, Bart 47 RCB 1 41 68 43 67 2 -1 Sprehe, Jimmie 41 RCB 6 40 42 40 42 0 0 Sloane, J.B. 46 RCB 1 11 43 13 46 2 3 Slaymaker, Tyrell 22 SS 8 49 49 49 49 0 0 Newton, Toby 26 SS 15 40 44 40 44 0 0 Fulcher, Brandon 28 SS 3 30 56 33 56 3 0 Buchanan, Duane 33 SS 3 19 39 20 39 1 0 Kraemer, Byron 49 FS 2 24 30 25 30 1 0 Manard, Jermaine 48 FS 2 21 40 24 40 3 0

I am pleased with the look from DT Green and especially WR Burns – both look like they ought to pan out just fine. I had thought CB Lonnie Gonzalez was going to be a great sleeper – now it doesn’t look so good for him, but CB Bart Ikuma ought to be a solid contributor (though it turns out his coverage strengths aren’t in line too well with our secondary scheme). Solid rookie class – we will have some tough choices ahead with cutdowns.

I think RB Bo Spry will probably step into the #2 RB role for us this year – he isn’t a breakout guy, but he does have solid ratings in hole rec (77) and elusiveness (94), so I think he can be effective as a pure rusher. Indeed – he might be a guy we want to keep around long term, even – he probably won’t ever be hotly pursued as a free agent. Nice pickup.

We get a trade offer – which has played no role in this career this far. It’s a 2nd rounder for WR Gino Brannan – I will keep Brannan, but things are better than ever at WR for us.

I don’t know how big a step forward this team is ready to take. Our cohesion remains in the bottom third in each category, which will be an impediment. Our overall roster rating is 43, still in the bottom handful of the league. I wonder about our defense – especially whether we will stop the run effectively. Landing monster DT Kelvin Green ought to help, but I was disappointed there last season.

Nothing close to 8-8 would surprise me… perhaps we can edge up one more game and post our first winning record?
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:57 PM   #23
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2029 season

In the preseason, LB Grant Witte goes down with a six week injury – and I wonder if the reason he was available so cheaply was due to an injury problem. He has only played 12 games the last two seasons – I think that must be the case (which admittedly makes sense).

After four weeks, we are 3-1, but our OL is in shambles from injuries. LT Don Barbour is gone for the year, and RG Wesley Huntley is just getting back from his own injury.

Halfway through the year, QB Dwight Fisk has a brilliant game with 4 TD passes to lead us to a win, to get to 7-2 on the season. At 9-3, we are now virtually assured a playoff berth, and have seen RB Horvath again top the 1,000 yard mark. Dwight Fisk has a 97 passer rating – we are clicking awfully nicely, with our passing game among the league’s most efficient. The defense has been average – but we are playing well overall.

From the 9-3 mark, we run the table to finish the season 13-3, and lock up a bye week, which we will need to recover from some minor injuries, no surprise. We have the top seed in the NFC, and the best record in football. (Recall, this is a team with a roster rating of 43, one of the worst in the league)

Code:
2029 Summary for St. Louis Rams Record: 13-3 Winning Pct.: .812 St. Louis Rams Team Rank Rushes 541 1 Rushing Yards 2189 4 Yards Per Carry 4.04 18 Pass Attempts 425 32 Completions 286 26 Passing Yards 3432 22 Yards Per Attempt 8.07 3 3rd Down Conversions 51.9 2 Points Per Game 21.2 11 Turnovers 21 15 (T) Turnover Margin +2 16 (T) Opponents Team Rank Rushes 419 3 Rushing Yards 1727 8 Yards Per Carry 4.12 18 Pass Attempts 519 19 Completions 290 9 Passing Yards 3607 18 Yards Per Attempt 6.94 15 3rd Down Conversions 42.1 14 Points Per Game 17.8 9 (T) Turnovers 23 14 Week Team Versus Oppnt 1 23 at SEA 18 2 27 JAX 20 3 6 at ATL 31 4 17 SFO 12 5 16 at NYG 14 6 15 at WAS 31 8 29 DAL 19 9 24 PHI 13 10 28 at ARI 22 11 20 SEA 10 12 13 IND 20 13 30 MIN 10 14 21 at HOU 20 15 23 at SFO 19 16 27 at TEN 17 17 21 ARI 10 Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int 9 Fisk QB 425 286 3432 8.07 23 10 **Team --- 425 286 3432 8.07 23 10 Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD 34 Horvath RB 374 1427 3.81 10 43 Spry RB 85 330 3.88 2 9 Fisk QB 70 384 5.48 3 **Team --- 541 2189 4.04 15 Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD 30 Garber FB 71 57 391 6.8 174 3 86 Brannan WR 81 47 737 15.6 175 5 34 Horvath RB 53 44 367 8.3 156 5 89 Burns WR 57 38 630 16.5 151 4 82 Miller WR 37 27 375 13.8 96 0 88 Cochrane WR 51 26 472 18.1 41 4 83 Schulz TE 43 25 261 10.4 72 2 **Team --- 425 286 3432 12.0 909 23 Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn 90 Jeffries ILB 75 24 0.5 2 1 7 51 Witte OLB 74 22 1.5 3 0 14 54 Schanne ILB 70 24 0.0 1 1 7 21 Gumphrey CB 53 23 0.0 1 0 17 50 Bergsman ILB 50 13 2.5 0 0 5 36 Moulton CB 47 10 0.0 0 3 7 26 Newton S 46 24 0.0 0 5 6 58 Fisher ILB 44 16 0.0 1 0 3 28 Fulcher S 42 13 0.0 0 2 4 74 Copeland DE 37 10 8.5 20 0 0 75 Green DT 35 17 6.0 9 0 0 47 Ikuma CB 34 11 0.0 0 3 7 52 Woodard OLB 25 7 1.0 1 0 7 72 Peterson DE 23 8 4.0 6 0 0 41 Sprehe CB 23 5 1.0 0 0 0 95 Castleberry DE 16 12 0.5 7 0 0 22 Slaymaker S 16 14 0.0 0 1 2 **Team --- 784 260 29.0 57 17 88

Another big season from workhorse back Trent Horvath – this year the 1427 is yet another high mark for him, despite a drop in his yards per carry. The passing game didn’t generate gaudy stats, but Fisk completed two thirds of his passes and posted a passer rating of an even 100.

Both LBs Daryl Jeffries and Grant Witte missed time this year, but in the end they were the leaders of our defensive effort. We gave LB Wendell Schanne a chance to play at the SILB spot – and the results were fine – he is no star, but he will remain affordable for us, and seems okay.
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Old 07-23-2005, 02:58 PM   #24
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Postseason Summary

Our first postseason… we get our starting safeties back healthy, and are ready to head into the playoffs, with home field advantage.

Divisional Playoff: Green Bay (8-9) at St. Louis (13-3) – Tough to explain what happened here, but our passing game came up empty, and we just get outplayed by a team with a losing record. Odd way to end things, really. Green Bay 30, St. Louis 26.

Buffalo defeats Philadelphia in the Superbowl…

In the season awards, we finally get some recognition, as K Charles Wallace gains first team honors. (He had to do most of the punting this year, so it’s not like he earned the honor honestly) It is the only honor we have gained with this team since DROY Daryl Jeffries in our first season.
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Old 07-23-2005, 07:54 PM   #25
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Throuugh three seasons, and we are 13-3 and have the best record in football.

*sigh*

With these rules in mind, I really felt like my qualiity players would be in high demand -- that I'd constantly have to be patching holes and such, just to keep the team afloat. When I decidd to try to build chemistry with the team, I thought it would be a seriously difficult undertaking to do so, with all the turnover I expected.

Instead, it looks like we have settled into a rut. My 1,400 yard rusher seems perfectly comfortable re-signing with us for one year deals worth less than 2x minsal. Same for just about every starter on the team. The number of guys who actually get a sniff of big money is surprisingly small.

Tough to know what to think... I want to play another season, but if it looks like the team has already "arrived," I may lose interest awfully quickly. I wanted a struggle. Three seasons and we're 13-3? Not enough struggling going on.
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Old 07-23-2005, 07:56 PM   #26
Peregrine
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
Hmm, looks like you may have explored another nuance of the weird salary AI in FOF2K4 that hadn't been discovered before. It sounds like star players accept a one year contract far too easily!
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Old 07-23-2005, 08:01 PM   #27
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
I don't have a problem with them accepting my contracts... it's more a matter of there being no demand for these guys. Fairly few are turning down other offers - it's just that these guys are going totally unpursued, and I move in with a modest deal, and it's all they have.
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Old 07-23-2005, 08:05 PM   #28
Peregrine
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Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Cary, NC
Maybe you need to have a limit to how long each player can be signed? Like two or three years and gone? I'm not sure that will address the fundamental problem of easiness though, I'm sure there will be other good players available.
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Old 07-23-2005, 08:06 PM   #29
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
I'm at a loss.

Maybe I can't sign anyone until the late FA stages? That way anyone with any talent at all ought to have gotten some offer, right? (Too contrived, I think)
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Old 07-23-2005, 10:11 PM   #30
Ragone
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Kansas City, Mo
The Fish that saved Pittsburgh!
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Old 07-24-2005, 01:51 AM   #31
jbmagic
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Join Date: Apr 2004
there always a lot of good free agents left and cpu teams dont sign them or offer contract to them it seems like.

are you seeing that?

you feel like that a weakness in FOF?
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:51 AM   #32
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbmagic
there always a lot of good free agents left and cpu teams dont sign them or offer contract to them it seems like.

are you seeing that?

you feel like that a weakness in FOF?

I think this territory is pretty well covered, but yes - I think this is a weakness. In any single player career, I can sort through the free agents available, and with the exception of the very best players, I routinely can find ten solid-looking players who can be key contributors for my team, who will sign for minimal contracts. And invariably, I have no competition at all for most, if not all, of these players. This is not just this career - this is any SP career.

I don't claim to understand how the AI works in managing the computer-controlled teams, but I just think that somebody ought to see the same guys I see, and somebody ought to be battling me for a few of these guys. Maybe some teams out there are building cohesion, or feel they are all set at specific position groups -- but it's just disappointing to see guys who would improve lots of teams going completely unclaimed.

Anyway... more to come here.
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:52 AM   #33
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2030 offseason

Well, if my offseason moaning needed to be heard – the evidence is in. We have six retirements from the team – meaning we will have work to do, like it or not. The list:

ILB Curtis Bergsman
S Toby Newton
FB Willie Garber
DE Rick Peterson
RB Leonard Crain
WR Devin Miller

Wow. We will have work to do on several fronts, especially since we lost two of our position leaders. At RB/FB, we have a whole new opportunity here to build some cohesion and good chemistry. AT De, we may have to do some more work – as Peterson was a part-time starter, a mentor at DE, as well as our position group leader and affinity centerpiece. So, we will have some work to do there.


I decide to take a whack with a new scout – my current scout really isn’t much to speak of, and his contract is up. My new scout is at least “average” in everything, and ought to give us a better feel for positions like DL and LB in particular. He, too, is new to scouting – so we will be his first team.


We head into early free agency with 11 players signed, and a good deal of work and planning to undertake. After last year’s unspent cap, I will be more aggressive if need be with keeping our own players, and with targeting guys whom I think can help us.
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:54 AM   #34
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Free Agency

Among our other concerns, we note that LT Don Barbour is all but useless at this point after a bad injury last year. So, he didn’t retire, but he clearly needs to be replaced, and that will be an expensive spot to go after.

CB Ian Meyer, it seems, has fully recovered – he is our position leader and mentor at CB, and having him come aboard as a helpful player will be good. Last year we paid him basically just to keep the peace, as he was hurt from day one.

I also note, after my walk through the roster, that DE Alan Castleberry is a DE mentor. If we can keep him (fairly likely), then he might help bring along any promising young players at the position (if we land one). That might take off some pressure there.

Another looming issue is QB Fisk. Right now, his contract demand is over $9 million. He is restricted, so we get to wait him out without fear, but if not this year, perhaps next year we will have to be setting aside a bug chunk of cap space for him, if we want him around (and I think we do).


At the moment, our defensive front position leader is LB Woodward, which would be okay but for the fact that he doesn’t get along well with LB Daryl Jeffries, who isn’t going anywhere. So, if we want to keep Woodward (which we do) we need a new position leader for the front seven. Problem is, Woodard has a real lock on the position, it seems. If Woodard goes, the leadership role might drop to Castleberry, which wouldn’t be too bad, I don’t think.


My first new FA target is RB Hunter Royals, a 7th year journeyman who I believe will be a solid position leader for us, and a useful third RB option behind Horvath and Spry. Actually, Bo Spry (leadership=95) may be a future leader, but right now we will go with someone more stable, and someone who gets along well with Horvath, our workhorse back.

LB Grant Witte is looking for a fat contract. He was a gift last season, but he seems to be injury prone. We got 12 games from him last year, but he seems unlikely to be around all year this coming season. So – do we pay him the $3m or so it might take? I think not. He is, however, a truly brilliant fit for our defense – great run stopper, solid pass rusher, and excellent match for our coverage scheme – that we will keep a close eye, and will make an effort to lock him up if that’s practical at some point.

I will also wait out QB Alvin Gammon – I no longer really need his mentorship for QB Fisk, so my rigid pursuit of him will be lessened, I’m sure. I do want a veteran #2, but will not be as particular.

DE Ronnie Copeland will again be among our most expensive returning players, but DE is a tough spot for us, and he has proven to be pretty solid, with 25 sacks and 65 hurries in his three StL seasons. It will take around $4 million right now – I will wait him out, but will be prepared to spend to keep him around if he receives interest.


I make an offer to a very good-looking free agent strong safety, Sammie Collier. He’d be a great fit for our defense, but probably a one year guy for us.

I also pursue C Jon Huntley – who would take over as a new position leader for us on the OL, but he is in the same sign band as our current leader – so he wouldn’t upend the affinity structure. Looks like a solid reserve OL, better on paper than the broken down Randy Walker.

DE Courteny Largent is a pretty effective pass rusher, who listens to my offer as well – he could end up starting alongside Copeland, or backing him up (or replacing him in our worst case).


We go into week one with a more aggressive slew of bids than usual – I’m going with the “sit and wait” strategy with fewer of my own players this year, as I’m starting to feel the cohesion building up and want to retain solid contributors wherever possible.


Our first battle will be with Philly, for LB Grant Witte. They are offering two years and nearly $9 million. I decide to give chase – he’s just such a perfect fit for us. My offer is $4m, with $3m in bonus – we’re hopeful that he sees fit to go with that deal with so much guaranteed. In week two, he does, and is locked up for another season as our presumed SLB starter.

RG Wesley Huntley gets an offer from San Diego – he is a solid starter and an affinity guy, so we’d prefer to keep him. He did get injured last year, but he’s been awfully reliable for us. My $1.4 million offer ought to do the trick, it’s better than the average year from SD. It does, and he, too, returns to the fold.

DE Ronnie Copeland gets some interest in week 7 from Baltimore. My response is a one year, $3.8 million deal, with $3m in bonus. Again, we lock him up – and keep the core of our pass rush fairly intact, though it does take him three weeks to decide that our offer is best.


So, in week 10, we have results from all our offers – and didn’t lose anyone yet. We have 36 players signed now – and $30m in cap space. I still don’t know what it will take to work things out with QB Fisk, but I know his demands dropped a lot in late FA last year, so I expect it will be a good deal lower than the $8m he currently is looking for. Next year, though, we will have to fend off real competition for him, as he will no longer be restricted.


Among our remaining veterans (unrestricteds), we have little left to do. DT Brett Hickl will not re-sign, as he is angry over playing time. LT Don Barbour is pretty much worthless, so re-signing him is not a priority. QB Alvin Gammon is, as usual, on hold. And C Randy Walker has essentially been replaced seamlessly, so he’s not a priority either. RT Kevin Rasmussen is a guy we can bring back, but is also rather replaceable – we will comfortably wait him out and hope for a cheap deal. So – nothing to panic about there.

With 11 restricted free agents I intend to re-sign, it looks like the roster is pretty close to being set. I decide to make one move in the interest of team chemistry, and release LB Keith Woodard, who just doesn’t get along with Daryl Jeffries, our centerpiece defensive player. With that move, DE Courtney Largent becomes our defensive leader, and we immediately spring up with four affinities in the position group, and no conflicts. Much better.

My revised affinity chart looks like this:

Code:
AFFINITY ANALYSIS # Sign Begin End Affs Conflict Leaders 1 Aries 3/21 4/20 3 8 11 2 Taurus 4/21 5/21 4 12 7 OL 3 Gemini 5/22 6/21 1 8 6 4 Cancer 6/22 7/23 2 12 9 5 Leo 7/24 8/23 6 9 10 6 Virgo 8/24 9/23 5 9 3 7 Libra 9/24 10/23 1011 2 D7 8 Scorpio 10/24 11/22 1 3 12 WR 9 Sagittarius 11/23 12/22 5 6 4 DB 10 Capricorn 12/23 1/20 7 11 5 RB 11 Aquarius 1/21 2/18 7 10 1 12 Pisces 2/19 3/20 2 4 8 POS Affinity Affinity Conflict RB 9-10 1-2 7-8 WR 3-4 5-6 2-3 OL 6-7 2-3 9-10 D7 12-1 1-2 4-5 DB 7-8 8-9 6-7 QB 1-2 best; 3-4,8-9,12-1 good

I identify a pretty solid left tackle, still available as a free agent, and am delighted to see that he’d be an affinity guy for us. Problem is, he is looking for about $4 million a year – so he’s pricey. I try a couple of offers, then decide to sit back and hope that LT George Webb remains unclaimed a while longer, and comes down to our price level.

I decide to keep my options open, and head into the rookie draft without signing any more free agents – we’ll see what holes we can fill by way of younger players on multi year deals.
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:54 AM   #35
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2030 Rookie Draft

We have the cursed slot, #30. Invariably that signifies a playoff choke – and that’s the case here. I am thinking offensive tackle or perhaps linebacker here, but we can be flexible. I’m also willing to move up if there’s a good fit, since we may have trouble finding room for seven rookies anyway.

LB Sammie Kreutz looks like the perfect guy for us, but we’d almost certainly need to move up to at least spot 15 to get him. LB Brady Arellano may be a value pick for us – he at least has a good match in the certain skills I value most. There is one star caliber OT in this draft, then a bunch of guys – I doubt we will find anything to like there.

LB Sammie Kreutz goes at #13, about where I expected, and too high for us to trade up, I judge. The tackle is gone at #6, and we are left sitting and waiting. I had no plans to select a DB, but coverman Lorenzo Barrett is shaping up as a possible pick here – he looks like a solid player to me, and fits our coverage needs well.

At our pick, CB Barrett is there, but I am also intrigued by a DT who could move to DE and give us some needed depth and stability there. It’s a tough call – I think Barrett is the better player, but I think DE is a bigger need for us (by far). I just don’t have a lot of optimism that DL John Workmon will turn out to be anything special – he’s rated 22/60 by my scout right now, and doesn’t have any standout combine scores to suggest a boom. If he ends up a 45/50 guy, he’s not really worth a top pick – we can get those guys off the free agent scrapheap most years.

In the end, I choose Barrett, and add to a position already deep with talent on our team. I just have more faith that he will turn out to be a long term keeper for us, and a guy who can help right away (even though we really don’t need extra help at CB right now). DT Workmon goes to Buffalo two picks later.

LB Joseph Schnebele has two great ratings – run defense and the coverage we need. He also graded out well at the combines, and is an affinity guy for our front seven. Bullseye, nice pick for late round two, I reckon. He will fight for playing time at the SILB slot, where he could easily end up our starter this season.

Code:
Amateur Draft Report: Rnd 1 - Lorenzo Barrett, CB, Minnesota Rnd 2 - Joseph Schnebele, ILB, Oklahoma Rnd 3 - Clarence McConnell, OLB, Utah State Rnd 4 - T.J. Lynch, G, Maryland Rnd 5 - Tyrus Grider, DT, Ohio Rnd 6 - Mickey Winters, QB, West Virginia Rnd 7 - Terrell Randle, FB, Oregon

LB Clarence McConnell is the fastest LB left, and has pretty good complementary skills for pass rushing and coverage. Not a standout run stopper (which I prefer) but for a mid-round pick, he looks pretty nice. I considered him in round two, got him in round three.

Our later picks are nothing too special – a decent G with an affinity bonus, a pass-rushing DL with a little potential, and a couple of project players at QB and FB.
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:55 AM   #36
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Late Free Agency

I have a new mission. I want to switch rookie CB Lo Barrett to play free safety, where he can get more playing time right away. But I’d prefer to have a mentor for him there. So, I go looking for a veteran mentor safety to tuck away. I find my guy in modestly talented 5th year man Jason McClover, and get him signed. It might cost us a roster spot (an active one at that) but I think Barrett has real potential, and we have a much more serious need at safety than at corner.

When we sign McClover, I execute the switch – Barrett goes from 40/57 as a corner to 42/65 as a safety. Looks like a good switch, and he will be a nice tough hitter for us, and may have a starting job right away.


As we get to the late stages – Dwight Fisk is holding pretty firm, and it looks like it will take a fat offer to sign him. We have the cap space – but this bodes poorly for the future, I reckon. His long term request is for $6m a year – but I try offers of up to $8m for one year, mostly bonus, and he is not willing to listen. Ouch. It eventually takes a full $10 million ($6m bonus) to get him aboard. Right now, we can afford it, but as these young player salaries continue to escalate, it will get tougher and tougher.

In week six of the late stages, we re-sign QB Alvin Gammon and RT Kevin Rasmussen, where our waiting paid off as they went unpursued by other teams. The final piece of the puzzle, it seems, is left tackle – and I manage to sign LT George Webb to a $3m deal, solidifying that spot with the exact guy I wanted.

We head to training camp with 59 players signed, and one rookie holdout (Barrett).
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:56 AM   #37
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2030 Season


In our opener, we score a critical late TD, but Bo Spry’s run up the gut for the tying 2-pointer comes up short, and we fell to San Franisco.

Four games deep, we are already overwhelmed by injuries, and have two losses on the books. Here’s the injured list – after only four games:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Health Injury Full Strn. ##Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB Out Torn Lateral Knee13 Weeks ##Gomez, Greg 53 C Out Dislocated Elbow 9 Weeks ##Moulton, Fred 36 RCB Out Separated Shoulde5 Weeks **Brown, Bryan 85 TE Doubtful Strained Patellar4 Weeks Spry, Bo 43 RB RB Questionable Elbow Bursitis 3 Weeks Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE LDE Probable Sprained Thumb 3 Weeks Collier, Sammie 25 SS SS Questionable Sprained Knee 3 Weeks ##Horvath, Trent 34 RB Out Strained Elbow Te2 Weeks Schulz, Cary 83 TE Questionable Hyperextended Elb2 Weeks Brannan, Gino 86 FL FL Probable Bruised Ribcage 2 Weeks Cochrane, Herman 88 FL Probable Hyperextended Elb1 Week

I have Lonnie Gonzales starting at CB – this is a situation I never wanted to see, as he’s a nice dime back, but not a starter.

RB Trent Horvath quickly gets re-injured, and is lost for the whole season. It will fall to RB Bo Spry to lead the rushing game – tough to say whether he is up to the task. At 2-4, the season is rapidly slipping away from us already. Losing one of our most dependable and productive players doesn’t help things.

We split our next two games, but 3-5 doesn’t look like a playoff mark. We need a big run right now, or the season is lost.

We get two wins, as QB Fisk increasingly tries to do it all himself, rushing for over 50 yards in each game as well as connecting for 4 TD passes. But San Diego beats us in OT, and that drops us to 5-6. We need a major late run just to finish over .500, and there are five teams ahead of us just in the wild card race – the playoffs look like a real longshot now.

Now, Dwight Fisk is out – he’s about the only guy we had counted on to this point. Gammon plays well in his debut, but now he gets the call for at least a couple of weeks, each a must-win game for us.

We trash Denver for a big win, getting to 7-6. We are now only one game out of the wild card – it’s getting dicey. However, a loss against Arizona seals our fate – we will miss the playoffs this year for certain now. We drop our last two games, and our fall from the 13-3 glory of last season is complete, as we post a 7-9 losing record as our follow-up.

Code:
2030 Summary for St. Louis Rams Record: 7-9 Winning Pct.: .437 St. Louis Rams Team Rank Rushes 462 10 Rushing Yards 1894 13 Yards Per Carry 4.09 18 Pass Attempts 543 8 (T) Completions 332 7 (T) Passing Yards 4025 5 Yards Per Attempt 7.41 8 3rd Down Conversions 44.0 15 Points Per Game 20.1 16 Turnovers 32 27 Turnover Margin 0 17 Opponents Team Rank Rushes 482 24 Rushing Yards 1993 22 Yards Per Carry 4.13 19 Pass Attempts 554 27 Completions 322 21 (T) Passing Yards 3624 19 Yards Per Attempt 6.54 10 3rd Down Conversions 46.7 24 Points Per Game 21.5 24 (T) Turnovers 32 2 (T) Week Team Versus Oppnt 1 19 at SFO 21 2 28 at KCY 17 3 23 PHI 30 4 20 at DET 17 5 9 GBY 13 6 7 CHI 24 7 20 at MIN 17 8 10 at ARI 20 10 27 SFO 17 11 17 SEA 16 12 24 SDO 30 13 33 at ATL 27 14 30 at DEN 6 15 17 ARI 23 16 7 OAK 31 17 31 at SEA 35 Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int 9 Fisk QB 451 274 3373 7.47 14 12 11 Gammon QB 91 58 652 7.16 3 6 **Team --- 543 332 4025 7.41 17 18 Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD 43 Spry RB 270 1040 3.85 9 34 Horvath RB 84 324 3.85 3 9 Fisk QB 66 356 5.39 3 48 Royals RB 33 159 4.81 3 **Team --- 462 1894 4.09 18 Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD 83 Schulz TE 87 63 740 11.7 294 2 86 Brannan WR 114 60 882 14.7 189 4 89 Burns WR 81 40 585 14.6 107 1 43 Spry RB 51 36 214 5.9 97 1 87 Ratto WR 57 32 483 15.0 131 3 39 Sutter FB 33 26 206 7.9 138 2 88 Cochrane WR 25 16 284 17.7 72 2 **Team --- 543 332 4025 12.1 1194 17 Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn 90 Jeffries ILB 124 31 0.5 0 0 16 25 Collier S 85 19 0.0 0 2 11 38 Barrett S 76 34 0.0 0 5 13 99 Schnebele ILB 69 27 0.0 2 1 4 50 McConnell OLB 67 24 3.0 1 0 4 51 Witte OLB 50 18 3.0 0 1 10 54 Schanne ILB 43 14 2.0 0 1 5 75 Green DT 43 22 5.0 13 0 1 47 Ikuma CB 38 22 0.0 0 5 2 93 Largent DE 35 21 3.5 19 0 0 42 Meyer CB 32 10 0.0 1 2 3 24 Gonzalez CB 27 6 0.0 1 1 6 28 Fulcher S 26 12 0.5 0 4 3 36 Moulton CB 25 7 0.0 1 3 4 74 Copeland DE 17 11 2.0 17 0 0 **Team --- 875 290 21.0 58 28 85

Well, first the good things. RB Bop Spry filled in well for our injured starter, and put up comparable numbers inn full time duty. Nice work by him. The passing game sputtered, though, despite TE Schultz emerging as a pretty significant threat (when healthy). Our OL played pretty well, despite some injury problems (of course).

Once again, our pass defense was above average, to my surprise. We can’t really stop the run – part of this is probably DT Green, who is too much of a pass rusher to just focus on plugging holes in the running game. We’re totally committed to him, so that’s not easy to fix. Rookie safety Barrett, though, gave us a very nice season – everything we’d want from a fresh young starter.
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Old 07-25-2005, 08:56 AM   #38
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Musings

So, what to think? I guess if I was worried that this challenge was over, that I should be relieved. We are not dominating the league, going 14-2 year after year. So, that’s good, I suppose. But our roster rating did improve, a lot, this year. Maybe we just suffered from injuries, or just failed to click for some reason. I don’t know.

I have mixed feelings. I feel like this team has really taken shape. Meanwhile, I remain disappointed that I’m not having much trouble at all re-signing the players that I want to re-sign – the defining part of this “challenge” that was supposed to inject the challenge. Now, I basically find myself with a team that I’m holding together pretty easily, and have had the luxury of building an obscene amount of chemistry – things that I had originally thought to be completely out of reach in this career. It’s odd.

My best guess is that as central players become tougher and tougher to re-sign, we will see more trouble. QB Fisk and LB Jeffries will both be unrestricted free agents this coming year, for instance. For continuity’s sake, I’d want to keep both guys. If I’m playing “all-out” maybe it doesn’t make sense to do so, if it costs us $15 million for two players. I guess these might become the decisions that make this challenging for us. Not exactly what I had in mind – but it might make this worth continuing (which is my main issue right now).

To be continued…
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Old 07-25-2005, 09:25 AM   #39
wade moore
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
I have the solution.

Try this strategy in IHOF.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Subby
Maybe I am just getting old though, but I am learning to not let perfect be the enemy of the very good...
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Old 07-25-2005, 09:32 AM   #40
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Quote:
Originally Posted by wade moore
I have the solution.

Try this strategy in IHOF.

Aren't you clever...

Though I couldn't do much worse than this year's IHOF results...
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Old 07-25-2005, 09:59 AM   #41
wade moore
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
Quote:
Originally Posted by QuikSand
Aren't you clever...

Though I couldn't do much worse than this year's IHOF results...

Just keep it up in week 17 please!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Subby
Maybe I am just getting old though, but I am learning to not let perfect be the enemy of the very good...
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Old 07-25-2005, 10:41 AM   #42
wade moore
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: williamsburg, va
On a serious note...

I definately feel like you got a 'challenge' this year largely due to your injuries... although something to think about is if this challenge naturally makes you more vulnerable if some injuries due occur (lack of depth, lack of cohesion in your depth, etc) so that may be an added benefit to this challenge in and of itself...

As for ways to make it more challenging... Maybe some house rules around what kind of a bonus you can offer? Something like 3x salary or something like that?
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Quote:
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Maybe I am just getting old though, but I am learning to not let perfect be the enemy of the very good...
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:54 PM   #43
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Tough to say, wade... I am starting to think that a fair number of the decent players that I have been able to sign via free agency have been injury prone, and that at least is part of the reason why they aren't getting big offers from other teams. So that might help explain why my team is suffering so many injuries -- a few injury prone guys on top of the usual litany can certainly add up. Anyway - it does fit into the whole challenge, I agree - whether it's that, or just the obvious fact that my roster generally won't be too deep and able to handle lots of injuries.
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:54 PM   #44
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2031 offseason

Three retirements this year, but not as catastrophic as last year’s group.

LB Jackie Fisher has been a solid reserve and mentor to ILBs for us. LB Grant Witte battled injuries for his two seasons, but finally succumbed to them and has hung it up. DE Alan Castleberry was a decent player and contributor – he’s done too. So – we have work to do along the front seven, in particular.

My staff is still on their initial contracts, but my big decision is with the Head Coach. The injuries are just too much to bear. I think I’d be willing to put up with a guy who couldn’t game plan his way through pee wee opposition, if only we could get some of our players to stay on the field. After a disappointing year, it’s not ridiculous to fire the head coach anyway.

We hire Terry Stevens, a fresh 56 year old coach who also has a VG rating in avoiding injuries (the best we could find). He should help our defensive playcalling as well, though perhaps not our offense. Seems worth a shot – he’s decent, and we will hope for an improvement with injuries (perhaps getting higher in the VG band).
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:55 PM   #45
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Early Free Agency

We have 11 players on contracts coming into the free agency period – so once again, we have a lot of work to do.

This year, QB Dwight Fisk and LB Daryl Jeffries are both unrestricted free agents – my first two star players to reach that stage. In a real league, these proven fifth year players would generate an awful lot of interest from other teams – I hope that is the case here. I will make a concerted effort to keep both players – Fisk has developed nicely and may still have more room for growth, while Jeffries has been our best and most reliable defensive player. I expect to pay handsomely for their services.

If re returned every single player from our current front seven we would have a passable but thin group going into the season. DEs Largent and Copeland are both decent starters – both ought to be fairly costly, at perhaps $2-3m each. DT Kelvin green is already locked up, and is our starter at DT for certain. At LB we would be starting Jeffries along with the two second year guys Schnebele and McConnell, along with (presumably) Wendell Schanne, who was a classmate of Jeffries. Not awful at any position, but we essentially have nothing behind them – DT O’Neill will hopefully return to be an all-purpose backup DL, and Jeff Dole is a pretty marginal reserve LB. I think we need to add at least one capable guy at both DL and LB, even if we return every single guy we currently have. That’s the position group with the highest priority, I think.

Running back is the other area of need. Trent Horvath is back, but he is badly depleted following his injury last year – not a starting caliber guy any longer by any stretch. Since he is neither a position leader nor a chemistry addition, we may have to let him go. Bo Spry did okay last season, but we definitely need to add another RB who can contribute, either as the #1 or #2 option for us. I expect that will be via free agency, as I am used to seeing decent RBs sitting around into the late stages – that seems more reasonable than burning a draft pick there.


So, our ideal plan for the offseason is to re-sign practically everyone if possible, add another RB and perhaps a couple of defensive players, and then draft for long term needs.

For reference (mostly my own), here is our affinity grid, mostly intact from last season:

Code:
AFFINITY ANALYSIS # Sign Begin End Affs Conflict Leaders 1 Aries 3/21 4/20 3 8 11 2 Taurus 4/21 5/21 4 12 7 OL 3 Gemini 5/22 6/21 1 8 6 4 Cancer 6/22 7/23 2 12 9 5 Leo 7/24 8/23 6 9 10 6 Virgo 8/24 9/23 5 9 3 7 Libra 9/24 10/23 1011 2 D7 8 Scorpio 10/24 11/22 1 3 12 WR 9 Sagittarius 11/23 12/22 5 6 4 DB 10 Capricorn 12/23 1/20 7 11 5 RB 11 Aquarius 1/21 2/18 7 10 1 12 Pisces 2/19 3/20 2 4 8 POS Affinity Affinity Conflict RB 9-10 1-2 7-8 WR 3-4 5-6 2-3 OL 6-7 2-3 9-10 D7 12-1 1-2 4-5 DB 7-8 8-9 6-7 QB 1-2 best; 3-4,8-9,12-1 good

The one (looming) change here is that our defensive front leader is now DT Bart O’Neill. This change doesn’t create any conflicts, fortunately – it’s just a move within one of the affinity groups. Unfortunately, O’Neill didn’t get much playing time last season, and is “angry” – meaning h won’t re-sign with us. For now, I will assume that O’Neill will depart, and that DE Largent will reclaim the position leadership mantle – that is what is reflected above.

I intend to try to work the team affinity a lot again this year – it didn’t seem to do us a lot of good last season, but it has been a unifying theme of this career, and I intend to stick with it.


Earlier, I neglected to mention two more players who are now unrestricted – G Gino Reeves and LT George Webb. Both are quality players, pretty young, and both are looking for multimillion dollar deals -- Reeves around $4 million a year, Webb about $11 million. If we were to re-sign both guys, that would be great – but would put quite a dent into our fiscal planning. My plan with both guys is to sit back, I will be prepared to match a reasonable offer they receive, but if someone is going to pay them big bucks, we probably let them go. I don’t think we have the capacity to spend $15m on the left side of our offensive line. Fifth year LG Stanley Sutton is a decent-enough guy with an affinity to play at LG, and he’s thinking under $2 million (and might not even get that mush elsewhere), so I have options. LT could be a good spot for our top draft pick.


LB Daryl Jeffries is project one. His initial demand is for 5 years, $32 million. I start the bidding with one year, $5 million, including $4m in bonus. No good. A base salary of 2.5 with the 4.0 bonus is good enough to make it onto this radar – and that’s where we start off.

Next up, QB Dwight Fisk. I know that we can sign a solid starting caliber QB fairly cheaply – every year there are three or four such guys sitting around in late free agency. This is, despite the importance of the QB position, a less critical signing to us than Jeffries, I think. Fisk is looking for $9 million a year. My initial offer is one year, $7 million. Again, not even worth listening to. At $9 million, he includes it on hi offer list. So, we are at least in the doorway.

I have no expectation of re-signing Sammie Collier – he is a great fit for our system, but wants $3 million a year and that’s just too much. I love our young starter Barrett, and we have role players to use if need be.

Okay – as I look through this roster, I am seeing more and more players who are looking for (relatively) big dollars. Lots of guys who want $2m a year or so – prices that I don’t expect we can afford for rank-and-file starters or decent reserves. The re-signing part of this challenge may be kicking in this season, for whatever reason, and that’s before I really factor in the squeeze from Jeffries and Fisk’s anticipated contracts.

Guys like CB Moulton, S Fulcher, DE Largent, C Wallace, WR Brannan and G Huntley – all decent starters or reserves for us, are all asking for multiyear, multimillion dollar deals. I can’t afford that – and these are the guys who have contributed mightily to our critical depth. We might find ourselves with a lot of young players in fairly important roles this season – unless these guys don’t get attention as free agents and we can snap them up later for cheaper deals.


I make an approach to S Josh Benton, a 16th year vet who is still good enough to start for us, I think. He’s also a mentor, good for my young guy, and would free up a roster spot I have used on Jason McClover for that reason. It’s a $1.9m offer, but killing two birds seems worth it to me. Our backup plan is to re-pursue old friend Tom Swatek – he would become our position leader (which would be a good move for our affinity), and would probably cause us to release CB Ian Meyer (currently the position leader). We’ll keep an eye on the situation.

I decide that, other than S Benton, I’m going to wait on open free agents, and will try to do some cherry-picking later on among the unpursued guys. I just don’t see how we will be able to get into any bidding wars – our best bet is to skim from the players not receiving attention on the FA market, either in the later stages of this segment, or in the late FA sessions after the draft.


So, our planning complete, and a number of affordable bids in for our own guys – here is the synopsis of the first three weeks:

Quick signing: LB Daryl Jeffries
Fairly quick re-signing: QB Dwight Fisk
Early losses: LT George Webb, S Sammie Collier, S Brandon Fulcher
Early re-signings, unopposed: WR Jeff Sasa, WR Ronald Ratto
Re-signings, with competition: RG Wesley Huntley

Okay – at this point, we have our two marquee players worked out. I’m not sure how tight the budget will eventually be, so I go to the players I have pursued, where we have no opposition, and I shave down the offers. Don’t want to pay more than we have to – I might have saved a million total among six or eight contracts where we are the only one in the running.

I expect a few fights ahead, but things are going pretty well so far. I didn’t expect to lose Fulcher quickly, but he had terrible coverage in our scheme, so despite being a decent player, it’s not that tough to lose him.

Weeks 4-15

Players signed away: RT Kevin Rasmussen
Re-signed, unopposed: CB Ian Meyer, WR Gino Brannan, RB Hunter Royals, C Greg Gomez, C Jon Wallace
Re-signings, with competition: LB Wendell Schanne
New players signed: S Josh Benton

So, we lose T Rasmussen, but the OL isn’t really in shambles. Young Dusty Benedict is a fairly promising guy, and might actually have a shot to take that spot – he will need to develop, but the signs are there than he can do so. If third year man Brandon Harper has to step in and play at LT, that could leave us pretty young and vulnerable on the outside – but I am now thinking that an OT is a likely draft target for us.

CB Fred Moulton got a big money offer, but it dried up before he accepted, so he now sits back – and would be a nice guy to get, but for considerably less than the $3-4m he is thinking he’s worth.

We have 26 players signed, and after factoring in seven rookies, we have $30 million in available cap space. I’m not starting to think we are going to be in fine shape this season, despite my moanings to the contrary.

We still have pending a few players who we’d like to re-sign – DE Courtney Largent and G Gino Reeves (who is restricted) top that list right now. RFA TE Cary Schultz is also looking for a fat deal – I like him, but not for $2 million, I don’t think, especially with his injury history. So, we have money to spend, and some places where we expect to spend it.


The last stages are pretty eventful – we re-sign S Duane Buchanan for $500,000, and that initially looks like all we’ll do. However, I do make one fairly big move – as we sign RB Moe Jamison. He’s a very solid starting caliber running back, who is oddly being unpursued for his second straight season. He has over 6,600 yards rushing in his six seasons, and a 4.51 ypc average on his career – this is a high quality player for us. And a $2 million deal lands him.

We then lose WR Herman Cochrane to Pittsburgh on a quick bid – I was being frugal, and just didn’t put in a bid on him, it’s my fault.

RG Darnell Manning is a solid, veteran OL who could be a starter for us – with Wesley Huntley already signed to be our RG starter, I decide Manning could make sense for depth and possibly to play LG if Gino Reeves is too pricey. We will wait him out.

RDE Vince Serbicki is the type of DE that I have been using in this career – decent pass rusher, ought to be okay, but not good enough to merit a big contract. We lock him up for $750,000.

WR Xavier Branch looks like a decent, affordable guy to slide in as a reserve WR, essentially to replace Cochrane, and he comes aboard for $650,000.

We still have work to do – but we will let the rookie draft guide our future moves to some degree. We stand at 30 players signed, and $26m in usable cap space.
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:55 PM   #46
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2031 Rookie Draft

With pick 1(9), my ideal pick would be a solid left tackle to assume that spot for the foreseeable future. In the draft, there is one standout LT, who sit atop the pre-draft “board” rated by adjusted grade – meaning he’s likely to go in the top two or three picks. RT Kenny Thomason looks like our candidate – solid #2 tackle, graded 6.2, and appears to have done pretty well in the combines too. If I’m doing a mock draft, I’m penciling Thomason in at nine.

I also like DE Melvin Newton, a well-rounded player, who is also still available when our pick comes up. I decide that I think Newton is the better player, and both are real need positions. Neither guy makes an affinity impact for us, so it’s a matter of the two players. I decide to go with the offensive tackle, and we will look for DL help later in the draft.

Code:
Amateur Draft Report: Rnd 1 - Kenny Thomason, T, Purdue Rnd 2 - Dwight Fisher, S, Mississippi State Rnd 3 - Louis Woodson, WR, South Carolina Rnd 4 - Quentin Rushing, S, Murray State Rnd 5 - Martin Marchion, DT, Brigham Young Rnd 6 - Joey Delgado, OLB, Fort Hays State Rnd 7 - Brandon Maumau, CB, Arizona State

S Dwight Fisher is a guy who, if he develops, can be our long term starter at strong safety. In round two, that seems like great value – even if I am somewhat unconvinced that he will pan out completely.

The later picks are all system guys – good value, and all contribute an affinity. I don’t really expect great breakouts, but if we can get some decent reserves who contribute to esprit de corps, I’m okay locking up guys like that for a few seasons.
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:55 PM   #47
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Late Free Agency

We quickly sign all our rookies, and plan our attack for lat free agency. We have 37 players currently signed, and I figure we will re-sign a fair number of our restricted free agents – perhaps as many as 8 of them. Add in a required punter and kicker (whether re-signings or just free agents), and two more QBs (maybe Gammon and Grant, maybe not) and we’re looking at around 49 roster slots occupied.

That means we have about four to six slots that we can try to fill, either by re-signing some of our veteran players, or by pursuing new free agents. Among the veteran free agents, the two I want to re-up with are LG Stanley Sutton and DE Courtney Largent – in fact, Largent is important, as we are presuming him as our position leader for the coming year.

I think we need to bring in one more decent player along the defensive front, too. I don’t think our rookie LB is going to be playable, so we need one more versatile body to use in the LB rotation. Assuming we re-sign Largent, I think we are okay on the defensive line.

I also would like very much to bring aboard a player to help us in the return game, as we have gotten pretty thin there. A specialist would be fine, perhaps as our third RB?


LB Orlando McNeil looks like just the guy I want for my defense. Good run stopper, solid in coverage, and not looking for a ton of money. He’s a 13th year veteran, and he’d actually have an affinity with Largent – a perfect fit!

Another great bit of news is that CB Fred Moulton has dramatically dropped his demands – and I now have in an offer for him for only $800,000. He had multimillions on the tale at one point, but let it pass – and now he just wants to sign somewhere. We’re game.


So, in the late FA period, we lock up deals with G Sutton, CB Moulton, LB McNeil, and DE Largent – all uncontested. In the very final stages, we lock up new deals with several restricted free agents as well, as expected. We return P Kevin Blade and K Charles Wallace, both on pretty affordable deals.

After week 7 of the late stages, we have 52 players signed. Last gasp time – we still have a vacancy at backup QB, and have not made a move to help our return game either.

(At this point, I note that were I playing “all out” there is a WR my scout rates 80/80, who would be wiling to sign for less than one million dollars – but I pass, and remain content with my little “band of brothers” we’ve been cultivating.)

And finally, we work out yet another deal for QB Alvin Gammon, our perpetual backup and QB mentor. Every year he enters free agency with dreams of pulling down $5 million a season, and every year it seems he’s sitting there at the end of the whole affair asking “where do I sign?” for his one year deal with us once again. I also ink Marc Swann, who may be good enough to battle Gammon for the backup duties, and will likely displace Jumbo Grant as well.

I do some filling in with fairly unheralded players, and we are ready for training camp.
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Old 07-25-2005, 02:56 PM   #48
QuikSand
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
Training Camp

I once again bump up our training room time, in hopes of reducing the injury bug that has just devastated us in the last few seasons.

Code:
Player # Pos Start Exp CE FE CE FE dCE dFE Fisk, Dwight 9 QB 5 61 61 61 61 0 0 Gammon, Alvin 11 QB 13 56 56 56 56 0 0 Swann, Marc 19 QB 6 32 59 36 59 4 0 Grant, Jumbo 3 QB 3 25 42 27 42 2 0 Jamison, Moe 32 RB 7 56 56 56 56 0 0 LaBoy, Randal 30 RB 7 40 42 40 42 0 0 Spry, Bo 43 RB 3 40 40 40 40 0 0 Pringle, Benjamin 46 RB 4 37 39 38 39 1 0 Greer, Shawn 25 RB 1 31 49 31 46 0 -3 Royals, Hunter 48 RB 7 28 31 28 31 0 0 James, Calvin 28 RB 1 21 32 21 32 0 0 Sutter, Bruce 39 FB 4 34 50 36 50 2 0 Parcells, Jake 82 FB 2 21 36 23 36 2 0 Schulz, Cary 83 TE 4 62 63 62 63 0 0 Brown, Bryan 85 TE 10 27 28 27 28 0 0 Lane, Marlon 4 TE 1 18 55 20 51 2 -4 Brannan, Gino 86 FL 8 46 49 46 49 0 0 Branch, Xavier 88 FL 3 43 49 46 49 3 0 Sasa, Jeff 80 FL 9 22 26 22 26 0 0 Burns, Chad 89 SE 3 51 68 54 68 3 0 Ratto, Ronald 87 SE 6 32 45 33 45 1 0 Woodson, Louis 17 SE 1 30 49 31 47 1 -2 Hanes, Josh 81 SE 3 23 35 24 35 1 0 Wallace, Jon 59 C 11 44 51 44 51 0 0 Gomez, Greg 53 C 10 43 49 43 49 0 0 Hamlin, Ross 55 C 2 16 45 19 45 3 0 Reeves, Gino 56 LG 4 61 68 63 68 2 0 Sutton, Stanley 65 LG 5 44 44 44 44 0 0 Lynch, T.J. 63 LG 2 28 43 30 43 2 0 Huntley, Wesley 79 RG 8 49 49 49 49 0 0 Ellard, Junior 78 RG 1 14 29 15 26 1 -3 Harper, Brandon 64 LT 3 29 51 32 51 3 0 Thomason, Kenny 69 LT 1 24 69 27 69 3 0 Benedict, Dusty 66 RT 2 21 51 23 51 2 0 Blade, Kevin 14 P 5 62 64 62 64 0 0 Wallace, Charles 5 K 5 40 45 40 45 0 0 Largent, Courtney 93 LDE 9 56 56 56 56 0 0 Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE 8 48 49 48 49 0 0 Serbicki, Vince 98 LDE 6 45 54 47 54 2 0 Grider, Tyrus 72 RDE 2 26 41 27 41 1 0 Marchion, Martin 76 LDT 1 12 42 15 40 3 -2 Green, Kelvin 75 NT 3 71 86 75 86 4 0 Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB 5 37 38 37 38 0 0 Schnebele, Joseph 99 SILB 2 33 40 36 40 3 0 Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB 5 63 67 63 67 0 0 McNeil, Orlando 94 MLB 13 47 51 47 51 0 0 McConnell, Clarence 50 SLB 2 36 54 38 54 2 0 Dole, Jeff 97 SLB 4 23 45 25 45 2 0 Delgado, Joey 91 SLB 1 10 32 11 28 1 -4 Kramer, Everett 51 WLB 3 34 52 36 52 2 0 Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB 10 44 46 44 46 0 0 Gonzalez, Lonnie 24 LCB 3 28 35 29 35 1 0 Maumau, Brandon 22 LCB 1 12 32 12 28 0 -4 Ikuma, Bart 47 RCB 3 64 64 64 64 0 0 Moulton, Fred 36 RCB 5 51 51 51 51 0 0 Meyer, Ian 42 RCB 12 35 35 35 35 0 0 Benton, Josh 20 SS 16 55 55 55 55 0 0 Buchanan, Duane 33 SS 5 24 38 26 38 2 0 Rushing, Quentin 23 SS 1 20 45 22 42 2 -3 Fisher, Dwight 40 SS 1 19 65 22 59 3 -6 Barrett, Lorenzo 38 FS 2 49 63 51 63 2 0

Well, to be honest, we were due for a dud rookie class, and I think we got it right here. No breakouts at all, but our top pick did at least hold his ratings.

I look at S Dwight Fisher, a guy I initially thought might be a future starter, and now I see a guy who, if he fully develops (questionable) might be good enough to become our top backup safety. Might be.

DT Martin Marchion, on whom I had been counting to some degree, is disappointingly weak – he might not even make the final roster, except for the fact that we don’t have another DT to use. LB Joey Delgado may well be cut – he isn’t even good in the limited things I picked him for. Much the same for CB Brandon Maumau – a wasted pick there, too.

As we come out of training camp, I note that we have 27 affinities on the team, and no conflicts. I suspect we will have to cut some of these get-along guys to get to 53, but this is a high water mark for us, I think.
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Old 07-25-2005, 03:55 PM   #49
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
After Camp

It turn out that RB Hunter Royals is a guy we have to keep around – without him, we will expose a conflict between RB Spry and our new presumed starter, Mo Jamison. So, Royals stays as the #3 RB, and that probably means curtains for the youngsters we brought in for a look.

Also, CB Brandon Maumau’s personality is so weak that he doesn’t even register an affinity – and that was the only thing he had going for him. He is our first casualty, despite the modest signing bonus we gave him.


In preseason, we lose LB Schnebele for 15 weeks, and put him on IR, gone for the season.

WR Louis Woodson is an absolute terror in the preseason, and makes our decisions at WR even tougher than I had expected. He might well push either Branch or Ratto out of a job, as those two were expected to be our key reserves, but we need to make room for this rookie, who will also step in and play as a gunner for us.

Our final cutdown is difficult in a few spots. Thinning the RB slot isn’t too bad – we end up keeping four guys, plus sending Benjamin Pringle to IR. We keep the whole load of seven receivers – I’m uncertain how we will end up using everyone, but I keep all seven. We remain a bit thin on the defensive front, especially losing Schnebele for the year. So, I make one extra cut, and bring aboard an ironic addition—second year DT John Workmon. He was a guy I coveted during the draft, but picked another player instead – now he has been released as a bust, and we grab him to serve as our backup DT. Small world.


As we head into the season, here is a roster snapshot – mostly to reveal the affinity development we have embraced, even in this supposedly instable career:

Code:
Player # Pos Start Playing Time Chemistry Gammon, Alvin 11 QB Content 1 Affinity with lea Swann, Marc 19 QB Content 1 Affinity with lea Fisk, Dwight 9 QB QB Content ##Royals, Hunter 48 RB Content Backfield Leader Jamison, Moe 32 RB RB Content **Pringle, Benjamin 46 RB Content Spry, Bo 43 RB Content James, Calvin 28 RB Content Affinity Sutter, Bruce 39 FB FB Content Parcells, Jake 82 FB Content Affinity Brown, Bryan 85 TE Content Affinity Schulz, Cary 83 TE TE Content Sasa, Jeff 80 FL Content Receivers Leader Brannan, Gino 86 FL FL Content Branch, Xavier 88 FL Content ##Ratto, Ronald 87 SE Content Burns, Chad 89 SE SE Content Mild Affinity Hanes, Josh 81 SE Content Affinity Woodson, Louis 17 SE Content Mild Affinity Wallace, Jon 59 C C Content Offensive Line Lead Gomez, Greg 53 C Content Affinity ##Hamlin, Ross 55 C Content Strong Affinity Sutton, Stanley 65 LG Content Strong Affinity Reeves, Gino 56 LG LG Content ##Lynch, T.J. 63 LG Content Strong Affinity Huntley, Wesley 79 RG RG Content Affinity ##Ellard, Junior 78 RG Content Strong Affinity Harper, Brandon 64 LT RT Content Thomason, Kenny 69 LT LT Content Benedict, Dusty 66 RT Content Blade, Kevin 14 P Content Wallace, Charles 5 K Content Largent, Courtney 93 LDE RDE Content Defensive Front Lea Copeland, Ronnie 74 LDE LDE Content Affinity Serbicki, Vince 98 LDE Content Grider, Tyrus 72 RDE Angry Mild Affinity Workmon, John 92 LDT Content ##Marchion, Martin 76 LDT Content Affinity Green, Kelvin 75 NT NT Content Schanne, Wendell 54 SILB WLB Content **Schnebele, Joseph 99 SILB Content Affinity Jeffries, Daryl 90 WILB WILB Content McNeil, Orlando 94 MLB SILB Content Affinity Dole, Jeff 97 SLB Content McConnell, Clarence 50 SLB SLB Content **Delgado, Joey 91 SLB Content Mild Affinity Kramer, Everett 51 WLB Content Mild Affinity Gumphrey, Benjamin 21 LCB LCB Content Affinity ##Gonzalez, Lonnie 24 LCB Content Mild Affinity Meyer, Ian 42 RCB Content Secondary Leader Moulton, Fred 36 RCB Content Ikuma, Bart 47 RCB RCB Content Benton, Josh 20 SS SS Content **Buchanan, Duane 33 SS Content Mild Affinity Rushing, Quentin 23 SS Content Mild Affinity Fisher, Dwight 40 SS Content Barrett, Lorenzo 38 FS FS Content

We managed to retain 25 affinities on this squad, still with no conflicts. Ideally, this would translate to better on-field performance. We’ll put that to the test this season.

My expectations are tough to pin down. I usually expect my teams to get incrementally better and better, but last year we regressed badly. I suspect we are a winning team, and barring a major injury to a key player like Fisk, I would expect 9 or 10 wins, and a postseason threat at least.
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Old 07-26-2005, 09:24 AM   #50
QuikSand
lolzcat
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Annapolis, Md
2031 season

As usual, I will simply go with the default offensive game plan, and on defense my only contribution is to adjust the secondary coverages. I’m letting the staff decide our pass/run shares and the like. For me, this is a challenge about building the roster.

Our roster rating is 70 entering the season – in the top third of the league now. Cohesion continues to grow slowly – we are at 70-71-76-65, with the defensive front the highest-rated area, but still below average.


RB Moe Jamison breaks out with 199 yards in our first game, as we beat Arizona on the road. Welcome to the backfield, pal.

We get to 4-0, but are once again in big trouble on the defensive front, with LB McNeil out for the year and LB McConnell out for a few weeks. We sign LB Adam Bauer on a one year deal, and will expect him to step in and probably start for us at the SILB slot, now vacated by McNeil. Bauer is, predictably, an affinity guy, and looks like a solid run stopper to boot. Could be a long term acquisition, if he wants to stick around.

After a 6-0 start, we come to earth a bit with two losses to division rivals, and at 6-2 are back into a division race. Dwight Fisk has a sterling 106 passer rating at this point, and Moe Jamison has 849 yards rushing – our offense is clicking nicely. Our defense is average – but that’s good enough to keep us near the top of the power ratings.

We don’t get another win until week 12, which pulls our record back to 7-3-1, still in first place in the division. We seem to be clicking again, with two more wins, and have all but locked up the division title (against an increasingly weak field). Two more wins finish out the regular season string, and we will hit the playoffs on a real roll after our odd midseason doldrums.

Code:
2031 Summary for St. Louis Rams Record: 12-3-1 Winning Pct.: .781 St. Louis Rams Team Rank Rushes 529 2 Rushing Yards 2662 1 Yards Per Carry 5.03 1 Pass Attempts 434 32 Completions 283 29 Passing Yards 3580 21 Yards Per Attempt 8.24 1 3rd Down Conversions 51.0 2 Points Per Game 27.5 1 Turnovers 15 3 Turnover Margin +13 3 Opponents Team Rank Rushes 435 10 (T) Rushing Yards 1668 5 Yards Per Carry 3.83 2 (T) Pass Attempts 556 28 Completions 327 22 Passing Yards 3865 25 Yards Per Attempt 6.95 16 3rd Down Conversions 44.9 21 Points Per Game 16.9 3 Turnovers 28 3 (T) Week Team Versus Oppnt 1 28 at ARI 24 2 31 PIT 28 3 21 WAS 14 4 24 at NOS 3 5 41 CAR 17 6 38 TBY 9 7 23 at SFO 27 8 28 ARI 31 9 23 at ATL 26 10 16 at SEA 16 12 24 CLE 21 13 37 at MIN 6 14 28 at BAL 21 15 31 SEA 6 16 24 at CIN 12 17 23 SFO 10 Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int 9 Fisk QB 434 283 3580 8.24 35 7 **Team --- 434 283 3580 8.24 35 7 Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD 32 Jamison RB 344 1615 4.69 5 9 Fisk QB 83 435 5.24 3 43 Spry RB 79 527 6.67 3 **Team --- 529 2662 5.03 15 Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD 32 Jamison RB 69 47 403 8.5 199 6 83 Schulz TE 68 46 596 12.9 211 4 86 Brannan WR 69 42 741 17.6 130 7 88 Branch WR 58 35 464 13.2 66 5 39 Sutter FB 39 29 183 6.3 116 4 17 Woodson WR 41 27 407 15.0 50 3 43 Spry RB 24 21 185 8.8 79 0 **Team --- 433 283 3580 12.6 957 35 Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn 90 Jeffries ILB 133 43 4.0 1 0 15 38 Barrett S 73 30 0.0 1 3 10 20 Benton S 68 24 0.0 0 2 9 75 Green DT 61 17 6.5 25 0 1 52 Bauer ILB 60 15 2.0 2 1 2 54 Schanne ILB 60 13 4.5 2 2 3 36 Moulton CB 51 7 0.0 0 3 6 21 Gumphrey CB 49 22 0.0 0 1 13 93 Largent DE 38 16 7.0 14 0 0 47 Ikuma CB 38 11 1.0 0 1 3 51 Kramer OLB 28 11 0.5 0 0 0 42 Meyer CB 21 7 0.0 0 0 3 86 Brannan WR 21 0 0.0 0 0 0 98 Serbicki DE 21 11 5.0 5 0 1 97 Dole OLB 21 4 0.0 2 0 1 74 Copeland DE 20 13 8.0 22 0 0 **Team --- 857 271 41.0 82 13 73

QB Dwight Fisk has elevated his game, after a shaky season in 2030, and put together a great campaign here – a 110.9 passer rating and 35 TDs should finally get us a player on the season awards list, I reckon. (Actually, our kicker will probably get there again, too, as he had to do a lot of punting for our injured punter) RB Moe Jamison posted a career-high yardage total, and his 4.69 yards per carry was a bit higher than his career average – even though he lost a lot of the lucrative passing-situation carries to Spry (who was very productive in his reserve role this year). Jamison was a real impact pickup for us.

We spread the ball around in the passing game pretty well – WR Chad Burns (nominally our best receiver) had injury troubles, but other guys filled in well. TE Cary Schultz had a solid injury-free season (for once) and we got god production from Xavier Branch in our slot position, along with rookie Louis Woodson to complement stalwart flanker Gino Brannan.

Our offensive line, without making huge investments, was really a team strength this year – potentially the real reason for such good performances on the field from the skill players. Here is a fair summary of their stats:

Code:
Blocking Statistics Player Pos Team GP GS KRB KRO BPct SkA PPly SPct RPly OPct Wallace, Jon C STL 16 16 36 83 43.3 2 439 0.4 498 16.6 Reeves, Gino G STL 16 16 35 88 39.7 2 450 0.4 504 17.4 Huntley, Wesley G STL 16 16 33 96 34.3 1 452 0.2 524 18.3 Thomason, Kenny T STL 16 16 18 52 34.6 4 450 0.8 506 10.2 Sutter, Bruce FB STL 16 11 13 22 59.0 1 241 0.4 301 7.3 Benedict, Dusty T STL 14 10 12 51 23.5 4 295 1.3 336 15.1 Schulz, Cary TE STL 16 15 9 17 52.9 0 372 0.0 467 3.6 Harper, Brandon T STL 8 6 6 22 27.2 4 138 2.8 172 12.7 Gomez, Greg C STL 5 0 4 12 33.3 0 17 0.0 47 25.5 Parcells, Jake FB STL 16 0 4 7 57.1 0 54 0.0 121 5.7 Brown, Bryan TE STL 16 0 3 4 75.0 0 51 0.0 137 2.9 Sutton, Stanley G STL 13 0 1 6 16.6 1 24 4.1 58 10.3

The RT slot was a weakness (split between benedict and Harper) but other than that, we see every guy well over 30% blocking, and allowing far under 1% sacks – if those are reasonable benchmarks (and I think they are) then this group played very, very well. We allowed a total of 19 sacks on over 450 pass plays… that is stellar, especially considering the run blocking was strong as well.

It’s easy to overlook the OL in this game, especially when relying on the game’s “Team Summary” for stats – but these guys were collectively our most valuable asset, I’m thinking. We were #1 in the league in yards per carry and in yards per attempt – that’s a sign that the offense is just clicking on all cylinders, and I think it starts with the line in this case.


LB Daryl Jeffries will also have a strong case for season honors, as he posts some big tackle totals, along with 4 sacks and a solid 15 passes defensed. That, to me, is DPOY stuff. He is a true star, and an absolutely ideal fit for our system – his $6.5 million contract seems like a bargain right now.

S Lorenzo Barrett is becoming the all-around player that we needed at safety, while DT Kelvin Green is asserting himself as the leader of our pass rush, even while posting a very solid 61+17 tackles from the NT slot (potential award winner there, too). I love what we got from waiver wire find Adam Bauer playing at SILB – this is a guy we will probably make a real effort to re-sign, as I do love having a committed run-stopper playing the ILB slots (though he has a history of injury issues, which have obviously plagued this team).


We head into the playoffs looking very sharp, and with the top seed in the conference. Here are the full standings – our PF/PA ratio is certainly the best in the league, a good sign that our record isn’t just a fluke.

Code:
2031 Regular Season Standings AC North W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Cincinnati 10 6 0 .625 363 320 7-5 3-3 Cleveland 9 7 0 .563 377 339 6-6 4-2 Pittsburgh 8 8 0 .500 329 375 5-7 2-4 Baltimore 6 10 0 .375 319 324 5-7 3-3 AC South W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Indianapolis 9 7 0 .563 337 381 6-6 5-1 Jacksonville 8 8 0 .500 345 356 6-6 3-3 Tennessee 6 10 0 .375 242 312 4-8 3-3 Houston 4 12 0 .250 242 323 3-9 1-5 AC East W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Buffalo 14 2 0 .875 386 242 10-2 5-1 Miami 8 8 0 .500 360 327 7-5 3-3 New York J 8 8 0 .500 278 265 5-7 2-4 New England 6 10 0 .375 254 348 3-9 2-4 AC West W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Oakland 13 3 0 .813 409 294 9-3 5-1 Denver 13 3 0 .813 411 274 9-3 5-1 San Diego 8 8 0 .500 320 313 5-7 0-6 Kansas City 6 9 1 .406 345 328 6-6 2-4 NC North W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Detroit 9 6 1 .594 342 332 9-3 6-0 Green Bay 8 8 0 .500 279 303 7-5 2-4 Minnesota 7 9 0 .438 299 317 6-6 3-3 Chicago 7 9 0 .438 325 331 5-7 1-5 NC South W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div Atlanta 11 5 0 .688 344 278 9-3 5-1 Carolina 8 8 0 .500 312 343 6-6 3-3 New Orleans 6 10 0 .375 297 343 4-8 4-2 Tampa Bay 3 13 0 .188 218 332 1-11 0-6 NC East W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div New York G 9 7 0 .563 285 274 8-4 4-2 Washington 7 9 0 .438 299 337 5-7 3-3 Dallas 6 10 0 .375 355 413 5-7 4-2 Philadelphia 3 13 0 .188 284 396 2-10 1-5 NC West W L T Pct PF PA Conf Div St. Louis 12 3 1 .781 440 271 8-3-1 3-2-1 Seattle 8 7 1 .531 307 287 7-4-1 3-2-1 San Francisco 8 8 0 .500 322 339 8-4 4-2 Arizona 6 10 0 .375 342 350 5-7 1-5
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