Shortcuts to getting your offense to do what you want?

[Front Office Midget]

The new gameplanning system in FOF8 seemed to promise more control over our teams, but in practice, I think many GMs have resigned themselves to recommending.

As I approach a new season in 2 leagues, I am wondering how to get my team to resemble the approach I would like for them to have.

In FOF7 and before, this was easy. You just modified the percentages and your coach did the rest.

1. Has anyone found any tricks to speed up the process of setting one's entire offensive gameplan? Is there any way to quickly decide to feature the short pass, the long pass, 2 TE sets, your #4 WR, the power running game, etc?

2. Is the best idea really just to find what works and run essentially the same gameplan every week? Seems like there aren't any penalties for this.

3. Is the pre-tc "playbook" file the most important file for this? It seems like you have to decide then and there what you want your team to do, unless you want to spend time tinkering all season.

My biggest hope for FOF9 is for there to be a way to create an identity for my team without making FOF into a full-time job. I really think the previous system was near-perfect and now I have no idea how to set up my team to get the results I want without investing a ton more time into this "game".

[Ushikawa]

My quick process (20-30 minutes) is:
- generate a random GP, preferably one with fewer plays used and roughly the run pct I want
- usually clean out the hurry up list as well to free up more plays aside from the types of plays I like to run in the hurry up
- remove all obvious familiar risks and swap out most 3rd down passes (the AI loves those shorts passes on 3rd and long and viceversa, I like to throw beyond the sticks on 3rd)
- fill out the spaces with the 2 or 3 areas I want to attack the opponent, or to balance out the playcalls (run holes, primary routes and targets), pick special plays for RZ
- (optional) switch the grouping of plays

I see lots of guys make no adjustments week to week and do extremely well.

I think a middle ground would be to make a base GP with about 60-80% of it filled out with your "best" plays and then just add in the filler based upon your opponent (removing plays takes more time than adding new ones in my experience).

For one league where I didn't want to eff with the offensive GP each week my original GP is just the formations that don't see familiars so easily 113(t), 122, 212 so my expedited process is even faster.

All of this is much easier if you invest the time in the playbook to make sure that all the available plays are worth running. To be honest you could probably just make 100 plays in your playbook and be just fine.

[Front Office Midget]

Originally Posted by Ushikawa

For one league where I didn't want to eff with the offensive GP each week my original GP is just the formations that don't see familiars so easily 113(t), 122, 212 so my expedited process is even faster.

Hmmm... so is my spread offense with a lot of 4/5 WR sets going to be penalized a lot? I guess I'll see in the upcoming weeks. The 2011 Packers offense is always my model, but I fear it won't work in this game.

All of this is much easier if you invest the time in the playbook to make sure that all the available plays are worth running. To be honest you could probably just make 100 plays in your playbook and be just fine.

I hadn't even considered not using the full 200 plays. This may be a very good suggestion that could make things more manageable.

[Ushikawa]

Originally Posted by Front Office Midget

Hmmm... so is my spread offense with a lot of 4/5 WR sets going to be penalized a lot? I guess I'll see in the upcoming weeks. The 2011 Packers offense is always my model, but I fear it won't work in this game.

Anything other than 122, 212 and 113 sometimes gets familiars starting with the 2nd use, lots of exceptions occur (I haven't found any easily definable pattern to it) but if you want 0 familiars then this is the golden rule to follow. I usually just put the 2nd occassion inmy hurry up section for the spread formations

[bdubbs]

Personally I'm pretty sure with familiars its all about how many times an exact play is called, and you don't want to run the same play more than twice in a game. I run over 40 plays out of the 113 every game in my league and I only get familiars from some of the running plays if I'm ahead by a lot in the 4th and the team switches to a clock burning offense.

I crafted my game plan from a blank screen and have tweaked it 2 or 3 times throughout the season to adjust targets and I have a very, very successful offense in this league. Much more successful than I have been with rex game plans.

When it comes to pass selection, short vs long vs screen I think that has a lot to do with your personnel. For example if a receiver has low courage I try and make sure he's not running as many routes over the middle, and I try and target guys with decent 3rd down receiving on 3rd downs.

I have a receiver on my team who is 6'3 and has pretty good bars just about everywhere but BPR so I have him on some of my deeper routes and more routes where he's 8-15 yards down the field at the point of the catch and give shorter targets to other guys who can do more after the catch.

I can't tell you how many times on defense I've seen an opposing team throw short on 3rd and long, but there's plenty of YAC in this game so some teams manage to do fine regardless.

What I look for more than anything is decent target distribution between guys who I want getting the ball. If one receiver is getting too many targets its pretty easy for a team to lay down double teams if they're smart. Not to mention sometimes a player is just having a bad game and you don't want your offense to be too reliant on them. The exception to this is if a player is still averaging a very good average yards / target, in my opinion this is the best benchmark you have to judge a receiver's performance.

Another thing I've noticed is my offense is a little backwards in our running game, my LT is my best run blocker and my left side of the line seems to be stronger in the run game so I barely run the ball to the right. Again, as long as you have a good enough mix of run plays you're not going to get dinged with familiar warnings. This change has helped my RB who averaged 4.6 ypc a season ago to average 5.4 ypc in the current season.

For the most part I think offensive game planning is intuitive, in your common situations like 1st and 10 you want a healthy mix of run and pass with one being heavier based on your personnel. The longer the down and distance the more deeper routes you want to mix in. Short yardage situations you're probably better off running the ball. In the two minute drill you probably want to focus on longer passes and routes that bring the receiver towards the sideline, in the red zone you might want to work in more routes that can beat man D.

What I'd stress more than anything is that you want to fit your play calls to your personnel as best as you can. If you have a strong side of the OL find more running plays to that side. If your RB has good breakaway speed and speed to the outside you might want to run more outside run plays, or if he's good up the gut you might want to focus more on running up the middle.

At the very least I'd recommend taking a rex GP and deleting the plays you hate and going from there. A good place to start is taking out any plays that start with U or T because that means your FB or TE2 are the primary route respectively (unless these are guys you want to target).

It seems like with a rex GP you have like 8 or 9 different guys getting targets in a game. By creating my own GP I've made it so only my 3 starting WRs, my starting TE, and my RB are getting any targets with an occasional exception from other plays getting targets on a secondary or outlet route.

Good luck finding your balance. Creating a game plan from scratch can be a disaster but it can also be rewarding. Unfortunately its hard to start judging the GP until you've played a few games with it but my god it is fun to see the crazy numbers when things click the right way.

I tried rexxing and altering my GP at the beginning of this season and struggled with offensive performances of 14 points, 23 points, and 15 points over the first 3 games. I'm stacked at my skill positions on offense, have an 80+ QB, and have a solid OL so I built out my own GP and haven't scored less than 30 points in my last 8 games. I think its worth it to invest the time and effort in there.

[Front Office Midget]

Originally Posted by bdubbs

I crafted my game plan from a blank screen and have tweaked it 2 or 3 times throughout the season to adjust targets and I have a very, very successful offense in this league. Much more successful than I have been with rex game plans.

Does this mean that you have used the same game plan almost every game?

That's what kills this game for me. There is no way that NFL coaches could get away with running the same plays in the same situation in the same order all season long. But it works that way in FOF8. It makes watching the games so less fun, but the alternatives are to resign your team to rexxing or to spend a bunch of tedious time modifying the gameplan every week.

Seems like the first big step into success in this game is by exploiting a ridiculous loophole and having the same plays in the same situation once you figure out something that works for your team.

[Front Office Midget]

Dola:

I've just gone through my entire gameplan for the first time (after 5 seasons). I realize now that a strategy one can take, is to keep the same 60 or so plays in rotation from game to game, but just move them around the gameplan, and add/drop as necessary. Not sure how this didn't occur to me before.

[Hammer]

Any decent player should, in theory, be scouting offenses by formation and situation. Then you can start to pigeon hole the formation and apply the best defense call. Having said that defensive play calls make so little difference in this version it is largely a waste of time in FOF8. So it doesn't matter if you leave the same offense in all year. What a joke!

I am glad people are finally starting to see through this version now, although I am surprised it took this long. When it came out everyone thought this version was a huge step forward - and it was on face value. But underneath the window dressing there really isn't much scope to actually get to grips with the new features and improve your team.

You can waste a lot of time and gain no advantage. As always it isn't black and white, there are positives in FOF8. Player heights and weights, being able to adjust targets come to mind. However simply put, overall, for me it has gone backwards from FOF7. You just have to look at what a half arsed job was done with situations on defense to give you that clue. The more players play, and understand FOF8, the more it is exposed. All that said I am a lifer and looking forward to FOF9.

[Front Office Midget]

Originally Posted by Hammer

Any decent player should, in theory, be scouting offenses by formation and situation. Then you can start to pigeon hole the formation and apply the best defense call. Having said that defensive play calls make so little difference in this version it is largely a waste of time in FOF8. So it doesn't matter if you leave the same offense in all year. What a joke!

I am glad people are finally starting to see through this version now, although I am surprised it took this long. When it came out everyone thought this version was a huge step forward - and it was on face value. But underneath the window dressing there really isn't much scope to actually get to grips with the new features and improve your team.

You can waste a lot of time and gain no advantage. As always it isn't black and white, there are positives in FOF8. Player heights and weights, being able to adjust targets come to mind. However simply put, overall, for me it has gone backwards from FOF7. You just have to look at what a half arsed job was done with situations on defense to give you that clue. The more players play, and understand FOF8, the more it is exposed. All that said I am a lifer and looking forward to FOF9.

I'm just starting to try gameplans for the first time.

I was never in the set of people who thought gameplanning FOF8 was a huge step forward, it has seemed tedious to me from the beginning. Now that I'm spending some time with it, I think I'm understanding what it is designed to do, but I wish it was streamlined. Hopefully the FOF9 will introduce a middle ground between recommending and choosing every play. I liked the old system, but I think the main reason he changed it was that he didn't people gaining an advantage by running offenses that were unrealistic.

I wish we could choose our 60 plays or whatever on offense, and then have our staff put them into the different situations. So we could keep our targets how we wanted them, but not run them in the same situation every game. As of now, it just takes too many clicks to do this.

I had a good time setting my OSFL playbook, looking at every play and making sure I wanted it in my playbook, and that plays were balanced how I want to. We'll see!

[bdubbs]

Yes, I am using the same game plan every game and built the game plan with the intention of being able to use it any game. A balanced game plan on offense seems to be more or less impossible to counter through some sort of defensive game plan strategy in this game.

You can only really take advantage on defense if someone has glaring openings in their offensive game plan and aren't changing it. For example if someone targets a receiver too heavily, or only only runs the ball out of a certain formation are the main things I look for. There are obvious defensive game planning measures to counter those kinds of mistakes.

If someone has an offensive game plan that runs and passes out of every formation they use, and gives several players a healthy target count how can you counter that?

Same with something as simple as my "run to the left" strategy.. there's just no defensive game planning counter to it. As long as I avoid getting dinged by familiars there's no downside to it. The only way an opponent can counter it is by shifting their personnel so their better run stoppers on defense are going to be lined up on my left side.

I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to defensive game planning all you can do is highlight the strengths of your personnel. This is also starting to shift my general roster building philosophy on defense. It seems like it would pay off to have players that all excel in the same types of pass coverage and focus on that coverage in your plans.

The game is as simple as man to man, bump and run, and zone. Ideally all your LBs and secondary have good bars in one of those coverage types and that coverage becomes your bread and butter. Otherwise your defense is probably going to have a glaring hole in it somewhere no matter which type of coverage you run. This is obviously just an opinion, but it also makes sense.

There are obvious exceptions there as there are some mixed coverages. Cover 2 keeps your outside corners in man, press 2 keeps your safeties in zone, Cover 3 cloud keeps your LCB in man.

The only attribute I'm not sure how to value is PD. The help file is pretty straight forward that its more important in 34 defenses, specifically when a DL or LB is responsible for 2 gaps in the run game. When it comes to pass defense in general or its value in CBs, safeties, and 1 gap players on the front 7 I'm not really sure how to value it.

What I'm getting at is there is a way to use game planning to improve the success of your defense, but its more about having the personnel that fit the defensive theme properly than actually coming up with a strategy on defense to beat a specific opponent's game plan on offense. This is all of course entirely my opinion

[Hammer]

What I'm getting at is there is a way to use game planning to improve the success of your defense, but its more about having the personnel that fit the defensive theme properly than actually coming up with a strategy on defense to beat a specific opponent's game plan on offense. This is all of course entirely my opinion.

Exactly my conclusion. I have been playing this angle for the past year. Cover 1 and Cover 2 defense, with players all high in M2M. Made a lot of sense to me to play this way.

Hasn't made a damn bit of difference. With my naked it eye it appears they play Press 2 as well as Cover 2. There could be a blink of difference that stat testing would reveal, but I can't see it. Certainly nothing obvious.

I guess the passing offense does have a larger influence than the defense they are facing in the modern game. Still, it is pretty frustrating.

On the other side of the equation, when I have a strong passing offense it seems a defense is powerless to stop me. Weak passing offenses can't do jack regardless of the defense they are facing. I think offenses just own the major part of the equation.

[user name]

have a receiver on my team who is 6'3 and has pretty good bars just about everywhere but BPR so I have him on some of my deeper routes and more routes where he's 8-15 yards down the field at the point of the catch and give shorter targets to other guys who can do more after the catch

BPR is a player's ability to generate YAC or his ability to catch deep passes? this reads like it's YAC, but I've previously thought it was deep balls

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by user name

BPR is a player's ability to generate YAC or his ability to catch deep passes? this reads like it's YAC, but I've previously thought it was deep balls

BPR is how fast player is, if he breaks a tackle (GD) he will be harder to chase him down, then he can run deep (BPR, RR, AB) to catch long throws.

[Ushikawa]

Just my opinion but...

BPR is topline speed, Get Downfield is frequency of YAC opportunities and the first few yards there but it is BPR that leads to the big gains and yes I also believe that BPR leads to getting behind the safeties so to speak.

[Front Office Midget]

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure conventional FOF wisdom has always been that
BPR = ability to get open on long passes
GD = ability to create yards after the catch

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by Front Office Midget

Hmmm... I'm pretty sure conventional FOF wisdom has always been that
BPR = ability to get open on long passes
GD = ability to create yards after the catch

GD with little BPR will give you 10 - 12 yards, GD with high BPR will give you a high chance of 20+ yards or long touchdowns after the catch.

[bdubbs]

Well if we're going to take the help file at face value

BPR - "Ability to break away for a huge gain after the catch"
GD - "Ability to gain a little more yardage on a route"

So the way I've interpreted that personally is that BPR has more to do with YAC, and GD is more of a measure of average depth of target.

Personally I have no idea which bar is bar is more likely to lead to "he makes a nice move to break free" for that nice juicy YAC

I have my suspicions that how good your QB is has an influence though

A quick look at my season that just ended certainly doesn't give me a data point I'd try and draw any conclusions from

My receivers stats looked something like this

Danny Clemons 54/54 84 RR, 50 GD, 26 BPR

101 catches on 130 targets (beastly 77.7% catch rate) 1128 yards 485 YAC

so 11.3 yds/catch 8.68 yards / target 4.8 yac / catch


Jumbo Fitzgerald (TE 67/67) 64 RR 69 GD 64 BPR

64 catches on 113 targets (56.6%) 991 yards, 361 yac

15.48 yds / catch 8.77 yards / target 5.64 yac / catch


Denzel Jenkins (66/66) 89 RR 55 GD 70 BPR (12 games played)

57 catches on 96 targets (59.4) 727 yds 230 YAC

yards/catch 12.75 yards/target 7.57 yac/catch 4.03

Kirk Watkins (55/55) 75 RR 74 GD 25 BPR

57 catches on 99 targets (57.6%) 861 yds 339 YAC

yards/catch 15.11 yards/target 8.7 yac/catch 5.94


So my lowest BPR receiver actually had the most yac / catch and is actually the player I spoke of above who I was trying to throw deeper routes to in order to take advantage of his height and lack of BPR

My lowest YAC receiver is my highest BPR receiver, but he's also my highest rated receiver overall.


But there's so many other things to take into account like the fact that Jenkins drew more double teams throughout the season than other WRs. He also played the X spot most of the season when he was healthy which isn't a featured role in my offensive GP.

The only thing I can say for sure in terms of how my personal experience has affected the types of players I look for in a draft, I want to see 2 of 3 bars that are high between GD, BPR, and RR and if I had to rank them in terms of importance it would be RR, BPR, and then GD. BPR is the safest bet being static, you never know if those other bars might take a tumble during reveals.

Avoid drops is something I completely ignore if it's likely over 25. The difference between say 40 AD and 60 AD means nothing to me when comparing 2 wide outs.

Adjust to ball is another skill I don't put a lot of stock in, partially because there's no concrete way of knowing how often it comes into play. My logic is that if you're going to have a strong offense your QB probably isn't throwing that many bad balls, and if you have a crappy QB in there your team probably isn't going to be saved because you have a couple WR's with a high A2B skill. However if there was some way of knowing it came into play when your QB is hurried on a throw I'd have to think twice about its value.

Courage is nice to see, but if the bars were high enough in the core 3 skills I mentioned above I'm fine with very low courage. You can severely limit the downside of low courage by not assigning that receiver any routes over the middle of the field as the primary target. That said he will likely get a target over the middle occasionally as a secondary or outlet receiver unless you're super anal.

Well I've commented on basically every other bar so I might as well mention 3rd down catching. The thing is I want to believe that it matters but I also feel like if you look through misc receiving stats in any given season you're going to find there is plenty of variation in the 3DR bar between the top 3rd down receivers for the year. I think its a good complementary bar though and it also loses a little value in my mind because you don't need every receiver to be a good 3rd down target.

[user name]

from here

Big-Play Receiving - ability to catch long and very-long passes.

Getting Downfield - ability to gain yardage after the catch.

problem is... that's from 2010. the verbiage has apparently changed and not in a way that makes clear sense to me like these did.

[bdubbs]

Yeah I'm pretty sure FOF8 released in 2016 so I'm not sure how much faith you can put in that thread. Then again maybe the way Ben describes bars in that thread hold true, there's no way of knowing with any certainty

[Hammer]

BPR is both catching long passes and the kick in after GD to raise the potential for very long YAC gains.

Nothing has changed in years, the help file was just inaccurate in the past, may or may not have been intentional. There was always talk of not wanting to give too much away about how the game worked.

[bdubbs]

Personally I enjoy the lack of certainty as much as it can be frustrating. You never know if you're drafting Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. You never know when your 44/44 CB might outplay your 56/56 CB and be the better guy for a starting job. You gotta be willing to try different things and see what works

[rundretachan1984]

Originally Posted by user name

BPR is a player's ability to generate YAC or his ability to catch deep passes? this reads like it's YAC, but I've previously thought it was deep balls

Yes, of couse

[Ternvig]

Originally Posted by Front Office Midget

The new gameplanning system in FOF8 seemed to promise more control over our teams, but in practice, I think many GMs have resigned themselves to recommending.

I completely agree.

I had a lot of fun in the RDFL, but after the first season with FOF8 I just could not find the time to continue that level of detailed commitment that I wanted.

I remember with great expectation cancelling my saturday-commitments for the 'playbook' stage in the league. Sat at home in my captain sweatpants outfit and edited every single play.

The fun ended around week 3, when my pass catching TE was injured. I had to sub sooo many plays. Next week, my pass rushing LB went down, the same again. My RG went down, alter most running plays and so it continued. I ended up using all my FOF downtime managing playbooks- and it was tedious.

It just killed it for me. I want maximum game control. If rexxing is necessary I would not get the satisfaction of winning and outscoring an opponent.

Another weakness is that the play by play planner do not take you RB/QB struggles into account. If your QB is having an awful day, FOF8 will still run through the play by play setting.

Long story short:
I hope FOF9 opens the possibility for game planing in the FOF7-way. If so, I'm back

[Sharkn20]

I hope FOF9 brings the best of both universes. Detailed play by play like FOF8 and simple %s for those who haven't got the time or the willing like in previous itinerations.

I LOVE the new system and I wouldn't change it but seems that creating extra control is killing it for those who don't want or can't put the time on it.

[Carman Bulldog]

Originally Posted by user name

BPR is a player's ability to generate YAC or his ability to catch deep passes? this reads like it's YAC, but I've previously thought it was deep balls

I also previously thought it was about deep balls. But as far back as FOF 2007, former Bills RB Travis Henry was rated very poorly in this, so it's never really made sense to me.

[Front Office Midget]

Since making this thread, I dropped out of 1 multiplayer league.

It is absolutely easier to maintain 1 team than 2. Seems obvious, but in the past, if you could just "set it and forget it", 2 teams were pretty easy.

What I do now is generate 40 plays at a time before training camp, delete the ones I don't like, and rename the ones I do like. I keep generating 40 plays at a time, making sure I don't have plays that are too similar, and rename each of them. Something like "XZ 52 113" for example, so I can sort by primary target on the offensive gameplan screen.

I've built a gameplan from scratch this season for week 1, and I am keeping a spreadsheet of all my play results from throughout the season. This way I can see how each play performed and in what situations of what games.

The new system of control is really enjoyable, which I know is not what I said 3 1/2 months ago when I started this thread. I think my problem was trying to learn with 2 teams at once, meaning constant deadlines.

I've also started doing defensive gameplans from scratch and finding it much more effective than rexing. Once you get the hang of it, and the clicking muscle memory down, it is not that difficult. You're basically picking a base coverage and whether or not you are blitzing, double covering, or bringing a safety in the box. It is actually pretty simple, but again, it has a tough initial learning curve that seems overwhelming.

Another upgrade was getting a regular mouse rather than a laptop touchpad. That has made everything much quicker.

Building from scratch and having a reason for every player / play makes you feel much more in control of an actual team rather than a bunch of random events. Took me almost 2 years to appreciate FOF8 but now I am really enjoying it.

[Ushikawa]

This is the way to play 8 I MO, you make a good point about muscle memory. At first it took me 3 hours to gameplan one game and now it is down to about an hour.

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by Front Office Midget

Since making this thread, I dropped out of 1 multiplayer league.

It is absolutely easier to maintain 1 team than 2. Seems obvious, but in the past, if you could just "set it and forget it", 2 teams were pretty easy.

What I do now is generate 40 plays at a time before training camp, delete the ones I don't like, and rename the ones I do like. I keep generating 40 plays at a time, making sure I don't have plays that are too similar, and rename each of them. Something like "XZ 52 113" for example, so I can sort by primary target on the offensive gameplan screen.

I've built a gameplan from scratch this season for week 1, and I am keeping a spreadsheet of all my play results from throughout the season. This way I can see how each play performed and in what situations of what games.

The new system of control is really enjoyable, which I know is not what I said 3 1/2 months ago when I started this thread. I think my problem was trying to learn with 2 teams at once, meaning constant deadlines.

I've also started doing defensive gameplans from scratch and finding it much more effective than rexing. Once you get the hang of it, and the clicking muscle memory down, it is not that difficult. You're basically picking a base coverage and whether or not you are blitzing, double covering, or bringing a safety in the box. It is actually pretty simple, but again, it has a tough initial learning curve that seems overwhelming.

Another upgrade was getting a regular mouse rather than a laptop touchpad. That has made everything much quicker.

Building from scratch and having a reason for every player / play makes you feel much more in control of an actual team rather than a bunch of random events. Took me almost 2 years to appreciate FOF8 but now I am really enjoying it.

Glad to finally have you on board. It gets even better when you know how to get the best of your role players!

[Front Office Midget]

Indeed. Sad that I had to quit the OSFL in order to figure it out, but I am having a blast now that I'm focusing on only one team.

[Sharkn20]

Originally Posted by Front Office Midget

Indeed. Sad that I had to quit the OSFL in order to figure it out, but I am having a blast now that I'm focusing on only one team.

Don't worry, feel free to comeback whenever you feel fit to do so

[SocratesJC]

Originally Posted by Sharkn20

Don't worry, feel free to comeback whenever you feel fit to do so

Yeah, it just improved tremendously with the newest recruit!