FOF2004 - English GM - House Arrest

[AlexB]

This is my first attempt at writing a dynasty: hopefully it'll keep me going with one game (I tend to get through 4-5 seasons and then restart!)

I’ll be playing the House Rules SkyDog drew up a few months ago with one change: I will trade players for picks but only if the trade is offered to me by the AI. The link to the general rules is below:

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...t=house+arrest

I will be watching the games (it’s more painful, but the only way I think you can see how the players perform properly), but all play-calling and in-game substitutions will be left to the HC. I will set the depth charts pre-game, but the game plans will be down to the HC. I used a randomizer to pick the Titans, quick-simmed 2004 and took the first result: 5-11 means pick five in the draft.

[AlexB]

(I've already done halk the first season, so cutting and pasting the first few bits!)

2004/5 Off-Season

Only our OC is out of contract, and while he’s not terrible, there is room for improvement. 51 year old Justin Wasiak comes out of the ranks college with excellent reputations for coaching QBs, WRs and the OL, and is considered very good with RBs. While only average with kickers, he is also regarded as an excellent developer of young talent.

As he is exactly what we need for our all rookie team, and we will be nowhere near the cap, we splash the cash on coaching and sign him on a 5 year deal at $3.91m a year, which makes him the highest paid OC in the NFL and only eight HC’s are paid more! (Hopefully the fact that he will be earning $1.8m a year more than our HC Ed Freeman will not cause too much conflict)

As we will not have many stars next year, and averaged 66,200 (97.1% capacity), we leave ticket prices unchanged at an average of $365 per family to try and keep the fans happy and the stadium full.

[AlexB]

2005 Draft

The stud DT goes no.1, the two stud tackles go two&three, and a DE is picked four. I trade down from five to eight to guarantee myself one of the two top WRs or CBs, plus get an extra 3rd & 7th round pick. By the time 1.08 comes around three of the four are still on the board, but while two look safe, the third is more of a risk so our first draft pick becomes

1.08 - JT Rodgers, CB, 39/84, Texas A&M. Blue bars are maxed out on all but his returns – should be lockdown corner for 5-6 years.
2.05 – Dwight Nygaard, C, 23/75, Liberty (Va.). Looks to be a very solid center
3.05 – Chester Ashcroft, ILB, 16/54, Minnesota. Best ILB available: not spectacular but will have to anchor the defense for the time being at least
3.08 – Robbie McIntyre, FB, 44/72, UCLA. Should be long-term starter
4.05 – Ben Leeuwenburg, RT, 21/42, Michigan. Massive strength: will move from RT to LT
5.05 – Brenden Montgomery, NT, 22/43, Adams State. Best run-stuffer left, but will have to learn 4-3
6.05 – Van Kramer, RT, 25/33, Tennessee. Massive strength – hopefully will give two tackles who will benefit from playing and coaching any may even anchor the line with Nygaard for a few years?
7.05 – Ike Henson, RB, 34/45, VMI. Was tempted to draft him in the 3rd round and he’s still here – useful back, low endurance
7.08 – Duane Legg, RB, 30/45, Michigan State. Will hopefully rotate with Henson.

Overall I’m happy: by trading down I’ve got a very solid FB as well as the top corner in the draft, and have added a 2nd RB who should be in the starting rotation. I’m also hopeful I’ve got 3 medium-long term starters on the OL. I figured that as this is likely to be a (heavy) losing season, while I didn’t want to totally ignore the D, as I’ve got a top OC I may as well lean towards this side of the ball if there’s no standout defensive pick as the playing time and coaching should mean if there’s any talent there to start with, it will develop fairly quickly.

[AlexB]

Undrafted rookies of note:
QBs – Irv Bilek, Stanford 16/52: was going to trade up to 2.32 to get him (due to the rules I’m using this was the last pick I could have used on him), but he went undrafted. Looks to have medium passing skills, but excellent ‘intangibles’.
Even better, RJ Bronson out of Boston College at 28/66 went undrafted: only worry is his timing
WR – Lamont Kelly, Fairmont State, 11/22: could be better than the numbers suggest
CB – Drew Morris out of Marshall, 10/31: if he’s not much much better than this I’ll eat my hat: sub 4.40 40yd, 15 bench presses and sub 6.91 agility. If a few more corners had come off the board, I would have drafted him – he will boom.

Other than this tried to take the best mix of combine stats, high volatility and intelligence in the hope at least some will pan out into decent players, all on two year contracts with no signing bonus, the majority on minsal deals.

[AlexB]

Training Camp

Morris jumped by 3/9, Kramer by 4/8, Bronson by 5/5, and Kelly by 3/4. A couple of others are showing promise, including Leeuwenburg who dropped a little through switching to LT, but still jumped 2 points in potential.

Round Before After Change
1st Rodgers CB 39/84 41/82 2/-2
2nd Nygaard C 23/75 29/70 6/-5
3rd Ashcroft ILB 16/54 18/48 2/-6
McIntyre FB 44/72 47/72 3/0
4th Leeuwenburg T 21/42 21/44 0/2 (incl. change RT to LT)
5th Montgomery DT 22/43 24/41 2/-3
6th Kramer T 25/33 29/41 4/8
7th Henson RB 34/45 34/45 0/0
Legg RB 30/45 29/35 -1/-10

On the downside every other WR bar Kelly dropped (one by 4, two by 7 and 2 by 8!) and two of my RBs dropped by double figures, including Legg who as you can see is a bust.

Overall 14 player improved in future potential, 13 stayed the same and a huge 33 guys fell, including my 3rd QB by 13 points, and my 2 kickers by a combined 19 points! That’s a lot of busts!

I realised that I’d neglected kick and punt returns a little, so cut a couple of guys who wouldn’t have made the final 53 and brought in one punt returner and one KR.

[AlexB]

Pre-season

I’ve decided to not necessarily play the best players (we’re gonna lose anyway) but those have had shown potential to improve, or at least haven’t already busted after training camp!

As a result, my scout is happy only with my FB (McIntyre, 3rd round), CB (Rodgers, 1st round) and punter. Of the remaining 21 positions, he’s fairly concerned about four, very concerned about five and extremely concerned about the other 12. We’ve got an 11 score on the power rankings, the next worst has 44 - this could be a very long season!

Unsurprisingly we go 0-4, but there are some good signs: Kelly is catching passes and gaining good yardage, Bronson is completing a good percentage and not giving up the ball, Bilek is moving it well but has thrown a pick or two. Defensively three of our four sacks came from the backfield: pressuring the QB is going to be a problem.

No major injuries, all of the players I’ve mentioned made the team – let’s get it on!

[AlexB]

Week 1: Indianapolis (1-0) 41 @ Tennessee (0-1) 10
We got stuffed by the Colts, lost Van Kramer (RT) for 4 weeks, and Nygaard (C, 2nd round) will have to play through elbow bursitis pain for a month or so: it’s all you need to know. After the game we picked up two 5th round players (Harold Blackwell DE, Mario Reagles, CB) and a 7th rounder (Monty Tan, G) that were released by their teams in the roster cuts.

Week 2: Tennessee (1-1) 22 @ San Francisco (0-2) 20
1st passing TD for RJ & 1st win (on the road) against the 49ers! Although we had to make a last second FG to win 22-20 after leading19-0 with 5 to go in the 3rd. Blackwell gets 1.5 sacks and Drew Morris gets his 1st INT. Lawrence Ferguson K sets a team record of 5 FG’s in the game. But our 1st round pick, CB JT Rodgers is out for 4 weeks…

Week 3: San Diego (1-2) 17 @ Tennessee (2-1) 20
We have a winning streak! 2-1 and top of our division by a clear game and a 1st home win. 2 TDs & 2 INTS for Bronson, Omar Russell (WR) gets our 1st 100 yard game (7-119, a team single game yardage record) and Mario Reagles (CB) signed after week 1 gets an INT in his 1st start in relief of Rodgers, after getting a sack on his debut at dime back. We’ve now got a power rating of 30, which puts us above Detroit!

We also pick up Claude Rodman, WR drafted 5.17 but released by the Bengals as we only had four fit WRs, and 9 DL now minor injuries have all cleared up

Week 4. Tennessee (2-2) 3 @ Cleveland (2-2) 10
We couldn’t keep the streak going down to the Browns. Tbh we were horrible – only 148 total yards. Drew Morris got another INT, but that was about the sum of the excitement. But our power rating is now 48 – 25th place.

Week 5 – bye week.

[AlexB]

Week 6: Baltimore (4-2) 38 @ Tennessee (2-3) 9
Rested after the bye, we still get stuffed 37-9 at home by the Ravens. With the score at 27-3 and 2:06 left in the 4th, Coach Freeman belatedly decides to give our back up QB Irv Bilek some playing time: he throws a 43yd TD to Lamont Kelly with his 1st pass in the NFL! After he fails with a 2pt conversion, and the Ravens pick up a quick FG, we get the ball back – Bilek’s sacked next play, is sacked again and fumbles (recovered), then throws a pick that’s returned 22 yds for a Ravens TD – at last he’s not boring!

DT AJ Moore is released by Oakland after being drafted 3.11. Even though our DL leader Danny Faulkner sees AJ come in for interview and warns me he might be a distraction, at 22/46 he’s too good for us to pass up and we ink him, despite him being undersized at 276lb. After a little more thought, Moore’s probably going to work better at end, so we move him there: despite the positive advice from OC Wasiak that he may even be better at end, AJ drops to 18/41, but he’ll still start at RDE, coming out for pass plays.

We also pick up a 6th round FB released by GB in Week 5. As my back up FB Omar Gordon was injured for one more week, we had to wait for him to fully recover so we can release Gordon before getting Dotson.

Week 7: Tennessee (2-4) 20 @ Houston (2-4) 23
Another loss, but a lot closer this time: 23-20 OT to HOU. Drew Morris got his 3rd pick of the season and ran it back 30 yds for a TD. We were run over by Domanick Davis (26-136) and gave up too many big plays: Davis also got 93 yds receiving and Ike Hillard was over 100yds, the Texans got almost 500yds in total. But at the same time we were winning 20-13 when RJ Bronson strained his rotator cuff – Coach Freeman kept him in the game, but we never really moved the ball after this. After losing three on the bounce our power rating is back to 15, but we’re still better than the Vikings’ six!

Bronson is listed as probable with his strained rotator cuff, and he’s not expected to be 100% for the next 4 weeks. As he’s improved to 39/71 from 28/66, I advise Ed Freeman to start Kenyon Hatcher at QB (who’s moved ahead of Irv Bilek) while RJ recovers: we’re not going to the playoffs any time soon so it will be good for Kenyon to get some game time.

Despite losing RJ, our 1st round pick CB JT Rodgers is back to 100%, and Van Kramer (T) and Danny Faulkner (DT) are able to play this week after almost fully recovering from injury.

Week 8 – Pittsburgh (6-2) 44 @ Tennessee (2-5) 7
How did the Hatcher experiment go? 171 total team yards, 4 picks and a 44-7 whupping by the Steelers, that’s how! Ouch! Hatcher did throw one TD and Drew Morris did get another pick, but it was a horror show: we were that poor that one of our inactive players is now on the official injury report through severe anxiety! 2-5 and falling.

Week 9 – Tennessee (2-6) 10 @ Jacksonville (5-4) 37
Steve McNair get’s his revenge on his old team as we’re destroyed yet again. 163 vs. 439 total yards – not great. Hatcher was a lot better, no picks, 1 TD, but we still didn’t move the ball.

[AlexB]

Week 10 – Tennessee (2-7) 21 @ Cincinnati (3-6) 51
Ouch! 14-0 up, Hatcher made his 1st nine passes in a row – then it all goes wrong. 27 unanswered points before we score to make it 21-27: then the second KR TD we given up this year knocked us on our arses and it all went pear-shaped. Lawrence Ferguson lost his perfect kicking season trying a 53 yarder on half time, and Wendell Carmody, our starting OLB dislocated his knee and will be out for the rest of the year.

On a more positive note, we rushed for 185 yards, the first time this year we’ve been over and Ike Henson was 18-96, which is the first time we’ve got close to a 100-yard rusher. But bottom line is we lost again. Carson Palmer threw for 3 TDs, and Chad Johnson snared 10-125 for the Bengals, plus his KR TD.


Week 11 – Tennessee (2-8) 7 @ Indianapolis (5-5) 24
Kenyon Hatcher was knocked out with a separated shoulder in the 3rd quarter, so Irv Bilek got a chance as we’re playing it safe with RJ Bronson at no.3 on the depth chart until he’s recovered fully. Neither QB was terrible, going 20-36 between them. Unfortunately 2 undrafted rookies do not match up well with Peyton Manning: he was 21 of 28 and three TDs; The Edge ran for 124 yards and the Colts were always in control.


Week 12 – Seattle 27 (5-5-1) @ Tennessee (2-9) 14
Another dismal offensive performance, with only 186 total yards, again 349 from the Seahawks. Irv Bilek was 16-37 for 129, with 1 TD and 1 pick: looks like RJ Bronson is the only productive QB we have, so it’s good he’s back next week. Two main positives: our 1st round pick JT Rodgers got his 1st two interceptions (a team record), and Kent Duncan (CB) who I brought in specifically for KRs (even amongst all rookie CBs he’s a poor DB!) got 200 kick return yards, including a 96yd TD.

But for the first time all year we’re out on our own in 32nd in the power rankings with a score of six… Unsurprisingly Vernon Cordell (DE) is still suffering from sever anxiety! I brought back (LT) Leeuwenburg while he was probable with a sprained knee, and he tweaked the injury, which has set him back a couple of weeks.

New England have released their 4th round pick Nicky Franz (DT), and we sign him straight away: at 23/40 he’ll start this year, although as mainly a run-stuffer he’ll rotate out and back in according to down type. To make room for him we lock Cordell in a darkened room without access to cable for the rest of the year.


Week 13 – Tennessee (2-10) 10 @ New York Jets (7-5) 16
For the first time this year we had an advantage in two areas, QB (RJ Bronson is better than Matt Hasselbeck!) and, unbelievably, the OL. However, it makes no difference, even when Santana Moss is ejected after five minutes for kicking one of our guys.

Claude Rodman, our slot receiver picked up in Week 3, has 6-104: our second 100-yard receiving game of the year. Keeping Cordell away from the game works as he fully recovers, but as he’s on IR he can’t help us now.


Week 14 – Tennessee (2-11) 14 @ Arizona (5-8) 31
It was close for 50 minutes, but if you give up 138 yards to Lamar Gordon, and 219 total rushing yards to the Cards, you don’t deserve anything from the game. But the major news is Tom Brady is QB for Arizona!
And we 31st again in the power rankings, above San Diego now,

[AlexB]

Week 15 – Houston (9-5) 24 @ Tennessee (2-12) 13
Domanick Davis gets 156 as we give up 200+ rushing yards for the 2nd consecutive week. Jabar Gaffney backs him up with 5-103, and Gary Walker gets NFL Defensive Player of the week. Van Kramer (RT) will miss the rest of the season with his second injury of the year.


Week 16 – St Louis (9-6) 38 @ Tennessee (2-13) 19
Another ass-kicking, but again it was close until the 4th. We outgained the Rams 352-302, but field position (their average drive start was their own 46) and turnovers cost us. Despite breaking his toe in the 3rd, and getting another hit on it in the 4th, RJ Bronson passed for over 300 yards for the 1st time, but 0 TDs and 3 picks, and Carl Pepper (SE) broke the team receiving yards record with 5-131.

Drew Morris snared his 5th pick of the season, which considering he’s been playing with knee bursitis for half the year isn’t too shabby. Unfortunately the injury has worsened to a sprain, so he’ll sit for the rest of the year, but he’s a good year, rising from 10/31 to 20/40. Even worse, our top pick CB JT Rodgers is out again, with a broken clavicle.

We’re rock bottom of the power rankings again, and injuries are catching up with us: we need another body in the secondary, so we pick up Dwayne Griffis (SS) originally drafted in the 7th round by the Panthers: he has no run-stopping ability so he’s immediately converted to FS. Jon Snyder (WR, dislocated shoulder) is put on IR to create roster space. Nicky Franz has concussion, which means he too will miss the last two games.


Week 17 – Jacksonville 35 @ Tennessee (2-14) 17
Leading 17-14 going into the 4th, but 3 TDs make the game look more one sided than it was. Having said that we conceded more than 200 rushing yards (again) including 135 to Greg Jones on just 15 carries. Omar Russell finished with a nice 8-78, but it’s actually nice just to get through this 1st year!

[AlexB]

End of season summary

As expected, we finish bottom of the power rankings, with a score of 9, but we have avoided the first pick by beating San Diego in week 3.

We were generally poor: offensively we have found a QB to build around in RJ Bronson (28/66 to 45/71), along with a very good FB (McIntyre, 44/72 to 55/72) and C (Nygaard, 23/75 to 48/70).

Defensively our 1st round pick Rodgers (CB) disappointed with only 2 picks, and 4 passes defensed, plus he missed 5 games with two separate injuries. This is reflected in his change being much less that I had hoped for, from 39/84 to 45/82.

Much of this could be down to our DC, who is only fair with young talent: although he is good/very good in other areas, that’s not our priority at the moment – unfortunately he has two further years on his contract.

While we have other players who have developed well, at the moment they are only a back-up standard (at best) to a normal side, but with the playing time they will get here, hopefully they will continue to bloom and become good starters.

Denver win the Front Office Bowl 27-17 against Carolina.

We don’t have any award winners: the offensive rookie of the year was Luke Hardy, a RB taken 19th by Tampa Bay who must have blown way past his projected ratings, while the defensive ROY was Bernie Kirk, an OLB that the Eagles took 30th.

Domanick Davis took the offensive player of the year, not entirely unconnected to the fact that he got nearly 500 total yards against us in two games!

We set a team record for pass attempts per game, Ike Henson’s eight rushing TDs are a new best, and Omar Russell set two benchmarks: 706 receiving yards and 118 targeted passes (he only caught 62 though). Drew Morris’s five picks are a record, as are Lawrence Ferguson’s 21 FGs (he only missed two all year, and was perfect on PATs). I’m pretty chuffed there’s no league worst marks in there tbh!