Reggie Bush, Ted Ginn... and FB Pro

[QuikSand]

So, my most recent SPorting News has an article discussing the supposed trend toward using super-fast utility players in football. I'm not sure if it's really some sort of new discovery, but it made for some interesting reading about guys like Bush at USC, Ginn at Ohio State, and a variety of others guys in college and the pros. Discussions include how to "get these guys touches" even if they are not used in the traditional roles of halfback, wide receiver, and the like.


Anyway - it got me thinking about the good old days (and they were truly good days) of the Front Page Sports Football series, and its eventual descendents, FB Pro (with the year attached, through 98). Of course, many of you remember those days -- for some of you, I understand, those days still live on.


Anyway - as I'm reading about these teams trying to use their fleet-footed players in special ways as return men or utlility slotbacks and the like... it very definitely reminded me of my own offense created for FB Pro 96-97-98.

The key guy in my offense was getting one player - not my main halfback (who was plenty important, of course) - but a good player who would not play in a whole lot of plays (endurance and fatigue played a pretty big role in that game), but who could be brought in and make a big impact when used. I dabbled for a long time in using wide receivers in this sort of role, and various running backs - with varying degrees of success.

Eventually, I hit the mother lode. The answer? TIGHT END!

The game, naturally, values a tight end based on the universe of skills that are used for the position -- in FB Pro, you'll recall the eight basic skills included SPeed, ACceleration, AGility, STrength, HAnds, ENdurance, INtelligence, DIscipline. (I think that was the correct order, though I may be wrong - it's been several years) Anyway - for a tight end, the various ratings for several of these wre important -- strength for blocking, hands for receiving, the first three for running patterns, and so forth.

Every few seasons, I noticed there would be a truly fluky guy in the TE draft pool -- a guy who has no meaningful strength, not very good hands (usually), but very good, even freakishly good speed. Rookie tight ends with SP 85, AC 85, and AG 80 -- this kid can fly. And, unlike real life, you can coach speed in that game, so in time, that kid might get up to 97 or 98 speed with strong supporting ratings -- oh boy.

And the best thing? The other teams, seeing that he can't block and maybe can't catch... don't have any interest in this guy. He's yours for a late round draft pick.



I remember getting some of these guys to develop well, and using them in the TE3 slot as a "utility back" with devastating results. My typical TE3 guy would get touches as:

-punt returner (you couldn't return kicks for TDs, but pure speed on punt returns was deadly)
-occasional outside rusher (the outside sweep was the most powerful play in the game, and speed kills)
-occasional fly pattern (use with a timing pattern - have him run under the ball and get behind his man)
-occasional reserve receiver or even tight end after starters get tired, or on audibled plays

And for a typical game (in a competitive league, with automated play calling), my TE3 might register with a stat line along these lines:

5 punt returns - two broken for long gains, one for a TD, total of 160 yards
7 carries for 95 yards, including a 50-yard TD
3 receptions for 65 yards, including a 50-yard TD

Oh, man -- these guys could be game-changers!



Just a pleasant reminiscence... anyone else ever tap the FB Pro gold mine of the pure speed tight end?

[Ksyrup]

I remember having great success with the TE in FPS FB '98, I think it was. He was my go-to guy on almost every 3rd and short. I abused that little 5 yard square out pattern, and the speed TEs I had would make that catch on a consistent basis and 2 or 3 times a game leave the coverage LB in the dust for a 20+ yard gain.

[HomerJSimpson]

There still is nothing on the market that comes close to the enjoyment level of that game.

[johnnyshaka]

Boy, I still remember BEGGING my parents to buy a new computer because our old one couldn't run it. Of course, I didn't tell them anything about the game, the upgrade was for school purposes.

I love a dominant running game so I never took advantage of the speedy TE. Instead, I would always have a real burner for my 2nd or 3rd RB...usually somebody with low endurance or whatever...and I made a couple of my own plays to take advantage of their speed...usually variants of a sweep. I also used to like to split the speedster back out wide with motion and just watch him leave the LB in the dust while the safety would undoubtedly follow my WR who would run a deep in...ah, good times.

[QuikSand]

I always used a bruiser RB as HB2 -- my game plan included about 1/3 plays to him, pounding right between the tackles. HB 1 was the best all-around guy, HB 2 was the inside pounder, and HB 3 would be the speedy guy who was usually being developed to eventually get to HB 1.

But honestly, though there was beauty in running inside... that game was honestly "broken" to the point where any run plays that weren't wide pitchout sweeps were mostly there for novelty effects. The wide run was just too powerful.

[johnnyshaka]

I spent TONS of time trying to create a running gameplan that eliminated the outside stuff because it was just too easy. I did have some decent success with several of my own plays, but nothing like I could get with HB tosses.

Boy, thinking about those days is bringin' a tear to my eye...

[QuikSand]

I created a few inside running plays that worked very well in my single player leagues (against inferior opposition) - but once we had a few friends take teams over (6 human teams in a league of 24) the inside running game just became impossible to sustain - as probably half of our first round picks were on defensive linemen (the critically important players were DEs in FB 97, and DTs in FB 98, as I recall).

[Ben E Lou]

Yup, a properly constructed HB toss was lethal. My favorite one worked this way:

			 T G C G T TE2 					   TE1
 	 WR1 	   	   QB		FB
   
 				 	  HB

Ack! Can't get it to line up quite right, but the point is that the FB is just outside of TE2, the HB is behind the QB, and the WR is out wide to the left as a flanker.

TE1 comes inside and seals the OLB. The FB blocks to the outside. If the defense was in M2M, the corner would come inside with the TE, and just get nailed by the fullback. Quick pitch to the tailback, and he was off and running. Against a 4-3 M2M and run to the wide side of the field, it was a long gain more than half the time. Against a zone, it would usually still go for 8 or 10 yards. The only problem I ran into from time to time was that after a few seasons the tailback would get to have a little too much SP and AC, and he'd get so far away that the pitch wouldn't make it to him. I'd have to adjust the play at that point to have him delay for a count or so before taking off to get the pitch.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I'd have to adjust the play at that point to have him delay for a count or so before taking off to get the pitch.

I remember that.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

The only problem I ran into from time to time was that after a few seasons the tailback would get to have a little too much SP and AC, and he'd get so far away that the pitch wouldn't make it to him. I'd have to adjust the play at that point to have him delay for a count or so before taking off to get the pitch.

I remember having diffrent versions of the same play for the first half and second half for this reason. In the first half, the guy was too fast and would outrun the pitch. By the second half, he'd be tired enought that we'd run th same play without any initial pause.

So much of this has zero to do with actual football - but man was it fun.

I remember every season, getting my training camp, and running the numbers in Excel to back out every player's potential ratings in every area. Great stuff.

[Ben E Lou]

All of my defensive linemen and LB's became studs within a few years, because I gave them 0's in training camp in "Hands," and bumped up other stuff. I just let them knock down passes and my DB's go for INT's.

[QuikSand]

I remember single-purpose training regimens...or ones focusing on only two skills.

I would always draft linebackers who were really good in things like ACceleration and AGility... so I could focus all my LB training on SPeed and STrength. 35% each year, like clockwork. Turned a lot of mediocre-looking starters into studs in a hurry.

It was also interesting to draft very athletic (fast) QBs -- if you train QBs in the passing skills (like most would) anyway, you can turn a guy with 58 ST into a decent passer in about 5 years or so -- if he happens to have 90 SP to boot, now you have a guy who can really play. I'd take late-round fliers on QBs, and develop them into monster running threats - had a 1,000 yard rushing QB once, which was not easy to do in that 12-game schedule.

Oh, memory lane...

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by HomerJSimpson

There still is nothing on the market that comes close to the enjoyment level of that game.

I'm right there with you. It was the TOTAL package and still hasn't been replicated even with today's technology.

I drafted Barry Sanders first (FB Pro 97) and man could he fly down the sidelines. I loved that game.

[Ben E Lou]

I can't rememeber the machine I played it on, I think I played FB Pro 95 on either a 286 or 386, though. The primary problem for me was that I'd play out my team's game for the week (calling plays only, of course), but then it would take somewhere in the 20-30 minute range for it to sim out the rest of the games for the week.

[johnnyshaka]

Stop it you guys...I'm on the friggin' verge of having an emotional outburst over here and I don't want to cry in front of the guys in the office!!!!!1

[Poli]

There are 4 or 5 people from my first league, the SPFL, here at FOFC. Heh, I don't even remember what it stood for.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I can't rememeber the machine I played it on, I think I played FB Pro 95 on either a 286 or 386, though. The primary problem for me was that I'd play out my team's game for the week (calling plays only, of course), but then it would take somewhere in the 20-30 minute range for it to sim out the rest of the games for the week.

Yes, but there were some good times spent just watching the scoreboard graphic as the week's games went on.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I can't rememeber the machine I played it on, I think I played FB Pro 95 on either a 286 or 386, though. The primary problem for me was that I'd play out my team's game for the week (calling plays only, of course), but then it would take somewhere in the 20-30 minute range for it to sim out the rest of the games for the week.

Yeah, that was the handicap. Simulating took way too long.

[cthomer5000]

Am I alone in thinking that Warrick Dunn has largely been used in such a role while in the NFL?

[MizzouRah]

It's still the only sim you can click on a player, select trade offers, and then when the list comes up for AI tradeable players, click on say SP first - sorts, click on HA - sorts by adding SP and HA, click on AC - sorts by SP HA and AC, etc...

I remember if you ran '97 in 1024x768, you could see the pics of players for each team. I also loved the rotating helmets.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

Am I alone in thinking that Warrick Dunn has largely been used in such a role while in the NFL?

Warrick Dunn gets an awful lot of carries between the tackles.

He has similar skills, but I think a better (somewhat recent) NFL comparison might include Eric Metcalf from his years with the Browns. Perhaps Tim Dwight is such a guy, to some degree, as well.

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Warrick Dunn gets an awful lot of carries between the tackles.

He has similar skills, but I think a better (somewhat recent) NFL comparison might include Eric Metcalf from his years with the Browns. Perhaps Tim Dwight is such a guy, to some degree, as well.

OK, I guess I was mentally thinking Dunn in the Alstott/Dunn heyday. He was much less a workhorse then, but i think his skillset is pretty similar to Reggie Bush, although probably at least a step slower.

http://www.pro-football-reference.co...s/DunnWa00.htm

To me if the guy is going to be handling the ball much less than that his value drops significantly. Even the best kick/punt returners only seem to have 3-4 years at their peak, so that value doesn't hold for long.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

It's still the only sim you can click on a player, select trade offers, and then when the list comes up for AI tradeable players, click on say SP first - sorts, click on HA - sorts by adding SP and HA, click on AC - sorts by SP HA and AC, etc...

I have bugged Arlie to no end about doing this in his new game, and he hasn't seemed to understand what I was talking about. It was GREAT to be able to sort by the sum of several categories.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I have bugged Arlie to no end about doing this in his new game, and he hasn't seemed to understand what I was talking about. It was GREAT to be able to sort by the sum of several categories.

No kidding. Sorting was sweet.

[cthomer5000]

Looking at his stats, i came across an amusing side note about Warrick Dunn. He jumped ship at the wrong time in Tampa (they won the Super Bowl his first year in Atlanta), and has now been eliminated by Philly in his last 4 playoff trips (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004). He must hate them.

[KWhit]

I never played FBPro. I was always a baseball sim guy until I played FOF.

But the exploits you guys are describing sound like game-killers to me. Serious question: Why do you all love the game so much even though the game honestly sounds broken in pretty serious ways? It seems like I have heard many of you complain about less serious problems in realism in other games like FOF, NCAA Football, etc.

So what was it about FBPro that made you overlook the obvious issues with it?

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Warrick Dunn gets an awful lot of carries between the tackles.

He has similar skills, but I think a better (somewhat recent) NFL comparison might include Eric Metcalf from his years with the Browns. Perhaps Tim Dwight is such a guy, to some degree, as well.

Dave Meggett & Brian Mitchell?

[KWhit]

Darren Sproles?

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by KWhit

I never played FBPro. I was always a baseball sim guy until I played FOF.

But the exploits you guys are describing sound like game-killers to me. Serious question: Why do you all love the game so much even though the game honestly sounds broken in pretty serious ways? It seems like I have heard many of you complain about less serious problems in realism in other games like FOF, NCAA Football, etc.

So what was it about FBPro that made you overlook the obvious issues with it?

My guess: you'd have to be there. It was the earliest glimpse of what could be.

[QuikSand]

Eric Metcalf's data looks pretty close to what I recall this role looking like:

                +--------------------------+-------------------------+
                 |          Rushing         |        Receiving        |
+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+
| Year  TM |   G |   Att  Yards    Y/A   TD |   Rec  Yards   Y/R   TD |
+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+
| 1989 cle |  16 |   187    633    3.4    6 |    54    397   7.4    4 |
| 1990 cle |  16 |    80    248    3.1    1 |    57    452   7.9    1 |
| 1991 cle |   8 |    30    107    3.6    0 |    29    294  10.1    0 |
| 1992 cle |  16 |    73    301    4.1    1 |    47    614  13.1    5 |
| 1993 cle |  16 |   129    611    4.7    1 |    63    539   8.6    2 |
| 1994 cle |  16 |    93    329    3.5    2 |    47    436   9.3    3 |
| 1995 atl |  16 |    28    133    4.8    1 |   104   1189  11.4    8 |
| 1996 atl |  16 |     3      8    2.7    0 |    54    599  11.1    6 |
| 1997 sdg |  16 |     3     -5   -1.7    0 |    40    576  14.4    2 |
| 1998 ari |  16 |     0      0    0.0    0 |    31    324  10.5    0 |
| 1999 car |  16 |     2     20   10.0    0 |    11    133  12.1    0 |
| 2001 was |  10 |     0      0    0.0    0 |     4     19   4.8    0 |
| 2002 gnb |   1 |     2      7    3.5    0 |     0      0   0.0    0 |
+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+
|  TOTAL   | 179 |   630   2392    3.8   12 |   541   5572  10.3   31 |
+----------+-----+--------------------------+-------------------------+

That 1993 season -- 1,150 total yards from scrimmage, presumably a very good punt returner, and a high effectiveness from a relatively low number of plays (looks like he got about 12 "touches" a game on plays from scrimmage, but was clearly a meaningful impact player for that offense).

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by KWhit

I never played FBPro. I was always a baseball sim guy until I played FOF.

But the exploits you guys are describing sound like game-killers to me. Serious question: Why do you all love the game so much even though the game honestly sounds broken in pretty serious ways? It seems like I have heard many of you complain about less serious problems in realism in other games like FOF, NCAA Football, etc.

So what was it about FBPro that made you overlook the obvious issues with it?

I'll take a stab at this one...

1. Back then, expectations were lower. In 1995, there was no such thing as a sports sim that was remotely realistic, really.
2. It was WAY beyond anything else that was available in terms of the ability to create your own plays, call them, and see them actually run as desired.
3. Ease of interface use. I would like to do the same things I did with FBPro with Madden, but it the interface gets in teh way and makes everything take forever.


Others?

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by KWhit

I never played FBPro. I was always a baseball sim guy until I played FOF.

But the exploits you guys are describing sound like game-killers to me. Serious question: Why do you all love the game so much even though the game honestly sounds broken in pretty serious ways? It seems like I have heard many of you complain about less serious problems in realism in other games like FOF, NCAA Football, etc.

So what was it about FBPro that made you overlook the obvious issues with it?

I never played FBPro, but in general realism does not always equal fun. Tecmo Super Bowl was not realistic in a lot of ways, but most people still rate it as the most fun football video game ever.

I think what people don't like is when something is not realistic, but the lack of realism does not add to the fun. Being able to draft stud players in the 7th round and trade them the next year for first round picks is not realistic, nor does it add to the fun.

It's a delicate balance, but I get the sense that FBPro was fun in the ways that it deviated from reality.

[QuikSand]

And, of course, like any game that is "beatable" you could rein in the shortcomings.

This will surprise nobody, I'm sure, but played a lot of FB 95-96-97-98 solo using a variety of house rules -- and was able to put together some pretty interesting challenges doing so. Just because you can theoretically make absurd trades or engineer absurd plays doesn't mean you have to.

In our semi-multi-player league, we had a rule -- if you created a new play and used it, you got it for one year to yourself. Then, it had to go into the regular playbook for everyone to use if they wished, including the CPU teams. Wasn't a total equalizer, but we made accommodations that kept at least a few CPU teams competitive every year, and kept the human teams from separating too far between the have-alls and have-nearly-alls.

[MizzouRah]

1. Third part support galore - Gelat, Shaun, etc...
2. The game combined graphics and sim into one package.
3. Wayyyyy ahead of it's time and still has some things that have yet to be reproduced into a sports sim.
4. The game was just flat out fun to play. A friend and I would draft teams and then play several seasons.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

2. It was WAY beyond anything else that was available in terms of the ability to create your own plays, call them, and see them actually run as desired.

I don't play any of the console games, or their stepchild ports to the PC market. Does Madden let you do this? With the degree of flexibility that FB 9X let you?

Oh, man-- the time I spent just hammering out defnesive schemes in that game. And then seeing how they worked against the top 15-20 plays in our league's main gameplan -- that was good stuff.

Man... I am getting a *serious* itch for this game again.

[cthomer5000]

I haven't seen anything that replicated stuff like having the back delay, specifying what gaps the o-lineman block, etc.

[General Mike]

Brian Leonard.

[KWhit]

Ok. What you guys are saying makes sense. And when I asked my question, I wasn't really thinking about the time when it was released.

But when people describe running plays that almost always work for big gains, or trying to maximize the touches to get a TE to dominate from a standpoint that is totally unrealistic was surprising given the people in the discussion. I guess I was surprised to see that Skydog, QS, and others thought that was fun given what I know about them from their comments about FOF.

But it sounds like it was a different style of game than what I thought. I had always assumed that FBPro was a statistically solid, realistic game based upon what I have heard in the past. And as albion pointed out, the type of game certainly dictates the level of realism that is expected.

[QuikSand]

Actually, fairly late in the FB 9X timetable, the VPNLF project got underway to try to recast player skills from this game to make the game far more realistic in its outcome. There were, I recall, game file translators that would re-shape your game files -- making the linebackers slower, the DBs weaker, the receivers quicker, and so on and so forth -- all in an effort to try to re-create more NFL-realistic results.

The game was very flexible in many respects, and as noted above - the presence of a while panoply of third party utilities added a whole new dimension.

[sabotai]

This happened in just about every position, not just TE. I remember having FB's that looked like speedy RBs and RBs that looked like FB in the draft. CB-S, OLB-ILB, DT-DE. After every draft, I ended up having to change the position of most of my drafted players.

The problem was the FBPro would give high ratings to attributes that didn't matter, instead of low ratings. So to a TE, Speed, Agility and Acceleration were not as important, so, for some reason, the game would routinely give them a high rating. Just like AC was more important than AG to a DE, and vice versa for DT. You would regularly find DE's with high ST and AG, and DTs with high ST and AC.

Anyway, yes, I took advantage of the speedy TE.

I also remember the VPNFL project. I used it and the game played much better. It fixed a lot of problems with the game.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I don't play any of the console games, or their stepchild ports to the PC market. Does Madden let you do this? With the degree of flexibility that FB 9X let you?

Not even close to the flexability that FBPro gave you.

EDIT: And in the new version of Madden, you can not use custom plays or playbooks in Franchise mode. That makes sense....

[Bee]

I always got pretty reasonable stats from the game, especially when compared to other games at the time (like Madden, Total Control Football, Microleague, etc). Of course, I wasn't too much into designing plays which definitely allowed a user to exploit weaknesses if that's what they wanted to do. I found the series at the time to be head and shoulders above all the competition in everything except graphics. I'm still surprised that no company came along to pick up the game and make a go of it after the disaster of 99. Perhaps Sierra didn't want to risk someone else making it much more successful after their huge failure...

BTW, what happened with the football game that was supposed to be released this month that at one point was being compared to FPS: Football? Maximum Football or something like that?

[wishbone]

I played FBPro 95 for 2 years and only played on half of one game because I could not tear myself away from the play editor. I would go through a draft with the intent of actually playing and then start making plays just to see what would happen with the different personnel. No game before or since (that I know of) has had a play editor that allowed everything that FBPro did.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Bee

I'm still surprised that no company came along to pick up the game and make a go of it after the disaster of 99. Perhaps Sierra didn't want to risk someone else making it much more successful after their huge failure...

Sierra wanted $1 million for the franchise. After what happened with '99, I don't blame any developement company at all for not wanting to touch it (at that price). And that was obviously outside the range for smaller companies who did want it.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Bee

BTW, what happened with the football game that was supposed to be released this month that at one point was being compared to FPS: Football? Maximum Football or something like that?

Teaseware until demonstrated otherwise. Their board still has a prominent post promising a release for December ... of 2004. There's a thread here on it, but nothing there other than speculation, really.

[johnnyshaka]

For me it was the career mode...there was no other game out there at the time that had that. I mean, you had a draft, you had players retire, you had career stats...it was awesome!!!! Up until then, I used to play Tecmo Bowl and keep track of the stats year to year all by hand...but there was no draft and you always had the same players...BORING!!!!

Here's a pretty good summary of what FPS brought to the table:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6130897/p-16.html

[gkb]

I loved this game and spent hours and hours going over drafts, creating plays, playing games, putting my team into Excel, etc. I was a beta tester for the very last incarnation of the game...I don't remember the year, but they cancelled it before release if I remember correctly. Anyway, I don't have much else to add...it's good to see this game is remembered so fondly by a lot of people here...just another reason why I love this forum.

[kenparker23]

I worked with Jim Henley on the aforementioned VPNFL files. It took over a year to finish the files but I can tell you, there is no game before or since that would produce that kind of realistic stats. It had a graphics. With the third party add-on's (Sundby tools, etc.), there is still no game that can touch it IMO.

[mckerney]

Originally Posted by M GO BLUE!!!

Actually, with the QB lined up behind the Guard it looks very much like FbPro'98...

I loved '97...

Well to be fair, SkyDog would always be the Saints.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by mckerney

Well to be fair, SkyDog would always be the Saints.