FOF9: Tom Landry and the Cowboys, 1960 on

Passacaglia · 01-04-2025, 08:43 PM

I ran into some issues with crashes in my last attempt at this dynasty here but I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game, tried to keep the files in my folders clean, and made some changes that I hope will prevent instability. I had given up on this for a while, but after making these changes and hoping they work, I'm willing to be hurt again.

Feel free to post with questions, comments on what kinds of things you'd like to see, or advice on what to do. I'd definitely love to make this as interactive as possible.

Passacaglia · 01-04-2025, 08:44 PM

THE UNIVERSE

As you can see from the thread title, were starting in 1960. This is the year the Cowboys were created. They were an expansion team created too late to be part of the 1960 NFL Draft, but they did get an expansion draft, and were able to sign Don Meredith and Don Perkins who they had somehow made deals with before the team was even created. They had to give picks to the teams that drafted these players, but we're not going to worry about that.

1960 was also the first year of the American Football League, which seems like another fun time to start a dynasty. We're going to assume more friendly relations between the leagues -- they've agreed to have a Super Bowl starting in 1960, a common draft between both leagues, and unrestricted free agency between the leagues. Basically, it's going to be FOF. The only difference functionally is in scheduling -- the regular seasons for each league will operate independently. The AFL will have 8 teams, and each team will play a home-and-home against the other 7 for 14 games (like they did from 1960-1965). The NFL will have 14 teams, and each team will play a home-and-home against the other 6 teams in their division for 12 games, then 2 more games against teams in the other division (like they did from 1962-1965). The NFL plays all 14 games in 14 weeks, but the AFL takes 15 weeks. Most of the time the AFL starts a week before the NFL does, but 1 out of every 3 seasons, they start the same week, and the AFL ends a week later.

I'm making the schedule more like 1962-1965 because I'm hoping to improve the stability of the files. When Dallas joins in 1960, they were the 13th team. The Minnesota Vikings joined in 1961, and I'm hoping that adding them as a 14th team in 1960 makes the game crash less often. In the testing I've done, I still do get crashes, but they've come much less often, and there have been none of the "keep trying to simulate several times but it still crashes" type. I've gone 4 seasons a few times now, just knowing I need to save after every week. I feel pretty good about it, but no promises.

In 1960, the Cowboys joined the NFL West. When the Vikings joined in 1961, they were put in the West, and the Cowboys were moved to the East, even though Minneapolis is East of Dallas. Somehow, despite multiple realignments, the Cowboys stayed in the East, and by the time of the realignment in 2002, it seemed crazy (at least to me) to take the Cowboys out of a division with their rivals. We're going to use the alignment that was in place from 1961-1965, with the Cowboys in the East and Vikings in the West. That puts them in a division with the Eagles, Giants, Redskins, brings back the St. Louis Cardinals for some 80s and 90s flair, and adds Cleveland and Pittsburgh for some pre-merger vibes. I'm resisting the urge to "fix" things by putting the Baltimore Colts in the NFL East and switching them with the Cardinals or something. The reason I'm using a 1962-1965 schedule instead of 1961-1965 is because in 1961, the NFL had Dallas and Minnesota play each other twice, and I'd rather just have each team play two different teams outside their division. So I chucked that year.

I used nilodor's 1960 historical roster as a base for these. I also looked at the 1961 roster, and added all the Vikings in. Anyone who was not in the 1960 roster file, I added them in, and anyone who was on another team in 1960, I changed their team to the Vikings, so we're saying they joined the Vikings in 1960 instead of 1961. This means guys like Fran Tarkenton start in 1960, but I'm okay with that. I also fixed some issues with players year of entry and experience, I think the file isn't good with players who joined 1960. It's good with birth years (I think), so I just set everyone's year of entry so that they joined when they are 22, and set their experience so it jibes with 1960. I don't know if that affects development and retirement, but it just made sense to do. I also estimate a salary cap of 3.2 million. In nilodor's file, the salaries are designed for a cap of $100M, and the team with the most against the cap was $70M, so I divided all salaries and bonuses by 70 then multiplied by 3.2 to make it work. It looks like the 1960 roster has everyone having contracts for just 1 year, so I just set their contract length equal to their overall rating, so good players will stay on the team longer. Overall rating goes from 1-9, but the max contract length is 5 years.

There are issues with TE, P, and K. For TE, I think the issue is that most players who may be a TE are just called "End" and the file considers them a WR. As a result, there are very few decent TEs in the league. I don't see an easy solution, and I figure this will sort itself out as the league evolves, so I'm not worried about it. For K and P, I'm not sure if I have the most recent version of the files, but the roster doesn't have enough that are ranked highly. I'm going to use this list of the Top 25 Punters, and this list of the Top 45 Kickers to fill in ratings 3-9. I'll ask ChatGPT to give me all the Punters and Kickers who played in the league for 10 years, and I'll make those my 2s.

For logos, I'm going to use the 1977 Helmet Logos made by NawlinsFan. They will lack some historical accuracy in that they won't look like 1977 logos, plus they will have Jets and Chiefs instead of Titans and Texans, but I'm fine with that -- I guess it gives a nod to their potential future. These logos just look so much better than any others that I just want to use them.

Some other changes I haven't mentioned:

I added a wildcard game instead of just division winners. I was a little worried about having three of the eight AFL teams make the playoffs, but it's fine, and we're playing in the NFL anyway. I think it adds a nice touch, giving teams something to play for even if there's a runaway division leader, without giving playoff spots to everyone.

I set the cap to $3.2M, with a plan to increase it 7% each year. It will be janky though. At the beginning, the cap constraints are 0 and 1, so the cap will increase between $0 and $1M for the first few years, and we'll adjust it from there.

Another thing I don't love about the file is how each team stacks up against the cap. Salaries are set so they're in line with a player's talent -- that's fine. My issue is with how that plays out for bad teams. Bad teams end up with over 50% of the cap available, and that seems like too much. I've tried at times to even that out, but I'm not going to here.

One thing I'm noticing is that all those bad teams have so few players signed for 1961, so it seems like even if I did bump their salaries, it wouldn't matter much, since those guys would either be off their teams, or signed to salaries set by the game. And this is a change I'm worried causes more instability somehow.

DALLAS

As I mentioned, Tom Landry is the head coach. From what I see on Pro Football Reference, there's no OC or DC or assistants. So those will be left blank. I made a coaches file with everyone coaching in 1960, and added some coaches who will get jobs over the next 10-15 years as unemployed. The game will just assign some coaches to fill out my staff. Sometimes it chooses real coaches that I've added, sometimes it chooses game-generated coaches.

Young Drachma · 01-05-2025, 04:02 PM

Still haven't pulled the trigger on FOF9 but following maybe this will be the push I need.

Passacaglia · 01-06-2025, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Young Drachma

Still haven't pulled the trigger on FOF9 but following maybe this will be the push I need.

Nice! I'm actually not quite ready to start. I still need to create better Ks and Ps, I'm maybe 1/4 of the way (EDIT: 1/2 way now, feeling good about Punters, just need to do Kickers) through that. After that, I should be good to go. That gives some time for anyone reading this to bring up other idea before I start the official universe, which locks a lot of things.

Passacaglia · 01-06-2025, 11:03 AM

A couple notes:

First, I mentioned RB Don Perkins in my first post. I just wanted to point out that the roster file has him as a FB. I'm going to keep it like that, since Dallas already has a good RB in Joe Childress in the file.

Also, at some point I must have decided to put the Chargers in San Diego, and not in Los Angeles like they were in 1960. I don't know why, I guess I thought it was stupid for the real Chargers to have moved from San Diego to Los Angeles recently, and that it would be fun to keep them in San Diego here.

But that has me wondering whether I should be doing similar things with the Jets/Titans and Texans/Chiefs. If I call these teams the Jets and the Chiefs, I can use the helmet logos I like best and they'll make sense. Also, if I use the Chiefs instead of the Texans, I'll bring the league into another city (and if LA shouldn't have two teams, why should Dallas?). On the other hand, if I keep the Texans, I have a local rival for my Cowboys (although I could still make a good rivalry with the Oilers too). And choosing Titans and Texans gives another way to make the league different from the modern NFL.

Anyone have thoughts? I'm open to any combination of what to do with all three of these franchises.

Passacaglia · 01-08-2025, 06:15 PM

I think I'm going to have another delay -- sorry, I know you are all chomping at the bit for this dynasty!

My first tangent was discovering that pro football reference had a list of top Kickers and Punters based on their Approximate Value stat, so I'm going to use that to fill in any of them that I may have missed. But then I saw that they have similar lists for all positions, and as I've been putting in higher overall ratings for the Kickers and Punters, I've been finding plenty of random guys where I'm thinking "hey that guy shouldn't be a 0, what's up with that?" So I'm going to take some time and see if I can create my own roster file using pro football reference instead of using nilodor's. It may not work and if so, I'll go back to what I have here, but I want to see if I can give it a try.

Passacaglia · 01-09-2025, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

I added a wildcard game instead of just division winners. I was a little worried about having three of the eight AFL teams make the playoffs, but it's fine, and we're playing in the NFL anyway. I think it adds a nice touch, giving teams something to play for even if there's a runaway division leader, without giving playoff spots to everyone.

While we're waiting for the player file, I figured there could be some discussion for anyone following along about this, since it feels like the most controversial thing that I'm least sure about. The NFL didn't add a wild card until the merger in 1970, so there's no historical reason for putting one in here in 1960. To me, it adds a bit more competitive element at every level, where division leaders are battling for the bye week, and 2nd/3rd place teams in both divisions are fighting each other for a wild card spot. On the other hand, in a 2-team playoff, division leaders are still competing to see who gets to be the home team, and IMO the less playoff teams the better. I think a lot of this thought is driven by the Lions and Vikings that's happening now. If it were like this in 1960, the Vikings would miss the playoffs completely, and that feels pretty dumb, so I wanted to fix it.

Thoughts?

01-04-2025, 08:44 PM	#2
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	THE UNIVERSE As you can see from the thread title, were starting in 1960. This is the year the Cowboys were created. They were an expansion team created too late to be part of the 1960 NFL Draft, but they did get an expansion draft, and were able to sign Don Meredith and Don Perkins who they had somehow made deals with before the team was even created. They had to give picks to the teams that drafted these players, but we're not going to worry about that. 1960 was also the first year of the American Football League, which seems like another fun time to start a dynasty. We're going to assume more friendly relations between the leagues -- they've agreed to have a Super Bowl starting in 1960, a common draft between both leagues, and unrestricted free agency between the leagues. Basically, it's going to be FOF. The only difference functionally is in scheduling -- the regular seasons for each league will operate independently. The AFL will have 8 teams, and each team will play a home-and-home against the other 7 for 14 games (like they did from 1960-1965). The NFL will have 14 teams, and each team will play a home-and-home against the other 6 teams in their division for 12 games, then 2 more games against teams in the other division (like they did from 1962-1965). The NFL plays all 14 games in 14 weeks, but the AFL takes 15 weeks. Most of the time the AFL starts a week before the NFL does, but 1 out of every 3 seasons, they start the same week, and the AFL ends a week later. I'm making the schedule more like 1962-1965 because I'm hoping to improve the stability of the files. When Dallas joins in 1960, they were the 13th team. The Minnesota Vikings joined in 1961, and I'm hoping that adding them as a 14th team in 1960 makes the game crash less often. In the testing I've done, I still do get crashes, but they've come much less often, and there have been none of the "keep trying to simulate several times but it still crashes" type. I've gone 4 seasons a few times now, just knowing I need to save after every week. I feel pretty good about it, but no promises. In 1960, the Cowboys joined the NFL West. When the Vikings joined in 1961, they were put in the West, and the Cowboys were moved to the East, even though Minneapolis is East of Dallas. Somehow, despite multiple realignments, the Cowboys stayed in the East, and by the time of the realignment in 2002, it seemed crazy (at least to me) to take the Cowboys out of a division with their rivals. We're going to use the alignment that was in place from 1961-1965, with the Cowboys in the East and Vikings in the West. That puts them in a division with the Eagles, Giants, Redskins, brings back the St. Louis Cardinals for some 80s and 90s flair, and adds Cleveland and Pittsburgh for some pre-merger vibes. I'm resisting the urge to "fix" things by putting the Baltimore Colts in the NFL East and switching them with the Cardinals or something. The reason I'm using a 1962-1965 schedule instead of 1961-1965 is because in 1961, the NFL had Dallas and Minnesota play each other twice, and I'd rather just have each team play two different teams outside their division. So I chucked that year. I used nilodor's 1960 historical roster as a base for these. I also looked at the 1961 roster, and added all the Vikings in. Anyone who was not in the 1960 roster file, I added them in, and anyone who was on another team in 1960, I changed their team to the Vikings, so we're saying they joined the Vikings in 1960 instead of 1961. This means guys like Fran Tarkenton start in 1960, but I'm okay with that. I also fixed some issues with players year of entry and experience, I think the file isn't good with players who joined 1960. It's good with birth years (I think), so I just set everyone's year of entry so that they joined when they are 22, and set their experience so it jibes with 1960. I don't know if that affects development and retirement, but it just made sense to do. I also estimate a salary cap of 3.2 million. In nilodor's file, the salaries are designed for a cap of $100M, and the team with the most against the cap was $70M, so I divided all salaries and bonuses by 70 then multiplied by 3.2 to make it work. It looks like the 1960 roster has everyone having contracts for just 1 year, so I just set their contract length equal to their overall rating, so good players will stay on the team longer. Overall rating goes from 1-9, but the max contract length is 5 years. There are issues with TE, P, and K. For TE, I think the issue is that most players who may be a TE are just called "End" and the file considers them a WR. As a result, there are very few decent TEs in the league. I don't see an easy solution, and I figure this will sort itself out as the league evolves, so I'm not worried about it. For K and P, I'm not sure if I have the most recent version of the files, but the roster doesn't have enough that are ranked highly. I'm going to use this list of the Top 25 Punters, and this list of the Top 45 Kickers to fill in ratings 3-9. I'll ask ChatGPT to give me all the Punters and Kickers who played in the league for 10 years, and I'll make those my 2s. For logos, I'm going to use the 1977 Helmet Logos made by NawlinsFan. They will lack some historical accuracy in that they won't look like 1977 logos, plus they will have Jets and Chiefs instead of Titans and Texans, but I'm fine with that -- I guess it gives a nod to their potential future. These logos just look so much better than any others that I just want to use them. Some other changes I haven't mentioned: I added a wildcard game instead of just division winners. I was a little worried about having three of the eight AFL teams make the playoffs, but it's fine, and we're playing in the NFL anyway. I think it adds a nice touch, giving teams something to play for even if there's a runaway division leader, without giving playoff spots to everyone. I set the cap to $3.2M, with a plan to increase it 7% each year. It will be janky though. At the beginning, the cap constraints are 0 and 1, so the cap will increase between $0 and $1M for the first few years, and we'll adjust it from there. Another thing I don't love about the file is how each team stacks up against the cap. Salaries are set so they're in line with a player's talent -- that's fine. My issue is with how that plays out for bad teams. Bad teams end up with over 50% of the cap available, and that seems like too much. I've tried at times to even that out, but I'm not going to here. One thing I'm noticing is that all those bad teams have so few players signed for 1961, so it seems like even if I did bump their salaries, it wouldn't matter much, since those guys would either be off their teams, or signed to salaries set by the game. And this is a change I'm worried causes more instability somehow. DALLAS As I mentioned, Tom Landry is the head coach. From what I see on Pro Football Reference, there's no OC or DC or assistants. So those will be left blank. I made a coaches file with everyone coaching in 1960, and added some coaches who will get jobs over the next 10-15 years as unemployed. The game will just assign some coaches to fill out my staff. Sometimes it chooses real coaches that I've added, sometimes it chooses game-generated coaches. Last edited by Passacaglia : 01-05-2025 at 11:14 AM.

01-05-2025, 04:02 PM	#3
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Still haven't pulled the trigger on FOF9 but following maybe this will be the push I need. __________________ Current dynasty: Playtesting chaos (Viperball 26) \| OOTP Mod: Managerial Strategy Files \| GM Excel Competitive Balance Tax/Revenue Sharing Calc \| FBCB Mods on Github

01-06-2025, 11:03 AM	#5
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	A couple notes: First, I mentioned RB Don Perkins in my first post. I just wanted to point out that the roster file has him as a FB. I'm going to keep it like that, since Dallas already has a good RB in Joe Childress in the file. Also, at some point I must have decided to put the Chargers in San Diego, and not in Los Angeles like they were in 1960. I don't know why, I guess I thought it was stupid for the real Chargers to have moved from San Diego to Los Angeles recently, and that it would be fun to keep them in San Diego here. But that has me wondering whether I should be doing similar things with the Jets/Titans and Texans/Chiefs. If I call these teams the Jets and the Chiefs, I can use the helmet logos I like best and they'll make sense. Also, if I use the Chiefs instead of the Texans, I'll bring the league into another city (and if LA shouldn't have two teams, why should Dallas?). On the other hand, if I keep the Texans, I have a local rival for my Cowboys (although I could still make a good rivalry with the Oilers too). And choosing Titans and Texans gives another way to make the league different from the modern NFL. Anyone have thoughts? I'm open to any combination of what to do with all three of these franchises. Last edited by Passacaglia : 01-06-2025 at 11:05 AM.

01-08-2025, 06:15 PM	#6
Passacaglia Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Big Ten Country	I think I'm going to have another delay -- sorry, I know you are all chomping at the bit for this dynasty! My first tangent was discovering that pro football reference had a list of top Kickers and Punters based on their Approximate Value stat, so I'm going to use that to fill in any of them that I may have missed. But then I saw that they have similar lists for all positions, and as I've been putting in higher overall ratings for the Kickers and Punters, I've been finding plenty of random guys where I'm thinking "hey that guy shouldn't be a 0, what's up with that?" So I'm going to take some time and see if I can create my own roster file using pro football reference instead of using nilodor's. It may not work and if so, I'll go back to what I have here, but I want to see if I can give it a try.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)