Duckett a free agent?

[sportsdude]

I just started a franchise and played my first regular season game as the Chargers (I lost 24-14 to the Texans, but that's beside the point). Anyway, I go check the waiver wire to possibly pick up a WR since Dyson got hurt, and who do I see on the free agent list - why, it's TJ Duckett. At first I was like "hell yeah, I'm going to sign him" and then I wondered why he would be a FA in the first place. Atlanta surely would not just let him go, right? Then I started looking around at other FAs. Darren Howard. Justin Fargas. Vince Wilfork. Tony Fisher. Johnnie Morant. Josh Harris. Mewelde Moore (the list goes on and on but I will stop). Not all of these guys are stars or good players, but nonetheless the one thing they have in common is the fact that the team they are on in real life is likely to keep them there for a while. I know Tice and Co. love Moore so far, and there's no way the Patriots would just say "see ya" to Wilfork. I want to know if this is a problem, and if so, can it be fixed? Or will this keep happening in my franchise?

If this cannot be fixed, I am sorry to say I have to go back to Madden. While I love everything about ESPN, and the gameplay is a little bit better, if there's something like this to ruin franchise mode then I can't continue with it. I'm sorry but I'm a franchise nut and I can't survive without it.

[bkrich83]

That I havent seen yet, however I have only started 1 franchise so I might be missing out. Madden has also had similiar issues in the past, although in Madden it's usually not until the 2nd year, and it's usually high draft picks that the CPU teams can't sign that end up FA's.

I'll try to start some other franchise seasons and see if I can replicate the same issue.

[jordan0386]

im very suspicious of this thread

[sportsdude]

Don't be suspicious, I am not a fanboy of one or the other, just a huge fan of football. There were some other big names that I can't remember, and they weren't rookies either. Also, BK, I know what you're talking about in Madden where the CPU released draft picks they couldn't afford, but this was after the first week of the regular season, and these were solid veteran starters and young up-and-coming players I was seeing. Very odd.

[Heelfan71]

Try turning off (or both) either pre-season or weekly prep. It seems to make things whacky when both are turned on for some reason. I have both turned off (yes I know it does suck to have to do this) and have no trades or no funny stuff like you just mentioned.

[Badgun]

I saw this in my son's franchise. His FA list included Drew Henson and Jason Witten of the Cowboys, both Duce Staley and Jerome Bettis and several other high profile players.

Look closely as there seems to be a reason for all the releases. For one, as bkrich said, during pre-season, teams are allowed to carry more than 54 players, so they sign a bunch of players. Once the season starts, they have to trim back to 54 so a bunch of cuts take place.

The CPU looks at each position and if it has 4 qbs or 6 hbs, it will simply cut the lowest rated. In the Cowboys' case, Drew Henson is rated lower than all 3 of the other qbs even Chad Hutchinson, so off he goes.

The other thing that appears to be happening is that when a player gets injured, his rating drops to around 35 and I suppose the CPU sees an injured Jason Witten rated at 35 and cuts him loose. I noticed that EVERY high profile player that was released was injured.

I think these massive cuts only take place before week 1 if you've played your pre-season. The problem is that just about everyone that got hurt in the pre-season will probably be cut, especially if there is an abundance of players at that position. Dallas has 4 tight ends on the roster so when Witten got hurt and went to a 35, he was the lowest rated. I imagine if Dallas only had 3 tight ends, the CPU may have looked in another more heavily populated area.

To the defense of VC/Sega, there was only one trade in my son's franchise and it was a nobody for a nobody. Most of what I saw was players being signed and lower rated players being released.

I would imagine if you want to avoid it, you could take control of all 32 teams and just play your team's games or you could do like Heelfan suggested and just not play the pre-season.

I'm going to roll the dice and use the pre-season and just hope not a lot of players get hurt.

I know this doesn't fix the problem, but it does kind of explain the logic behind it. The CPU is not stupid, it's just cutting what it sees as the lowest rated players. If VC could set it so the CPU would not release injured players, then all you would see being cut and signed would be scrubs.

Hope this helps explain what's going on.

[Cpre5]

I talked about this in another thread, in the 3rd week of preseason I saw many top guy in the FA.

Cpre5