"The Rookie QB Conundrum"
Trigger: Drafting a QB in the first couple (probably first or second) rounds
- A situation similar to Carson Palmer, Patrick Mahomes, Daniel Jones, etc. where a player either may not be deemed ready to start right away or a team may be willing to let the player sit for a year to learn and become better.
- One decision could be to let the player sit and be required to play, let’s say, less than 10% of total offensive snaps for the year and the reward could be a large XP dump, DEV increase or a certain number of skill points or some combination of the three. Additional layer to this could be requirement of a "mentor" which would be the equivalent of having an 80 OVR QB on the roster to possibly add a multiplier to the reward.
- Other decision could be to make him the Day 1 starter and this would be more of a long term scenario where his performance is evaluated at the end of the year and if he performs well, he receives a similar (and maybe larger) reward to if you had chosen to not play him. And then if he doesn't perform well, he could have his DEV regress to emulate throwing him to the fire stunting his growth.
- Could really be used for any position but would mainly apply, and be most appropriate for, QB's.
"Fifth-Year Option"
Trigger: Rookie first-rounder entering his fourth season
- A great opportunity to combine scenarios with authenticity and additional roster management. It would be a consistent scenario in that it would pop up nearly every year but each time it would be a different decision on a different kind of player.
- Dialogue could include your GM coming to you asking about picking up a players fifth-year option and be a very basic Yes/No option.
- Picking up a players option could result in a morale boost for the player as well as the offense or defense if he’s established himself as a key player. Also could result in a morale decline for other players at his position as their chance to start or get paid has now gone down.
- Declining a players option could either result in a severe hit to the players morale and thus a ratings decrease that worsens their performance. As mentioned before if the player was established this could negatively affect team morale if the option was declined. Possibly the most interesting effect in my opinion would be actually giving the player a significant morale boost for the season to emulate a player over performing in their contract year but this impact would also come with the caveat that the player would become incredibly hard or impossible to re-sign forcing you to use the franchise tag on him or let him go.
"The Anthony Davis, Marshawn Lynch, Telvin Smith, etc."
Trigger: Random during the offseason. Player below average retirement age comes to you saying that he's going to (or would like to) spend a year away from football.
- Would have to be rare and somewhat contextually appropriate (i.e. a player with very low morale at the end of season). Wouldn’t want Patrick Mahomes taking a year off after a 50 TD season.
- Could create interesting dialogue where you convince him to play but it comes along with a huge morale hit as well as maybe a morale cap of 25 to emulate his heart not being all there.
- On the other side, you're not able to convince him to play and you're suddenly left with an unexpected roster hole and you don't know if he's coming back in Week 10, after the season or not at all forcing you to adapt and make decisions on the fly.
- One other option could be to respect his wishes, it could increase some form of respect from players or something along those lines or in a more basic sense, simply make him more likely to return at the end of the season or at some point during the season.
"New Kid on the Block"
Trigger: Drafted a player in the first three rounds at an established starter (or even possibly role player’s) position.
- An extreme case could have the player potentially being replaced demanding a trade or to be cut and failure to do so would result in a heavy morale hit and, if possible and contextually appropriate, a holdout. Also could result in a player making other players upset due to his negativity which could create additional scenarios (i.e. other players coming to you wanting the player gone)
- A more typical case would result in the player complaining or being frustrated about his spot on the team being in jeopardy and could come with a varying degree of morale drop.
- On the other side of that, for a team player type of personality, it could be a move that motivates the player and actually results in a morale boost for maybe not only him but the player drafted as well.
"Position Battle"
Trigger: Having two players at the top of their position (on the depth chart) within a couple OVR of each other; also could limit this to only involving new additions whether it be through the trade, FA or the draft to avoid the possibility of repeating year-over-year.
Example: If you’re the Dolphins and you have Ryan Fitzpatrick and acquire Josh Rosen it triggers the “position battle” scenario
- Would almost consider this a passive scenario where maybe your coordinator comes to you and makes you aware of the battle but there is no decision making or the decision is strictly who you want to initially start during the preseason with no effect yet. Then after three preseason games, you again get notified and updated with a comparison of stats between the two players in the battle and have to choose who gets the starting job.
- Then based on who you choose, it could have different effects where if you choose the player with worse stats, team morale goes down. If it’s rookie versus veteran and you choose the rookie, veterans morale goes down while if you choose the vet, it goes up. Could also limit any effects to strictly the two players involved where winner gets morale boost, loser takes a hit.
"Return to Glory"
Trigger: Player who retired in previous season for one last season.
- Probably would have to limit this to higher end players and similar to the player taking a year off it would have to be rare but always thought this was a cool part of older Madden's.
- Could have it go a couple different ways, one with the player coming back to your team and maybe if you’re not viewed as a contender based on the previous season, the player comes back asking for a release or trade.
"The Replacement"
Trigger: Backup has good game (or multiple good games) while replacing an injured player
- Similar to position battles above where when the original starter came back you were simply shown an A or B decision with the original starter and his backup along with how his backup performed with the decision being on who continues to be the starter.
- Choosing the original starter resulting in no real effect on him but a potentially adverse effect on the backup who’s been performing well. Same concept could be used for the team as well where team/unit could get upset that you didn’t go with the player performing.
- Choosing the backup which could result in a bump in morale for him now that he gets to be the starter and potentially extremely negative impact for the original starter now that he’s lost his job due to injury. Same kind of team/unit effects could apply here as well.
- Maybe a third option where you decide that you want to get both players involved and then you have a requirement for the rest of the season to get each player 10 touches per game or a certain amount of total snaps that could then lead to one of them being upset if they weren’t achieving. Choosing this option could also result in only the starter being upset or even both of them being upset because they’re essentially seeing both of their roles decrease.
"Team Turmoil"
Trigger: Elite on one side of the ball, terrible on the other side of the ball over the span of several weeks. (i.e. 2018 Jaguars)
- Dialogue here could include one of your coordinators coming to the HC and discussing an uneasiness in the offensive/defensive room and that if things don’t change quickly things could get worse.
- Options could be committing to a certain PPG/YPG total over the next few games. Doesn’t necessarily have to be based around winning the game so much as performing. Meet the requirements and things will “blow over” and the reward will be more so avoiding conflict than actually gaining anything. Don’t meet the requirements and be at risk of a potentially large hit to morale and thus ratings as the unit has given up on the other side of the ball.
- Another option with this is having it be a challenge scenario where you don't get to commit to anything and just have tiered benchmarks along with tiered rewards and penalties. So for the Jaguars example:
Gold: Avg. 30 PPG over next 3 gamesReward: + Offensive Morale + Defensive Morale
Silver: Avg. 25 PPG over next 3 gamesReward: + Defensive Morale
Bronze:Avg. 20 PPG over next 3 gamesReward: Maintains morale; avoids conflict
Failure: Less than 20 PPG over next 3 gamesPenalty: - Defensive Morale
"Cap Casualty"
Trigger: Limited cap and a player on the team with a significantly larger cap savings than potential penalty
- This could be framed as the GM coming to the coach and asking how you feel about a certain player and if you feel like his presence is required or if the team could survive losing him.
- Potential effects could be a morale boost for the player if you decide to keep him or maybe a team based result depending on what type of player he is. If you cut a team leader it could have an adverse effect while if you cut a player that has low morale or isn’t a key contributor it has a positive effect.
"Green With Envy"
Trigger: Teammate or player at same position but on another team gets a big money contract with similar rated player whose contract expires soon on the roster
- This could be handled a couple of ways. One, with a teammate (probably would be best to have the player be on the same side of the ball) signing a significant contract which triggers a scenario where a teammate comes to you asking when he’s going to get his and that he hopes you keep him in mind when it comes contract time.
- Another would be when a similarly rated player from around the league and at the same position signs a contract larger than the one the player currently has. Player then comes to you asking if you saw the contract so-and-so got and again gets into you keeping him in mind come contract time.
- This could create a very “do or die” negotiation scenario with the player where you have to come with a good offer initially or he’ll instantly reject you.
"Target on Your Back"
Trigger: Past mid-season with an undefeated record or coming off a Super Bowl win.
- Opponents would get a significant morale boost heading into game against your/another team that is 8-0 or better or coming off a Super Bowl winning season.
- Emulates that target on your back/#1 spot dynamic where even if the SB winner starts the season slow the next year it’s still a big game for each team and you tend to get that teams best game because they’re the champs.
- Could also expand this dynamic to AFC/NFC champions
- Would likely need to be the type of scenario that has an option to disable.
"Make It or Break It"
Trigger: Player that is on the outside looking in heading into the final preseason game
- It could be framed as the GM coming to you and saying that he hasn’t seen enough of this player to warrant keeping them on the roster and at that point you could either agree or disagree. Agreeing would essentially be cutting him but he would stay on the roster until after the game. Disagreeing would trigger some kind of goal with the player for him to earn his roster spot.
- In addition to this, if you agreed that he should be cut and then he had a nice game in the final preseason game, the GM would follow up and ask if you were sure cutting him would be the right move.
- If you disagreed and the player had a bad game, if eligible, the GM would give you an opportunity to keep the player on the practice squad.
"In Need of a Mentor"
Trigger: Rookie with a decent OVR but Normal DEV gets drafted
- Idea here would be similar to the rookie quarterback one where the player is deemed “not ready” to play or in need of some direction to get the most out of him.
- Would come with the requirement to get or have a player with a certain criteria of attributes (80+ OVR, 80+ AWR/PRC) at his position.
- Again the idea here would be similar to the rookie QB scenario where basically by playing this player less and giving him a year to learn, it could yield potentially huge return in the form of XP, DEV trait upgrade, both or something else.
06-21-2019, 04:19 PM
