Draft Scouting Question?

[SpyPirates]

Quote: Originally Posted by roll2tide

Traits as in Fights For Yards, Development, Clutch, etc? I don't think its possible to get those until the player is drafted.

It is possible, but most of them are prohibitively expensive.

[EarthboundMysfit]

I scout by looking at 2-4 choice skills to the letter grade per position, and usually eliminate 75% of players without wasting scouting points on them simply by age, size or player type/scheme.

That leaves me with around 4500-5000 scouting points left over and I use those to scout development, for only the guys in the first two rounds (highest percentage of SS dev players) that I'm interested in.

In my last draft my top 3 picks OVR's were an 80 LE, an 83 WR and an 80 OLB... All three had superstar development! The rest of my draft was mid to upper 70's OVR guys, two of which were fast development.

Not saying my way is best, but it sure beats the popular ITG/PHY way of scouting. That much I AM sure of..

I (re)built the broncos by trading away all their good players for picks, simmed year one(0-16), and rebuilt through the draft. My team was 97 OVR after 4 years, and now in year 10, I have a 99 OVR offense and defense and a 98 OVR team(my special teams is around 90 OVR, which is why my team isn't 99 OVR yet).

[SpyPirates]

Quote: Originally Posted by EarthboundMysfit

I scout by looking at 2-4 choice skills to the letter grade per position, and usually eliminate 75% of players without wasting scouting points on them simply by age, size or player type/scheme. That leaves me with around 4500-5000 scouting points left over and I use those to scout development, for only the guys in the first two rounds (highest percentage of SS dev players) that I'm interested in. In my last draft my top 3 picks OVR's were an 80 LE, an 83 WR and an 80 OLB... All three had superstar development! The rest of my draft was mid to upper 70's OVR guys, two of which were fast development. Not saying my way is best, but it sure beats the popular ITG/PHY way of scouting. That much I AM sure of.. I (re)built the broncos by trading away all their good players for picks, simmed year one(0-16), and rebuilt through the draft. My team was 97 OVR after 4 years, and now in year 10, I have a 99 OVR offense and defense and a 98 OVR team(my special teams is around 90 OVR, which is why my team isn't 99 OVR yet).

Intangible/physical/personality is hands-down the most efficient way to scout. You can only scout ~10 players by scouting dev. It's an absolute waste given the number of bargains in the 3rd-5th rounds.

[CloudFuel]

Quote: Originally Posted by EarthboundMysfit

I scout by looking at 2-4 choice skills to the letter grade per position, and usually eliminate 75% of players without wasting scouting points on them simply by age, size or player type/scheme. That leaves me with around 4500-5000 scouting points left over and I use those to scout development, for only the guys in the first two rounds (highest percentage of SS dev players) that I'm interested in. In my last draft my top 3 picks OVR's were an 80 LE, an 83 WR and an 80 OLB... All three had superstar development! The rest of my draft was mid to upper 70's OVR guys, two of which were fast development. Not saying my way is best, but it sure beats the popular ITG/PHY way of scouting. That much I AM sure of.. I (re)built the broncos by trading away all their good players for picks, simmed year one(0-16), and rebuilt through the draft. My team was 97 OVR after 4 years, and now in year 10, I have a 99 OVR offense and defense and a 98 OVR team(my special teams is around 90 OVR, which is why my team isn't 99 OVR yet).

I like everything about this EXCEPT for the scouting DEV part.

You really do NOT need to do that. Just get rid of the fluff 75% players and focus on the cream of the crop. You can pretty easily tell who is good and who isn't just by scouting a few attributes. Just because a player grades out well doesn't mean they are a higher DEV... and conversely... just because a player has a higher DEV doesn't mean that they will grade out well.

I kid you not, the EA DEVS definitely put some sort of code in the system that creates at least 1 guy per draft who is a SS DEV but is a complete bomb of a player. You would need to put upwards of 200K into some of these players just to make them decent. Not worth it (IMO).

[CloudFuel]

Quote: Originally Posted by SpyPirates

Intangible/physical/personality is hands-down the most efficient way to scout. You can only scout ~10 players by scouting dev. It's an absolute waste given the number of bargains in the 3rd-5th rounds.

Nothing against the I/P/P method or even the I/P method, but I wouldn't call it the most efficient method. I've tried numerous methods and while the I/P/P and I/P methods work really well, you can end up spending more SP than you need to (not using your SP efficiently).

Let me give an example. Say we're looking for our QB of the future and there are 25 draft prospects ranging from 1st round projections to undrafted. With your method, you would spend 25 sp for Intangible, 25 sp for Physical, and 5 sp for personality (or is it 10? I'll give you the lower value for argument's sake). That's a total of 55 SP spent per player. I don't know how far down the list of prospects you would scout, but in my method I scout everyone for a given position (since schemes really don't matter like they should) so, for the fairness of comparing apples to apples I'm going to do the same with your method. 55 SP x 25 players = 1375 SP.

With my method, I would take those same 25 players and only scout THP to start (10 SP x 25 players = 250 SP). Then I would take the players who rated A for THP (usually no more than 60% of the players, but we'll assume 80% just to be overly fair) and scout their SAC/MAC/DAC. I start with DAC since it is the most expensive to upgrade, then work backwards to MAC and SAC. I am only accepting players with B or better at this point. If I find players with B DAC, then I'll scout MAC (looking for B or better), and then finally I"ll scout SAC. You usually don't find many with Bs across the board, but assuming we did you'd only spend 10 SP per attribute for a total of 40 SP on each player you scout fully.

So, taking the 25 players and removing the 20% who had B THP (again being overly fair here) we've spent 250 SP. Then taking the 20 who are left and scouting DAC for B+, we'll spend another 200 SP (10SP x 20 players). We'll say that 60% of them had B for DAC (which is nowhere near the case, but again being overly fair) and then scout MAC. Taking the 12 who had A THP and B DAC, we'll scout MAC (costing 120 SP (10SP x 12 players) and assume that 75% of them have B MAC. Then we'll take those 8 players and scout SAC (costing 80SP (10SP x 8 players) and assume that 75% of them had B or better on SAC. That leaves us with 6 players who had THP (A+), DAC (B+), MAC (B+), & SAC (B+). I rarely find more than 4 in a draft, but to be fair we'll stay at 6. Then I'll scout SPD (10 SP) for all 6 players and keep only those with B or better. Let's say 4 of them come up (again, I never find more than 2 that meet all of this criteria)... you would then have 4 VIABLE candidates to draft. These will all be studs and if you really wanted, you could scout AWR, INJ, PAC and other cheap things to know for sure about the player you are considering.

Adding up the cost you'd have 250 SP spent on THP, 200 SP spent on DAC, 120 SP spent on MAC, 80 SP spent on SAC, and 60 SP spent on SPD. That is a total of 710 SP spent compared to your 1375 for a total savings of 665 SP! With that 665, you could narrow down the players you have even more or just spend it on another position group.

[EarthboundMysfit]

Quote: Originally Posted by SpyPirates

Intangible/physical/personality is hands-down the most efficient way to scout. You can only scout ~10 players by scouting dev. It's an absolute waste given the number of bargains in the 3rd-5th rounds.

Bull....

Hands down my way is 10x more "efficient"..(thx to Cloud Fuel, for expanding and proving my point further, above).. Don't knock it until you've tried it. I've not only tried your way, but I've done research to see where the flaws in that way are, and it's so wasteful it's not even funny.

You spend 25 points for the ITG grade, then you spend 25 for PHY, then you spend 25 more for personality. Grand total of 75 per player. 10 players and you are out 750 points!... 100 players, which is a little over 3 rounds worth of players and you're talking 7500 scouting points. Which is way more than you even get for all season, and you haven't even scouted the last 4 rounds of people or the "undrafteded" guys.

With my way, I unveil one letter grade spending 5-10 points, and already know more for certain than you do with spending 50-75 per player.

Yesterday I did a draft with only 6 picks, my first 3 rounders were all Superstar Dev. Why and how you ask. Because I knew the exact players I was interested in after spending little over 1000 scouting points, which left me 5000+ to use looking at the top guys on my board(guys in round 1-3). I found my top pick, moved on to my 2nd rounder.

First guy I looked at (a 6'6" WR) in the middle of round 2 was SS. I moved on. Had a CB projected early round 4 with "B" strength pinpointed asy round 3 pick. Uncovered his development; Superstar. He came out with 97 speed, 84 strength and as a 79 OVR, oh with SS... (Feel dumb yet? If not, you should. But then again, ignorance IS bliss.)

So, At that point(with the three top SS guys in haul), I still (!!!!!!) HAD 3000 scouting points left over to do WHATEVER(!) with for my remaining picks (rounds 4-7)... So I could have scouted 100 or more guys personality, or still looked at 6 guys, who I already knew we're late rounds studs, development trait(which is nearly pointless as finding a SS Dev in the last 4 rounds is extremely rare, the one [the CB] I found I knew he was SS before even spending the 500 points on him, was only double checking).

I was basically set, knowing my 1st 3 picks were a HB, WR and CB with amazing physical and SS Dev. To boot having still half of my total scouting points left over, for basically NOTHING, since I had already scouted one time through on letter grades.

I think you mis-took me saying, I have 5000 scouting point left over for Dev of the players I want, for I used 5000 point to randomly scout Dev. No, because you're right, that WOULD be wasteful. I scout dev trait, because i scouted so efficiently, I had nowhere else to use those points! I find the guys I want with around 1000-2000 scouting points(round 1-undrafted) then pick out the best to discover their development..

.. And if you think I miss on picks, you're sadly mistaken in that assumption too.. I can remember the last dud I drafted.. My way all but eliminates that possibility..

Believe/trust me, if you're in an online league 90% or more people use the method you speak of, and everybody is going after the same guys. The A/B guys, or the B\B guys!.. And 80% of you will be SOoL(uck), because the guy who picked before you stole your supposeded "stud" that you spent all your scouting points to uncover/pin point.

That doesn't happen to me. I clean up and get the guy I want, without reaching or competition for my pick... & you REALLY THINK your way is either more efficient or better than mine!?!?... HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No way in the universe, friend.

P.S. I was in a 32 team league about 6-8 month ago, and after two seasons of me winning the Super Bowl, with the Cleveland Browns mind you, and cleaning up in the draft, everyone quit because my team (wow the hate messages) was already 95 OVR, with an avg age of about 22-23, and over half my roster had SS Dev.(and i dont use cheese on field, though i'm starting to think my drafting technique is off-field cheese because of how i always "clean up")... You CAN'T really think I missing out by not scouting ITG/PHY/PER!? Lol so loudly!

[rws591]

Maybe it's just me, but the INT/PHY scouting method is lacking. Sure, all of the players that grade well have the potential to be good, but many take some serious devotion to get into a starting role. Likewise, you miss out on many great players. Particularly OL, WR, and QB.

First of all most of the things INT rates are cheap to upgrade: awareness, blocking, route running, catching, etc (now this is not ture for DBs because coverage skills are extremely expensive). I'm not sure what's holding down the PHY rating for these players, but it's imperfect too. For instance, I drafted a C PHY 6'5 233lbs WR with 96 speed, 95 jmp, but mid 80s acc and agi.
--
I drafted two first round OL and sixth round OL in the first year of my post-draft CFM all of which would have gone under the INT/PHY radar. The result? Three 6'6, 90+ strength, 70+spd, 78+ ovrl studs that will anchor my line for years to come.
--
For me it's about finding what you want in a player and scouting that. I want strong, fast OL with at least 70s in blocking stats. I start with SPD/ACC because those are the most likely DQs, then strength, then make sure the blocking skill set is workable.

It's just a more fun to draft this way. Each new franchise you can decide what kind of team and players you want and draft guys that fill those buckets. Maybe in one you have a finesse OL and the next road grinders. Or maybe you get big hitters on defense and the next is speed.

Either way, to me, it's more fun to find guys that fit my system whether or not they become studs. In the long run, guys that max out in the mid 80s may end up even providing more value than a superstar that's prohibitively expensive to hold onto because you can keep average joes on a second contract for less than $16mm.

[Sheba2011]

Personally I only scout prospects that are expected to go in the first 4 rounds (except FB's, kickers and punters) and I only scout key traits like the ones that were listed by Cloud. After the 4th round If someone from my draft board is still there I will draft them, if not I draft randomly. I love it because it gives me a good mix of gems and busts. I wish Madden would hide ratings completely from scouting and make it more realistic but I don't ever see that happening.