My All Rookie Team

[wamitchelljr]

Here's something I have been having some fun with so far. You may want to try it if it sounds fun to you. It took about three or four hours to set up, but I'd say it was worth it to me.

I decided to create a team of all of the top draft picks from the 2007 draft. However, I did not select Jamarcus Russel, Calvin Johnson, or Adrian Peterson. However, I selected the top rookies from every other position.

The first thing I did was randomly create a team and took down the name, college, and hometown for each created player. This was just to create a random list of personas.

Then, I deleted that team.

Then, I went into each of the top rookies on the NFL roster, and edited their names, colleges, and hometowns so that they matched my created list of players. I also changed their numbers. (I had to edit each player twice so that their arms looked normal). This process took about two hours.

The result was a facsimile roster of created players with the pictures and abilities of the top rookies from the NFL 2007 draft, but with different names, backgrounds, colleges, etc.

Then, I created a team, and did a fantasy draft with all of the facsimile players I just edited. I assigned a team name, stadium, uniform, etc.

Then, I went online and downloaded a normal roster, which I loaded.

I started a new franchise and loaded my created team. The result was an NFL franchise with all of the real rookies in it, as well as my created team.

I selected NJ Papi's All Madden Sliders with 10 minute quarters.

Now, while there is a fair amount of talent on my roster, only one player (the Laron Landry imitation) that has an OVR score of 85. Everyone else has 83 or below. The lowest has a 74.

Because Madden 07 for XBOX 360 has a progression system that works on how well your players do at their positions, I am confident my players will not progress too quickly. In fact, they may not progress very much at all.

I played four preseason games, and lost all four.

However, in my season opener, I upset the Denver Broncos 27-15. It was a really fun game.

It will be interesting to see how my franchise goes. In terms of signing my players to contracts, I used a somewhat arbitrary method depending on their OVR scores. It went something like this:

84+ 7 year contract
82-83 6 year contract
80-81 5 year contract
78-79 4 year contract
76-77 3 year contract
74-75 2 year contract
73 or lower 1 year contract

If you're interested, I'll post some notes on how things go. To me, it's kind of a neat concept because its taking raw talent and seeing if you can turn it into a team. The team itself suffers from serious defect such as poor tackling skills (75 TAK is the highest, I believe) and poor awareness (70 AWR is the highest).

[wamitchelljr]

I lost my second game to the Steelers, but in overtime, 16-13.

This is pretty encouraging to me because my team is rated 81 Overall, 80 Offense, 82 Defense, and 81 Special Teams.

There was only one fumble in this game, with three interceptions (1 by Rothelisberger and 2 by me (both my fault)).

Good stuff!

Edit: Oh, and for those interested in watching how injuries go in franchise, my starting left defensive end ("Tre Malone") broke his jaw and will be out for nine weeks.