First, I have to say that Adapative AI is something that competitive football games have needed for a long, long time. There are 11 guys on the field, and they should all be playing based on instinct and experience in combination with the play calling from the player.
User Feedback (Route Usage)
The Adaptive AI that Ian described in his blog appears to only be routed based. I'm curious how the development team will help the user know what routes he has thrown to so he doesn't accidentally fall into the trap of using the same route over and over again?
Play Based vs. Route Based Adaptive AI
The current implementation appears to be based on the routes, instead of the play. I wonder why they don't do it based on both? Give the defense a huge bonus against the 4 to 5 play wonders out there.
User Feedback (Play Usage)
It would be nice if they somehow conveyed the number of times you have called a certain play. I don't know about you guys, but I tend to forget what I have called by the end of the game, and while I could write the plays down, it would be really nice if the game kept track of them for me.
Keep track of every play a team plays on offense. Every time a play is called, it goes from green to yellow shading. Then the next time it's called, it goes from yellow to red shading. The color indicates how well the defense will recognize the play. The defense will get a speed / recognition boost so they can better lock down the play, even though a player might not have called the right defensive play. This would help avoid scenarios where players are able to be effective using a limited set of plays all game long.
They could add a 'cooling' effect based on every quarter or half. I would suggest half, so a team can effectively have no penalty what so ever for calling the same play twice a game.
This is a really bad mockup, and uses APF2K8's graphics, but at least you can get an idea of the defensive awareness bar at the bottom of the play, or you could just shade the entire area a given color.
If nothing else, you could just have a little number in the corner that shows how many times the play has been called. It would just be nice to have something that showed how many times a certain play has been called, and how likely the defense is to pick up on it, with the latter being more important if route based adaptive AI is in play.