Let's see - I pick a team that went
0-16 two years ago and I'm going to complain about getting beat? Really?
I fantasy draft a team full of rookies and weak veterans - I go up a team that's got its stuff together. Yeah. I'm going to lose in all likelihood.
Lions vs Saints SHOULD be tough on default settings. If people want to make it so the Lions win 100% of the time - go tweak, put it on rookie, whatever. But the out of the box settings (default All-Pro) should make that battle a VERY hard match up and playing well might not be enough - because you're not the whole team.
I think people forget football is a team sport and just focus on the one guy with the circle under him and how he should be able to win the game by just his own effort, even if the other 52 guys on the roster suck because the user has stick skills or whatever.
YES, PLEASE GOD YES
I DON'T want to win the Super Bowl all the time. I WANT to scrap and claw and have to play nearly flawless to win 13+ games and even then, crap happens, stars make a mistake, etc, and I might lose. I WANT a game like the Ravens had last year where they sucked the first half of the game, came storming back in the 4th against the Vikings...only to miss the FG and lose.
I WANT games where nothing seems to go right and everything is effort. I WANT the game to be a war of attrition of sorts, because the real NFL certainly is (depth, anyone?) I WANT to have to rest my HB and not run him 30 times every game, shattering Larry Johnson's carries in a season record time and time again.
So YES PLEASE GOD YES give me that game that makes me think like a NFL coach, the makes me care about my players, that makes me look at their injury history, that makes me care about how my playbook is set up, not just if they have 99 SPD or I can stick skill my way to 16-0.
Real life dictates where it stops. If I play sucker teams with an elite one - I should have a high chance of winning. If they have a good day and or I suck that day, then I could lose. You know, like what really happens when elite teams play suckers in the NFL.
If real life NFL backs can rush for 5 ypc on average, then that's what the game should be set to. The average rush is 4 - then so be it, average backs should be at that. If I have the Saints, it should be hard to stop me through the air. If I'm the Ravens, my defense should be hard to attack on the ground, but weak against the pass.
If I have Revis - he should be lights out good. He shouldn't struggle in coverage because his SPD is 93 and he's going against a 97 SPD WR who can't run a route to save his life. I couldn't use Ray Rice like in real life because either screens were too good (so I'd just run over them with them) while the running game was ridiculously unrealistic with the "jump off being totally engaged because your hit box got near mine - nevermind that I was totally locked up" tackling by the DL.
That's what realism is about - every player playing to his skills as close to his real life counterpart as possible. However that plays out will determine the outcome of games.
It's not about win percentages - it's about making teams play like their NFL counterparts which will bring in more strategies, varied gameplay, and more things you have to account for instead of all the teams basically playing the same way.