Normally, I like to start a franchise with a lower rated team but, this year I decided to go with my favorite team in real life, Green Bay. I have to say that this is the first football game ever that made me care about the preseason. The first couple of weeks were easy decisions but, once you get to Week 3 you have some tough decisions to make. Especially, since those moves haven't been made, in real life yet.
I'd say my toughest cut's where RB Brandon Saine and WR Brett Swain. Saine probably had the best preseason of all of my backs. However, he put up those stats against other 3rd and 4th stringers so, that's kind of how I justified that. With Swain, he was made expendable because of Rookie Wideout's Randall Cobb and Tori Gurley.
As far as position battles RB was the most interesting battle. Grant and Starks both played well however, Starks played a hair better. I had thoughts of putting Grant on the Trading Block and going with Starks, Alex Green and Saine but, in the end I decided against it because if Starks went down, I would've been screwed. My plan going into my first game of the season against New Orleans is to split the carries with Grant and Starks about 60/40.
My first game was at Home versus New Orleans. They jumped out to an early lead behind the arm of Drew Brees and timely forced turnovers by their D. The score at the Half was 27-14 New Orleans. In the Second Half our defense played much better. We scored the first two TD's of the Half to take the 28-27 lead with 8 minutes left in the game. Brees then, connected with Devery Henderson on a 31 yard TD pass with 1:37 left in the game. After a failed Two-point conversion they had a 33-28 lead. Rodgers and company just couldn't put it together on the last drive and ended up turning the ball over on downs.
Started one with New Orleans. Gone pretty well so far now that EA fixed that nasty depth chart glitch! Mark Ingram and Cam Jordan are both in the running for O/DROTY. Really excited about that. Also, in my franchise Aaron Rodgers went down week 3 with a complete ACL tear, out for the year. Packers have been doing not so well since..
Absolutely STOMPED the jets with the ravens. and in the best game of my life, I beat the steelers. 10-7. Was 7-2 after the first minute, stayed that way until the last 30 seconds.
Will be starting one with the Packers soon. Thinking about moving Grant and keeping Saine, and definitely getting rid of Brett Swain (which we did in real life today).
To the original poster: Did you have to download those updated rosters? Also, what did you do at OLB? Keep either of So'oto or Lattimore?
Lions Chise,
Just made it through week 1 DET @ TB, Won 42-17 Matt Stafford threw 250 yards 4 TDs and 2 INTs, Best ran 15 times for 105 yards, and the Lions Defense accounted for 9 Sacks and 5 QB Hurries against Tampa Bays struggling O-Line.
Injuries are M. Leshore (season), Chris Houston (10 weeks)
Scouting (Top 5): Dre Kirkpatick CB Alabama, Manti Te’o ILB Notre Dame, Vontaze Burfcit ILB Arizona State, Quinton Coples DE UNC, Johnathan Martin OT Stanford - (Imported 2012 Class)
Traded Palmer, Cook and my third round pick to the Dolphins for Pouncey and Moore (only took Moore because their roster was full).
Signed UFA Noel Devine to compete with Leonard/Peerman/Finley for the 3rd string back.
Preseason
Finished 1-3 with my sole win over the Lions.
Preseason highlights and news of note
Devine ended up beating out Peerman and Finley and I couldn’t bring myself to cut Devine or Leonard so I went into the season with four backs (Benson, Scott, Leonard and Devine)
Taylor Mays is an absolute beast in run support. He caused three fumbles in four games (love it but the big hitting needs to be toned down a bit). I love watching the HB juke my LB only to be destroyed by Mays. Pass coverage he gets toasted more often than not, but it’s worth keeping him in for his big play potential.
After week 3 the Steelers cut Larry Foote and I picked him up to back up Maualuga.
Something that made me crack up was the Raiders cut Pryor during the week 3 cuts. Apparently the CPU doesn’t approve of Al Daivs’ football logic.
Regular Season
First game of the season I got housed by the Browns. Dalton threw three picks and Hillis ran wild in the fourth quarter. This was a typical Bengal game as I was leading 14-10 at half time and managed to lose 31-14. The spiral started with the opening kickoff of the second half when the return man that I signed (Banks) from free agency showed why he was a free agent when he coughed the ball up on our own 28. After the 15 yard fumble return it only took McCoy one play to find the endzone. After going back and forth for the third quarter Mr. Hillis decided to show up in the fourth. I thought I had done well when he only had around 70 yards and no TDs going into the last quarter, but one quarter was all he needed to impact the game finishing with 2 TDs and 180 yards.
08-28-2011, 03:16 AM
