Potential vs Results

[Skarecrow]

I did take Ozzie, as I didn't really give anything up to get him regarding positions I wanted to draft. I didn't pay that much for him either, all things considered. I could let him go in a trade and it would sting a bit, but not wound me deeply. I've not been happy with him so far, although we've only just finished game 2 of the season, and he is second string behind Willie. He's probably only seen about a total quarter's worth of playing time, so I haven't exactly given him time to develop. I'm going to try to put off the decision on Willie's contract as long as I can without angering him, to see how Ozzie develops this season.

Worst case scenario, I let willie go and rely on ozzie next season until I can see about drafting a killer the draft following that.

question though, what option would i change to alter my OC's playcalling tendencies away from the up-the-gut runs to include more outside runs?

[Mike3207]

I don't have my OC call plays-my suggestion is just go to plays by type and choose from your outside runs. He's also good at catching the ball, so maybe spread or west coast normal.

[Skarecrow]

Already running spread. Last time I moved from spread to WC (with another team), results seemed to actually get worse, but that was a different team with a different lineup. Might be worth seeing what these guys can do.

Reason I've always had the OC call plays is because I grew up on tecmo super bowl and learned that "hail mary bomb is the solution, all day every day" and had no real football knowledge. I've realized that I may finally have enough to start calling offensive plays. I know that I don't have enough to call defensive plays yet, perhaps soon.

[Last_Light]

Quote: Originally Posted by cutter73

I don't use sliders, so I can't help you there, but: Are offensive linemen pass blockers or run blockers? A lot of high rated O-linemen are better at one than the other, so overall rating isn't what you need to look at all the time. All the linemen were marginally better when it came to pass blocking, but still very skilled at run blocking. What kind of run plays do you call? if you call a lot of sweeps or counters, where offensive linemen have to pull out and move to get a block, rating like speed, acceleration and agility factor in big for those. These are also thing you generally don't think to look at with linemen, or are reflected well in overall ratings. Things like sweeps, counter and even outside runs would rarely ever work for me, so I stuck with mostly inside runs. I did do some running out of the single back, but it really didn't seem to be too much better from the I. I had the Onken twins on the inside, so they had the speed to pull off counters and such. Do you stick with it? The running game you have to stick with. You say you have a pass heavy offense, so if you're not getting enough carries, your backs won't have the stats. You' re going to get stuffed, and you're going to get 1 or 2 yard gains, but with enough carries, you'll also get bigger gains and more 3-5 yard runs as well to balance out. I don't tend to stick with the run game too much unless I have the lead. Watching the RB get stuffed or run backwards and miss a wide open hole would just kill me. However he did get 15 to 20 carries a game. Sometimes more, but rarely less. His yards per carry rarely went over 3.8. I will admit though that there were PLENTY of plays where he would have taken it to the house if he didn't put up the damn stiff arm and slow himself down so he could be caught from behind. Playbook knowledge. This causes a lot of trouble when linemen miss blocks or backs hit the wrong holes. If you pass a lot, and don;t run as much, you may have running plays with lower knowledge than you might expect. Also if you change players frequently, it hurts too until they learn the playbooks All plays in my playbook are generally mastered by the third game of the season. So playknowledge was only ever a problem early in the season if I had rookies or newly acquired players starting. Outside of that, coaching skills for the running game for OC, RB and HC work wonders. You may have great coaches, but if you don't have the right skills, it impacts the running game.

My head coach is a defense first coach. But the RB and OC have the running skills. I just think it has something to do with my playbook. I have another career on the side which I don't play as often, but the running game seems to work a lot better for me.

[rdnk]

I had great success with Ozzie Jones when simming. He's one of the few backs I had who could routinely go around 1500 yards a year. Although that may be due to Shanahan's system (this system also gives your #1 WR great numbers when simming), but I didn't have much success with some of the other backs I drafted (although they were mediocre) or traded for (Joker Jones and Jakari Biggs were disappointing).

[Skarecrow]

I designed my first custom play, a sweep running play. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, and it might be a horrible play, but it routinely got between 4 and 12 yards vs several of my different defense plays in testing, with a couple touchdowns. One defense play tore it up almost every time, but all the others would average a first down in slightly less than 2 plays by my math.

I called that play probably 10 or 12 times in this week's game vs the Vikings. It did what it was supposed to at least 70% of the time, which is good enough for me.

I bumped Ozzie over Willie in the depth chart for this week's game vs the Vikings, and he had a pretty decent game. Good enough to win offensive player of the week. Of course, -everybody- had a good game. we beat them 76-0, which I'm pretty sure is the widest margin I've ever personally seen. unfortunately, that was week 5, so I now have Willie asking about a contract... and he's asking a lot too, probably twice as much as Ozzie is earning. I don't know how he thinks he is worth that much, I couldn't get better than a 5th round draft pick when I tried to trade him a week or two earlier. I think I have to let him go and take my chances with just Ozzie until some more well-rounded backs come up.

[Demonolith]

76-0?? dang, how many points did your HC get for that win?

[Skarecrow]

Quote: Originally Posted by Demonolith

76-0?? dang, how many points did your HC get for that win?

not entirely sure since I don't keep track of it, but at least several thousand I'm guessing. I usually buy a skill as soon as I hit 5k points (unless the skill I'm saving for is more), and HC had well over 8k points at the end of that game. Even if I was just under 5k to start, that's still a good deal for one game.

come to think of it, I did buy a lot of coaches skills after that game.

The team did a 65-7 game last postseason as well. It's not normally like that, usually my games have resonable, sane scores. Hell, that 76-0 win only put us at 2-2 for the season... but every once in awhile things just come together. I think the key is facing a team with rookie quarterbacks under a lot of pressure from my zone blitzing. Noah Wyoming threw no less than 4 interceptions that game, possibly as many as 6, and two were run back for TDs.

Also, we were so far ahead so early that I was doing stupid stuff, like going for it on 4th and goal, and every time we made the TD.