Why not move between equivalent positions?

[Wheeler Dealer]

Why not move between equivalent positions?

What are the pro's and con's of moving players between RT-LT, RG-LG or RE-LE, ROLB-LOLB.

[browns_nation]

Because the schemes and what you're looking for in a player matters. in this case. Say, You move a Right tackle to play left tackle it simply comes down to attributes. Your right tackle might be good at what he does but if he doesnt equal or surpass your left tackle in strength, awareness, run/pass blocking, impact blocking, etc then hes going to get beat alot more often than the mauler you got at left tackle already. at least thats how I grade value when considering switching players to a different position.

I run a 3-4 so Im always looking for defensive tackles to convert to defense ends and defensive ends to linebackers, block shed, power move and speed(for linebackers) are the attributes I consider the "must have" when making these changes.

hoped that helped

[Skarecrow]

I do it all the time. Some draft paths lack a lot of depth at certain positions. The english path for instance gives you maybe 4 or 5 good LTs for every good RT you get, so getting a 3rd round LT and moving him to RT might make a lot of sense instead of fighting for the only quality RT (who goes in the first round). Similarly finding a good CB in english is hard, especially outside of the first round, but finding a SS or FS who can convert to good CB are fairly common.

Or maybe there are an equally good number of players at the equivalent positions, but not the year you need one.

or maybe you've already got two stud DTs and your GM invites a diamond-in-the-rough DT to camp for no good reason. you don't want to dump him out to FA and let the other teams have him... are you shallow at LE maybe?

Maybe that high profile LOLB you drafted is a bust at his position, too slow for your scheme, and now he's eating up a big chunk of cap space, and dumping him would be an ugly salary cap penalty. What if you moved him to LE though? What is his potential there? or MLB?

Maybe you picked up a new star HB this year, and that pushes another of your guys down the depth chart to HB position 4. the guy isn't bad, he's just nothing special. Have you tried switching him to FB or TE to see if he's better than the worst guy you've got there? your "least" HB may be a better TE than your worst TE, especially early in a franchise when you've still got the dregs of the original roster. I always carry 3 TEs even though I only use 2, for special teams reasons. same with centers, for fatigue reasons. replacing the #3 guy with someone who might be a 'cast-off' from another position may be worthwhile.

I move people all the time, for all sorts of reasons. The only real con is that it resets their production stat back to 0, which is annoying for people who live and breath stats, but can actually be beneficial in some circumstances.

[shadowman]

I move guys all the time too, especially if it's a player that's been on my team for awhile. I think of it as a loyalty to my players. I would rather move a player to a new position then cut them.

[Wheeler Dealer]

Let's take a simple case. My two best DEs are both LEs. I can just put one as the starter at RE in the depth chart and go about my business or I can move one to RE on the roster. It makes everything look more organized!

There are two things that are obvious when you move a player to a new position, his production goes to zero and sometimes, with older players, their OVL rating changes. It seems that lack of work will cause the rating to fall. Moving the player rubs off some of the "rust". IIRC it can also eliminate some of the gains the player has made.

I'm not sure that the rating change cause by moving a player matters. It seems to move back in the direction of the "earned" rating more quickly than it moved originally. On top of that, I've had a RB lose rating points but continue to perform the same as far as I could tell. Could be just too small a sample I suppose.

So what's the good and bad of moving one of my LEs to RE on the roster vs. just having him start at the opposite position?

[Skarecrow]

there are limits on accumulating production outside of your given position.

I know a lolb isnt going to acculate production as a DT. would he accumulate as rolb? maybe, i'm not sure.

I routinely have something like a lolb as the 3rd depth position on my rolb. hell, the computer teams even do that. i've had the same good MLB (just not quite as much a stud as my #1 mlb) as the 2nd depth slot on all 3 linebacker charts. etc.

no real penalty that i know of.

speaking of which, the drop in ovl you're seeing upon moving a player is, i'm fairly convinced, related to their loss of production. ovl is simply a metric to compare players by, the game doesn't use ovl in any of its calculations during a game. think of ovl as something like a grade point average (GPA). it's the average of all the important stats a player has and the performance the player is capable of. if he has a particularly high production, it will bump up the ovl. erase that production (by changing positions) and it drops back down to a more raw value. you don't see this with every player because there are always some players who perform "over and above".

[skipqtexas]

From my expirence you can move a RT to LT. From what I saw a LG won't be as effective as a RG. I tried putting a star RE in in my 3-4 at LE and it didn't work.

I moved a CB to free safety and he turned out to be better at FS traded him and go a 2nd round pick

I moved a Sean Taylor Cloan FS from usc London Caldwell and he was a topp 3 corner in the league. Was dangerous to throw to got 8 picks. IS even better at Free Safety. HOF at FS or Corner one of the reasons I had the number 1 pass defense fo 3/4 of the year.

you can move some wr's to corner

[Wheeler Dealer]

Quote: Originally Posted by Skarecrow

speaking of which, the drop in ovl you're seeing upon moving a player is, i'm fairly convinced, related to their loss of production. ovl is simply a metric to compare players by, the game doesn't use ovl in any of its calculations during a game. think of ovl as something like a grade point average (GPA). it's the average of all the important stats a player has and the performance the player is capable of. if he has a particularly high production, it will bump up the ovl. erase that production (by changing positions) and it drops back down to a more raw value. you don't see this with every player because there are always some players who perform "over and above".

Here's an example from today. I had a MLB (79/79) (27 years old, 7 years played, helathy) who had been getting good playing time for two years but I was about to cut him. He showed up on the depth chart as a 77 at OLB and my starting ROLB was only a 79. So I moved him and his rating popped up to 81/81 and he snatches a starting job instead of a ticket home.

One game and his rating at OLB has dropped to 80/80. So if the OVL is his "grade" of what he should do (based on all the individual stats) modified by production then he should perform at 81 but because his production is poor for 7 years experience his grade is 80. That makes sense I guess!

Not sure why he gets a lower grade for playing OLB when he's a MLB than when he's an OLB but it seems to be consistent.

I have a HB I drafted in 2008 with one team and now I have him again in 2014 with another team. His ratings started at 68/90 and I had visions of sugar plums for my 6th round steal. His OVL is currently 73/81, about as high as ever but he still does a good job for a backup HB. Doesn't fumble, breaks tackles and grinds out a little over 3 Y/C. And he's healthy and cheap!

A slightly different observation that doesn't quite fit the "grade" model. Many players, it's easiest to see in WR, will have a lower rating midseason than at the beginning or at the end. That implies a seasonal production modification but if you observe a HB over time, particularly one that isn't starting, you can see his rating go down from year to year. Start a franchise in Miami and watch Lorenzo Booker.