[FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

**Byron Yatch** · 05-06-2012, 03:49 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Gonna start by saying I know you arent using exploits and draft sheets and what not. Also, not trying to criticize you, just giving my personal philosophy when it comes to drafting...

You're first pick was the right one with my bears having no qb whatsoever. You could have gotten 5 others in this draft but Jake english is usually the only qb who will get to 99 potential so why not get him? Personally, I would have traded down twice or 3 times(if possible) and grabbed a guy around 20 just to save money and build up picks to trade up with..

All I gotta say though is leron james is a 5th round pick... Only reason he wouldnt be is if you scouted him which makes other teams scout him(so if you know you want someone, dont over scout or scout them at all).

Still, maybe he gets picked in the 3rd round earliest. Understand, the reason I bring this up is he's gonna ask for a contract thats in the top 5 cost wise for rbs in 4 years. Thats instead of being able to tender him as a 1st and 3rd as an rfa if you draft them between the 3rd and 6th. If no one gives you that, you pay him 2 million(instead of 5 or 6 at least) for another year and work on trading him by week 6 or resigning him for the long haul...

Thats not an exploit, just sound gming and knowing how the business of football works... You dont draft "sleepers" in the first 2 rds, you draft them 3rd-6th to tender them. If you're not gonna trade stars away for draft picks, you at least need to make sure your own draft picks are gonna be good, and get replaced by the cpu if they want to sign your players away from you after 3 seasons...

One last thing, Make sure who you draft(especially on the 2nd day) has a good player comparison. If you see a name you know, that means that player will USUALLY be very good(even with a low potential due to philosophy). Just check to make sure they have the size and physical ability to play their position before you draft them(cant teach height).

Hope it all works out, should be fine in a couple weeks once english knows all the plays. I'll be watching you ruin my favorite team.... I mean run!

**killershrew** · 05-06-2012, 04:20 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated!

**Byron Yatch** · 05-06-2012, 04:40 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

No doubt. And just so you know, keep the injury prone people as long as you can AFFORD them(dont resign of course but let them go in fa if possible instead of trading them away).

Soon enough you're gonna fire your trainer and get a good one if you didnt already when you got on the bears. In order for them(trainers) to improve, you need injury prone people, especially ones that go on ir.

Just dont go building up the stamina skill. You can up recovery if you want but you should be starting on special skills. You need stamina as low as possible(for your trainer) so more injuries will happen. After 3-4 years, you rarely have injuries(at least in my experience) and never get any points for them... Think its due to many fake players being extra durable, especially most sleepers(rds 3-6).

**killershrew** · 05-08-2012, 04:12 AM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Wk 4 @DET W 33-21
Wk 5 @GB L 24-40

W4
We came away with a good win against Detroit although we only scored 1 passing TD (English -> Alford again) and 1 rushing TD (James). Mike Brown scored a pick 6 for our third TD and we added 4 FG´s. We seem to have alot of trouble finishing once we get to the redzone.

W5
In week 5 we had a big rivalry game against Green Bay and the fans demanded a win. Unfortunately we couldn´t provide one. The game was tied 10-10 at halftime before it took off in the second half! We had the lead 17-10 before the mistakes started happening. The score ran away from us with a late pick 6 and a botched 4th and short at our 35th yardline. The good thing to take away from this game was English 3 TD´s (along with 2 picks) and Devin Hesters 185 yards recieving.

For the next game we will be moving Alford up to the second WR spot behind Hester to make more use of Alfords monster athleticism especially in redzone/clutch situations.
Alford: 6´4", SPD 93, ACC 97, AGI 99, JMP 95, ELU 99, SPIN 99, JUKE 93, TGH 91, STA 95

Kareem Hasty has been looking bleak lately and singleton will get the start next week.

**killershrew** · 05-11-2012, 08:02 AM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Let´s forget about the rest of the first season. We continued to do well until game 10. We were 5-5 at that point. Then came the inuries. We lost DT Harris, FS Brown, CB tillman and our best LT. Six games later we finished with a 5-11 record. I should point out though, that 8 of our losses where 1 score or less. The positives was that Alford turned out to have a superhuman ability to get first downs on thrid and long. Working from the slot on something like 3rd&14 he´d often catch an 8 yard pass, make two or three guys miss and take it for a first down or even a TD. He lead our recievers in recieving TD´s from primarily the WR3 spot.

My rating was 4. I was sure I was going to get canned but somehow they decided to let me have another season to prove myself (god knows why).

Offseason:

Coaches:
I didn´t like how my OC ran the offense especially at clutch situations. Partly because of the philosophy. I wasn´t as forgiving as the Chicago board and canned both my OC and the DC I inherited when I came to the Franchise. In their place I signed DC Bob Sardisco and HC Don Hessendorf. I had to give up surprisingly litte. I let the sack whoever they wanted from the staff and that was it. I didn´t have many worthwile coaches afterall. We filled up the coaching rosters with much better coaches. I gave up some control of the team for this but none that i coudlnt live with (mostly minimum roster req and such).

Players:
Alot of players wanted to leave because they were "tired of loosing" and I had to evaluate them first. In the end the only one I actually let go was Lance Briggs because he didn´t perform aswell as Urlacher or Vrabel. Besides, I could use his cap space. This left me with no ROLB´s. I resigned Urlacher but I let DT Harris go as a UFA because he wanted a monster contract and he spent half the season on IR. He was also the only intresting option for franchising but that would have been senslessly expensive.

This left us with some holes to fill. Most pressingly we needed some pressure on the edge. I wanted the best RE/LE available with my first pick (R1P5). Preferably a LE since Tony Bake at RE had a 85 OVR after all. Harris absence at DT needed to be adressed somehow. We also had only one mediocre LG but there was some real good ones in the draft. The void at ROLB had to be filled and

My draftboard locked like this:

Round 1-3:
LE Xavier Cox
DT Riko Kemp
DT Devin Gilbert
LG Trae Harris
[some other LG whose name escapes me]
Best ROLB unless star is available.

Round 5-7:
WR Jeff Murphy
Best DT
CB Torrance Traywick
Best DB

I knew that I would only be able to get one of Cox/Kemp/Gilbert. I thought about trading up to get Trae Harris but decided I could live with my backup pick in the second round if he didn´t make it. In the third round I would take the best ROLB unless some real star was left on the board.

For the final rounds I had my eyes on this WR who compared to Roy Williams. I found him after the regular season scouting of medium school WR´s for the later rounds and I scouted him fully to find that his pot was 95 but his OV only 68 making him a perfect sleeper. I also had my eyes on WR Jordan Baldwin who compared to LeRon McCoy thinking he´d make a good backup. I had signed an 83 OV DT in free agency but I wanted some depth with my second pick in the 5th round. for the final rounds I had found a 59 OV CB, Terrance Traywick, who compared to Ronde Barber. I hadn´t scouted him fully and I didn´t know his pot (actually I still don´t since I´m still in preseason). If he wasn´t still available I´d pick the best CB available.

Draft:
1(5) Xavier Cox LE 6´7"/276/21
2(5) Trae Harris LG 6´3"/315/23
3(5) Domisa Bomani ROLB 6´1"/245/23
5(5) Jeff Murphy WR 5´10"/188/23
5(6) DeMarcus Allan DT 5´11"/296/23
7(5) Torrance Traywick CB 5´10"/192/23

As you can see my plan came together almost too well. Cox slipped to #5. Trae Harris was still there for #37 although the player I had pegged as a backup pick went as #32. Bomani was the best ROLB available in round 3 (75 OV) and the judges are still out on him but he looked good in his first preseason game. DeMarcus Allen is the only pick I´m not fully happy with as he turned out to have a 76 pot nad Traywick is still not fully scouted but the comparison to Ronde Barber is encouraging.

Unsigned FA´s worth noting:
Jordan Baldwin WR 6´0"/206/23
Mason Ottis DT 6´4"/286/23
Jevon Sindle ROLB 6´0"/239/23

When I went to sign the undrafted player I found this ROLB, Jevon Sindle, at the very bottom of the ROLB list who compared to the player I had let go in offseason, Lance Briggs. I signed him as quickly as I could!

Preseason:
We started off against Cleveland at home and I was excited to see how this new batch of players performed. We had changed our philosophy to West Coast Pass Heavy in offseason and boy did we perform. Browns were one of our 3 big losses in reular season last year but we blew them away. 24-0 at half time and 33-7 final. Our WR crew is outstanding with 4 players between OV 86 and 90 and then there´s Jeff Murphy. Let´s not forget we have Jack English to throw to them. On defense Xavier Cox dominance was no surprise but it was hard to imagine beforehand the sight of this 6´7" beast with 97 speed chasing down the QB. On special teams he´s often the first to reach the returner and you can almost see them wet themselves when this rhinocerous of a man comes charging at them, 10 yards ahead of anyone else. Another standout in this game was second half performer Jevon Sindle. In his first 5 plays as backup ROLB he had two tackles for loss, a knocked down pass and hefinished his first defensive drive with a pick on his fifth play. Bomani preformed well in the first half and I seem to have a really pleasant problem to deal with at ROLB, a position I thought would belost to us this year.

**Byron Yatch** · 05-11-2012, 11:06 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Keep sindle as the long term backup for both sides(ROLB & LOLB). Just limit his playing time so he doesnt get too high in overall before you can sign him to a longer contract after the 6th week of the regular season. Use bomani as the starter as you drafed him in the 3rd for the next 3 years then tender him with a high request. When bomani becomes an RFA, you will have the ability to choose if you want to keep him or have him replaced by a 1st and 3rd rd pick while some other team picks up the tab. Sindle will never become a restricted free agent so he is much more valuable as a backup to you.

One other thing, Player comparisons are very important and usually any player compared to a great will be very good. HOWEVER, some of them have major downsides, especially later in the draft. Make sure to check their physical abilities(speed strength etc) and SIZE(height and weight) before you select them. That 5'10 wr may turn out to be amazing, but its gonna be harder for him to excel than a 6'4 or 6'5 guy with a good comparison.

Not saying 5'10 wrs cant be great, just saying you're making Jack english work harder to hit them. Same goes for lbs that are under 6'2, not saying they cant succeed, they can and do, become hall of famers even. But a 6'4 lb is gonna stop a hell of a lot more passes from going over him than a 6'0. Same with a 6'2 cb and 5'10 cb.

Overall though, I liked your draft(especially cox and bomani), even if I know you could have gotten trae harris in the 3rd round.... You're not ruining them after all...

**killershrew** · 05-12-2012, 02:55 AM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

I would have preferred a bigger WR aswell but when I find a 95 pot WR sitting there in the 5th round I don´t care how short he is

Onto the season!

Wk 1 @NYG L 17-31
Wk 2 PHI W 30-13

Wk 1:
We went 3-1 in preseason and had to start the regular season of against last years conference finalists NYG and boy did we get a lesson in football. The 17-31 scoreline is actually flattering since we were down 10-31 with seconds to go when Jeff Murphy made a fantastic one handed catch in the back of the endzone. There´s not much to say other than that they ran us over.

Wk 2:
Jeff Murphy scored his second career TD just 3 plays after his first one although they were in different games. We took early charge of this game and never let it go. Mack Walker and Jeff Murphy, lined up at WR5 and WR4 respectively, combined for 16 catches, 296 yards and 3 TD´s (Walker 11-214-1). Jeff Murhpy has 3 TD´s in his first 2 professional games. Jack English was 24/35 for 368yds and 3 TD´s. In defense Bake and Cox combined for 9 TFL and 4 sacks while Cox also forced a fumble and caught an INT. English got player of the week for the first time!

**Byron Yatch** · 05-12-2012, 08:29 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Dont take losses to teams like the giants, packers, pats, colts, broncos, or bucs that bad man. Their coaching staffs are outrageous, whether it be one of the best head coaches in the game and some weaker coaches(like the broncos) or the colts who have 4 people with ambition and amazing coaches all around.

Everyone wants to win em all every year, but if there any losses worth taking, its against those teams...

**killershrew** · 05-13-2012, 12:26 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Wk 4 @WAS L 35-38
Wk 5 @BUF W 34-19

Wk 4
Against the Redskins we had a good game offensively but a terrible game defensively. We hardly stopped them a singe time. We did take the lead 28-24 following a Cox pick but other than that we were utterly unable to stop Jason Campbell and that lost us the game.

Wk 5
This game was close up until halftime when we were up 20-19 after our oc gave away a safety with 10 seconds to go. In the second half our D dominated them with 3 picks. Initially we had a hard time scoring but it all came together when that same OC called a inside run on 3 & 14 and James ran it in for a 21 yard TD. He had 115yds on the day and it was his second career 100 yard game.

2-2 at the point where we were 3-1 last year. Still this season feels alot more solid. We´ve lost to strong teams so far.

**thedudescrew** · 05-14-2012, 02:08 AM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Looks good so far man! I am excited to continue reading about your franchise. You seem to know what you are doing. Keep it up! I will be following!

**killershrew** · 05-14-2012, 12:39 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Thanks for the support we will need it!

Wk 6 NE L 28-38
Wk 7 DAL L 16-23

Our schedule is pretty tough this year. We had the giants and now New England and then the reigning Superbowl champs Dallas Cowboys. The most annoying about these two games is that we stayed in them pretty far before eventually loosing. Against dallas we even had the lead 13-10 and 16-13 but still lost. Oh well, next week is the start of the division matchups with a game against the Vikings. We should be able to win atleast 4 division games this year.

**Byron Yatch** · 05-14-2012, 03:01 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

Lil advice, against qbs like peyton and brady and even jay cutler if he's on the broncos, you have to gameplan defense twice for them. 1 should be work on rushing the passer or improve blitz plays or blitzing the qb, or blitz their most frequent set(standard, quick or shotgun pass). One of those AND work with dbs or coverage to stop qb or stop the passing game. Can instead go with man zone if the qb isnt really aware(ala cutler), zone if their wrs are faster, man if they're slower. If they're a vertical team(throw 20 yard passes on a frequent basis) work on combo coverage (if you call a quarter defense).
Also, add a couple cover 4 plays if you dont have any to take away most deep plays.

On offense, dont use money plays too much. Diversify your attack once you find a type of play thats working on an opponent. If standard passes are working, on 1st and/or 2nd down call an unlearned standard pass you stole from another team. They wont see it coming and you'll start learning a play you should know is effective. If you're up 21 or more, try to learn screen plays on different downs and distances so you can stop teams from keying in on how you like to call certain situations. Those and fb runs/draw running plays/qbrunning plays if you run that system). If you always run up the middle on 1st down, they start to stop it because they plan to see it.

But as I said last time, those losses arent that bad, great teams with amazing coaches tend to do that to teams still finishing their build... next year you'll kick their *** for some payback.

**killershrew** · 05-15-2012, 03:31 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

We finally had to give up on Ted Washington as the 40-year-old just couldnt stay on the field for a full game. We let him go and looked to the FA´s and where pretty surprised to see Dre Moore waiting around for a contract. Sindle was signed to a 6 year contract aswell along with rookie RT and LT. It looks like 35-yo RT John Tait will be out of a job next year though as negotiations have stalled. Vrabel finally agreed to the lowest wage for 2 years taking a pay cut to stay with us.

Wk 8 MIN W 45-21

Vikings rookie QB Darius Pryor will have nightmares about this one. We knew the key to win was to contain Peterson and then attack Pryor. Time and time again Bomani and Urlacher read the runs correctly and racked up quite a few TFL´s. But what eventually decided this game was the relentlessness of Cox and Moore. Not only did he suffer 5 sacks (Cox 4, Moore 1) but nearly every time he handed the ball of or threw it he´d get flattened anyway. If Cox and Moore didn´t get him from the left Bake got him from the right. Probably our best executed gameplan this far.

**Byron Yatch** · 05-15-2012, 06:27 PM

Re: [FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

I know he was getting injured but if you needed the spot to sign someone else to develop, put the old man(washington) on ir! Do not just release injured players into free agency, unless they've healed already.

I know it seems counter intuitive but you need injury prone players. If you ever want a trainer who can make people as good as new(especially when someone key to your franchise goes down like cox or english), you need injury prone players for the trainer to heal.

Your trainer will not get any points for working on a player until they are healed(capable of playing again). If you get tired of someone getting injured, wait till his contract is up(or if he's tradeable, trade him in the 6th week of the last season on his contract). You will not have that many injury prone players later on and your trainers wont get much better after a couple years because they never have any injuries to work on.

[FRANCHISE] Bad Bad Bears Begin Building

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