This seasons running game

[Mario ADK]

I think we have a good balance between running and passing right now after all those changes. RB have some good games (not always, though - and especially not at Austria) and some poor games. D-lines are balanced in their performance.

Your opinion?

[Paul-London]

I think the balance is pretty good at the moment.  Last weeks rushing was pretty poor though, the only huge game away was by Joe Aska.  The rest had some nightmare games on the road, eg 11 carries for 10 yards etc.  Normally its not that bad so i hope it was just a one off.  Normally for away weeks you should get 45 yards or more from your HB.

Too many pass receptions by RB's however thats probably because of the offensive schemes those teams run.  Nice to see some TE's have some big years.

Few too many sacks i think specially from DE2 or DT2

[Mario ADK]

I think the balance is pretty good at the moment.  Few too many sacks i think specially from DE2 or DT2

Well but you cannot have the best of both worlds: If you eg put in 10 top DL in the draft or reduce OL-ratings the running average will go substantially down again. i think the way it is it is pretty good to watch.

P.s.:
DT2 have less playing time so it is not unusual that they produce fewer sacks. and in many cases the DE2 is slightly worse than the DE1 - so that is not a surprise either.

[Paul-London]

Yeah true but in past seasons a DE2 or DT2 have done very well and had 8 sacks or so. In previous years i've had some excellent sack seasons from all my front 4, i think it was just last year the whole Riders d-line went to the All-FWL game

Ward had 12 sacks, Browning 12, Walters 7 and Solakovic 11.  D-line had 43 sacks !

This year Walters 7, Ward 7, Browning 5 and Solakovic 3. 

Actually not a huge drop off but a chunk of one.  One of the few teams i've seen where the DT2's and DE2's are doing okay actually

Not the best example to use !

[Mario ADK]

but once again:
put in a lot of quality-DL into the draft and all the efforts to establish a decent running game in the FWL are gone. i think we got a good balance right now.

[Andrew-Neutral]

I'd be tempted to put some top-quality defensive backs into the draft, or stop reducing their ratings every season - the rushing stats are good, but every QB seems to play like Joe Montana at present. In the NFL a QB rating of 85.0 is considered to be great, in the FWL, over 110.0 is not uncommon.

[Paul-London]

Yeah i totally agree thats what i was thinking of doing

I dont want it going crazy and every QB throwing double digit ints but i think the leagues needs some new blood at DB

[Mario ADK]

regarding sacks: i think if we reduce Olines AC and AG we might have more sacks. AG/AC of 80+ are common nowadays in the FWL, reducing the chance for the D-liner to get to the QB.

i do not think that the running game would be affected that much as this basically relies on Olines ST, at least in my opinion.

[Marco_Frankfurt]

Sorry but officially AC+ST are important for run blocking and AG+ST for pass blocking

I also would not advise to reduce the OLmen. Just one bad OL can ruin
almost every play. Letting sacks and stops for a loss hapen.

Also take a closer look at the running stats. Often its like
10 rushes for 45 yards, sounds good.
But most of the time its 1 run for 20 yards, 2 for 10 and the remaing 7 runs for a combined 5 yards.
If you take away the one big run the stats will become unrealistic again.

But I also see the problem of the too good QBs.
Here I think we should either better the DBs or maybe decreas directly the QB stats.
Almost all starting QBs are in the 90 with ST, IN, DI.

just some ideas

[Mario ADK]

´can anyone tell me why i spend my 1str ounder for a medocre DB when there obviously will be tons of good ones in the next draft 

[Paul-London]

Thats the way it goes sometimes.  One year you might draft a decent QB only to find out the next year theres 5 decent QB's.

In every draft there is normally a good DB or two and then some average ones.  Yes sadly unlike the NFL we cant really know what great rookies will be until later in the season or after the season.  Normally we dont even talk about what rookies we'll do until after the FWL Bowl and then only the people who are doing the list know.

If you knew in Season 15 there would be an amazing All Pro QB then you might trade some picks now to get a few 1st round picks for Season 15.

Sadly we cant re create 'real life' that much.  Joe could be moaning also as he had the #1 overall pick and went for a DB, if he knew there would be potentially better ones this year he might have traded that.

Your rookie DB Earthwind Moreland is a good player, the other rookie Leftwich was a gamble with his slow AC though

[Niki]

´can anyone tell me why i spend my 1str ounder for a medocre DB when there obviously will be tons of good ones in the next draft 

hm Mario, many GM's pick a DB in round 1 or 2 so you are not the only person.

[Niki]

But I also see the problem of the too good QBs.
Here I think we should either better the DBs or maybe decreas directly the QB stats.
Almost all starting QBs are in the 90 with ST, IN, DI.

I think this problem can be solved by good DB with High SP and IN mainly and next years only QB's with low 80's for ST, IN, DI. That will make the league active for QB trades when we are getting short in QB's with a 100+ rating

[JH-SanAntonio]

One thing I saw mentioned here:

"reductions"

Applying any form of "global" penalty is ineffective, inefficient, and unfair to teams with certain types of players. No offense to anyone, but it's a bit tiring to explain why over and over again. If you don't understand the problems with it, don't do it, and for God's sake stop advocating it.



As far as the overly-good QBs go... people are simply using more conservative offenses, and, quite contrary to what's been said here... the DBs are very good. They are forcing the QBs to throw underneath, which results in high-percentage stats (and few INTs).


That being said, this past draft really was... well.. awful. Heh.


JH

[Paul-London]

Yeah i agree that last seasons draft wasnt good, then again you could say its realistic as not all NFL drafts are as good as each other.  This years 1st round crop isnt brilliant, next year is a year of the quarterback as theres 6 or so players who might go in the first round who are QB's.

Anyway i think this season we should just let the software do what it wants and dont adjust things.  Run things for 4 weeks next season and see what the results are.  If we have no 100 yard rushers, if RB's are averaging all 3.2 yards a carry then perhaps make changes.  We've made a fair few changes the last few seasons so perhaps leave it how it is, obviously the defenses will get far better but we'll see how that affects games next year.

If after Week 4 the results are bad we'll make some changes as i'm not going to spend a lot of my time running a league in which no RB's gain over 100 yards and defenses rule supreme.  Had that problem in some early years of the FWL when i didnt totally realise what was happening.

Its funny though, QB Davey still hasnt thrown an int yet Mexicos Robey Williams is on his way already i think to set the record for ints in a season so things even out a fair bit.  Too many QB's with ratings over 105 though.

This years draft should be a fair bit better, i dont want 8 rookie starters on each team but yeah it'll be better than last season

Thats one bad thing about FWL leagues, you arent sure what the rookie crop will be until late late in the season

[velcro]

In many ways I agree with Jason. The thing is it isn't equitable when the changes are applied. If changes are to be expected, and it should be obvious pre-camp then the changes should be made then and not after - after all its a game correction not an attempt to spring things on people.

I would suggest that if changes are necessary that we need to rewind the season and try again.

And yes last year's draft was poor, but hey thats real life for you. Who said it was fair.

just on Euro 0.02 worth

[Marco_Frankfurt]

Hmm, good point. I would also prefer to have the changes, if any, before the training camp.
However I dont think we should ever re-run a gameday or even a part of the season. This would
create too much problems.

What if you were 3-0 then we start the rerun and you then go 0-3 ?
Or in the rerun your best player is out for theseason after 1 game and so on.

Not only would it create tons of work for Paul, also it would create many complains from the GMs
and also would maybe endanger the statistic database used.

Again i would alos prefer no changes during the season, but if it is necessary to keep the
league in balance then we should do it, but not make any re-runs.

Just my thoughts 

[Niki]

I compared season with this year, I did the avg of each position per skill. I choice season 7 to compare with because we had a normal rushing season as well as a normal QB rating years. Below the avg change per position per skill:

QB: SP +3.6; AC +5.7; AG +3.7; ST +3.3; HA +3.2; EN +6.0; IN +3.3; DI +5.0; total +31.6
RB  SP +2.5; AC +5.7; AG +5.1; ST6.9; HA 3.0; EN +3.7; IN +3.2; DI +1.9; total +31.9
WR SP +2.1 AC +2.8 AG +4.7 ST +6.0 HA +1.3 EN +5.4 IN +3.2 DI +0.6 total +26.1
TE SP +4.3 AC +6.8 AG +6.9 ST +4.6 HA +0.3 EN +5.6 IN +6.8 DI +5.0 total +40.3
OL SP +5.7 AC +9.2 AG +9.5 ST +3.4 HA +1.0 EN +6.9 IN +3.7 DI +2.3 Total +41.7
K SP -/- .2 AC +7.1 AG +6.4 ST +1.2 HA +4.0 EN +5.8 IN +6.2 DI +6.4 total +37.0
P SP +3.5 AC +4.8 AG +4.2 ST +.4 HA -/- 2.0 EN +5.5 IN +7.3 DI +3.9 total +27.7
DL SP +0.6 AC +1.8 AG +4.0 ST -/- 1.3 HA -/-0.9 EN +3.9 IN +1.1 DI +0.8 total +9.8
LB SP +0.3 AC +0.6 AG +1.8  ST -/- 1.4 HA -/-0.7 EN +3.0 IN 4.0 DI 1.2 Total +8.8
DB SP -/-2.7 AC -/-0.2 AG -/-1.1 ST +1.9 HA +0.5 EN +4.1 IN +1.2  DI 2.0 Total +5.7

In total all skills have been increased but the offence skills has been increased 3+ times more then def, def decreased on some key skills per position, I think the yearly down grading of the def is the main reason of the high QB ratings in the FWL of the last years

[Mario ADK]

Well Niki.... almost.

As far as i know this has been done to increase the running-game - which is now working.

but taking a closer look at your stats it is clear to me why passing exploded:
QBs: + 31,6
WRs: + 26,1
TE: + 40,3
==> DBs: + 5,7 (worst improvement)
so that makes clear why DBs really are having a hard time nowadays.... you can say that passing-game "overimproved" due to the changes.....
my wish: instead of improving DBs we should reduce QBs/WRs/TEs. Look at their ratings: way through the roof!!!!!
Plus there should be a fairly good draft for DBs but not a ridicuouls skyscraping one (not 10 Superstars to be drafted, maybe one or two, the rest should be good but not immediate start......)

Regarding the running game i refer to OL/RB vs. DL:
OL: + 41,7
RB: + 31,9
DL: + 9,8
Running game improved and is ok now so there should not be made many changes or a crazy draft on those positions.....

this was my cent for the discussion.....

[Niki]

Well Niki.... almost.

As far as i know this has been done to increase the running-game - which is now working.

but taking a closer look at your stats it is clear to me why passing exploded:
QBs: + 31,6
WRs: + 26,1
TE: + 40,3
==> DBs: + 5,7 (worst improvement)
so that makes clear why DBs really are having a hard time nowadays.... you can say that passing-game "overimproved" due to the changes.....
my wish: instead of improving DBs we should reduce QBs/WRs/TEs. Look at their ratings: way through the roof!!!!!

I almost agree with you, yes QB/WR/TE rates has to be decreased, only question is what is the best way to do via a general decrease (say to 85% of the current skills) or via the draftees, future draftees with lower skills (this can result in interesting trades in the near future, and force people to have young back-up players on the roster)
DB has been increased by SP, AC and AG, this are key skills for them so I think this can be corrected via draftees