Agesim

[Volker-Orlando]

I had some weird experiences this year when negotiating trades with
several GMs, which could be summed up with "Young Players Only!"

I offer a 5 year veteran for a 6 year veteran. Reply:
Young Players Only!

I want to trade for a 7 year veteran and offer a better 7 year veteran
from my team. Guess what? 
Young Players Only!

I add a draft pick to my offer... altogether now:
Young Players Only!

... and so on until I lost interest in trading at all this season...

Bottom line: I believe we really should do something about this
growing ageism, otherwise the league becomes unrealistic.  The topic
was already briefly picked up by Paul and Mario, but I think that was
not enough and we should try to actively do something about it. I have
a couple of suggestions we should discuss:

1) Have less good rookies in the draft each year. We should have
   enough so that we have good 1st and 2nd round picks but beyond that
   we should not have that many. This way people might start growing
   there own talent over several seasons rather than just trading for
   it.

2) Have an "incentive scheme" for keeping players in one team for
   their first few years in the league. For example, all 4yr veterans
   that are still with the same team that drafted them get an
   additional Trainings Camp or some values added randomly. 
   [In terms of realism that would reflect the player learning a
   team's playing system.]
   
   I don't know how much additional work that would be to administer,
   but I should think it should be doable with a simple script.

3) Alternatively we could have a penalty scheme, say for players
   traded in the first three years of their career there is a risk
   (i.e., a few are picked on random each season) that they loose a
   few ability points at the end of the season.

And naturally neither incentive nor penalty should be so high as to
stifle trade altogether.

Any opinions?

Volker

[jcompton-Orlando]

I had some weird experiences this year when negotiating trades with
several GMs, which could be summed up with "Young Players Only!"

Exactly. It's like I've said repeatedly: If everybody acts like the most successful GMs (stockpiling young players and draft picks), there will inevitably be basically no trading. Paul has the best of intentions when he tells everyone "Do what the best teams do!" except that if everybody's working to collect exactly the same resources, there will inevitably be scarcity.

1) Have less good rookies in the draft each year. We should have
   enough so that we have good 1st and 2nd round picks but beyond that
   we should not have that many. This way people might start growing
   there own talent over several seasons rather than just trading for
   it.

Except if you do this, then draft picks become a less valuable commodity to trade--and we have less "trading currency" to go around.

2) Have an "incentive scheme" for keeping players in one team for
   their first few years in the league. For example, all 4yr veterans
   that are still with the same team that drafted them get an
   additional Trainings Camp or some values added randomly. 
   [In terms of realism that would reflect the player learning a
   team's playing system.]
   
   I don't know how much additional work that would be to administer,
   but I should think it should be doable with a simple script.

This is an interesting concept, although it could get to be a lot of work for Paul.

Let's say "Players who spend their first four seasons with the same team, no interruptions, no camp exemption lists, etc., get a +3 to all their stats."

Should that player then LOSE that +3 if he is released or traded, since he will have to "learn a new system"? Logically, I'd say yes, but it would be a pain to track and edit that.

3) Alternatively we could have a penalty scheme, say for players
   traded in the first three years of their career there is a risk
   (i.e., a few are picked on random each season) that they loose a
   few ability points at the end of the season.

As someone who drafted TWO negative sleepers last year, may I say that the "you might get a suckier player than you thought" element of chance is not one of the more fun elements of FWL play. (I believe it has its place, but I don't think we should be looking to add more of them.)

And naturally neither incentive nor penalty should be so high as to stifle trade altogether.

Well, I don't think your proposals would actually spur trading--they'd simply make the current equilibrium (where very little is traded unless you're willing to give away tons of value) more palatable. Then again, it could simply turn into another "rich get richer" problem--the best teams can afford to hang on to their rookies for four years while their older players continue playing, whereas weaker teams are more inclined to make changes in an attempt to get something to stick.

Personally, I think the surest way to cure some of what ails the league is the reintroduction of quality free agents. Not at the breakneck pace we had in season 1, but where in crucial weeks there will be a small but measurable number of good, older players entering the league and providing some extra roster support to weaker teams. They also become tradeable currency--meaning crafty GMs who already have winning teams can still benefit, but I think it's a risk worth taking.

[Marco_Frankfurt]

I also would vote for having more aged FAs with skills that make them usefull.
It has shown that back then it did increase the trading.

the other point would be to give true veterans (player 8 seasons or more)
some of the points back they loose with aging and I would say without looking
where they play. So every older player gets more usefull to keep or trade.

This is a lot of work, because its not like the general Defense reductions Paul
does sometimes. These can be done with almost one click. But here Paul
would have to touch every single player that has to be changed. A lot of work !


There is another idea, honestly I say I dont like it as a GM, but I would
have enforced it if I had started my planed league (many years back, when I
still had a lot of time ;-)

Each team AFTER RETIREMENTS has to open all I slots !

So if you have less then 7 retirements you have to send players to the FA pool (or trade them to other teams)
If you have more the 7 retirements then you can fill the roster up to 7 open slots.

How does it help aged players ?

First it helps to generate overall trades. It also makes the league more balanced.

But it also means that you allways can take the risk to sign an older player, after the season
if he retires it almost doesnt matter as you have to open slots anyway.
Also after the draft if there are still open slots, you can sign the veterans FAs and so
fill your roster with some instant help. (maybe making it a part of the draft,
like round 1-4 are rookies, 5-8 are FAs including the remaining rookies)

(by the way in FBPro its like that anyway you have 3 rounds of rookie draft
and then as many rounds of FA draft as you wish, Paul just handles it different)

So by the way draft picks would become more valuable also.

Lets discuss this crazy idea

[Paul-London]

Well its very interesting to see.

I always believe in a firm mix of older and younger players.  To me when i see the FWL Bowl winners thats normally the type of team who wins.

There are some teams who are very young, eg Mexico / Austria.  When i say 'do what the winning teams do' if you look at the rosters of say Montreal and San Antonio and even Frankfurt theres a lot of veterans on those teams. 

To me if a veteran can play then play him.  I'm surprised people are so anti 7 year vets , i mean a season in the FWL is quite a long time, eg 6 months or so so 2 seasons take about 1 year.  So to not trade for some 7 year veterans because they are old is a bit extreme as to me old is 11th year, so 4 seasons worth is 2 years so i wouldnt look that far ahead.

Its a pity there isnt an easy way to add a type of salary cap system but then again that could be very hard to manage.  Like Marco says as well adding points to a range of players would be pretty difficult and time consuming as well and lately i dont have tons of time.

I do like the mix of GM's we have as we do have very active GM's, we do have some quiet GM's, we have GM's obsessed with youth, we have a GM (Andreas, yayy !) who always starts his golden oldies.  I know Jason.H is commited to Michael Bishop so we should see him for a fair while and David with Danny Wuerrfel.

Mario went totally for youth and then seemed a bit surprised when veterans such as Robert Thomas at LB and Alli Abrew did much better than his QB and some of his LB's.

But on the other hand i always find it sad when we have a great 1000 yard WR like Thabiti Davis getting 1000 yards then the next year 3 catches.  Thats not a dig at Marco at all.  I mean to me its great as its like the NFL when you have huge decisions to make, after 2 non winning seasons do i bench Bouman or trade him and start the young guy.  Boumans the Joe Montana to the Surge but is it time to move on ?  Just to me if that was the NFL and some guy had 5 straight 3000 yard seasons all pretty good then it would be a shock if he was benched and went 0 0 0 0 0.0 etc.

A fair few GM's i admit wont go for oldies.  Marco has recently listed Gary Stills, the last 3 seasons hes been brilliant and one of the best LB's in the league.  But i'm sure there isnt a rush to sign him sadly.

As for adding FA's i could try to add some but then its just total pot luck who gets what.  I know we used to do that in the old days loads and at the moment all rosters are made up of rookies or players drafted, there arent many FA's.

So really its a case of just remembering to check the rosters for new FA's, putting in a bid and hope you get them on the Friday.  I dont see how that would make trading happen again ?

We did have quite a poor rookie crop a few seasons back, in a way it was good as you dont want every draft to be the same and the same high quality.

Its a very difficult one.  Perhaps we should set a minimum number of trades that GM's have to make each year ?   Eg a winning team only has to make 3 a season (as obviously their roster is practically complete) and losing teams have to make a minimum of 6 or something.  I mean if you are 4-10 then you have to try and do something to get it right.

Mark Munro is totally doing the right thing this offseason, has made about 4 trades already and is trying to fix his last rated defense which is great to see.

But yeah its very hard, Mexico for example havent traded tons but Joe has been very patient the last few seasons making sure he has a great draft and is nurturing his young talent where it could all suddenly explode in the next season or two as he has the makings of a great team which could dominate for a long time.

Mario has shown that if you are active you can quickly get to the top.  When he took over Austria they were very weak so he didnt have much to trade with but found a way, has a lot of young talent now (i think he should have a few vets) and Austria should be dominant for a while.

But at the end of the day when you look at the really successful teams...

Montreal have 9 players year 8 or more including a fair few starters
Frankfurt have 12 players year 8 or more including a lot of starters
San Antonio have 9 players year 8 or more including starters

Then you see the best teams have a mix of old and young.  So i'm surprised a lot of teams just dont trade for older players.  Yes year 7 or 8 might seem old but they should have 3 or more seasons starting so thats probably a year and a half in the FWL you will have those players.  Thats a long time and people i think are thinking too far ahead.

Look in the NFL at the amount of older QB's or older players.  If a player is successful whether hes year 2 or year 9 then play him.  Dont worry that he wont be around in a few seasons time as thats a long time in the FWL

[Mario ADK]

well, basically every team got the chance to draft 8 young rookie-players so i do not see the problem?

I agree to Volker regarding too many good rookies, but i disagree to the rest.

i am one of those who like youngsters but i gave up a lot of quality for them.  if GMs who didn´t trade as much and missed the right point of time to have a non-overaged team NOW start to scream for "quality FAs" that is nothing but ridiculous.

i would like to have more "old" FAs, yes. But in no way they should be something like immediate starters or potential all-pros. But we DO have "old quality FAs" i guess. I had Abrew start at QB. Why didn´t anyone else pick him first?

Why would a GM trade his heart out to build a quality when he sees that he just needs to wait until "quality FAs" are to be picked "for free"?.

Bullshit.

[Paul-London]

I do get your point Mario.  I mean Austria like i said before are a good example, they were a very weak team with not much talent to trade away, just draft picks and some bundles of players.  You did some good trades bundling some poor players together but you also struck some very fair deals as well.

I agree that for teams to build they have to trade.  Yes i know a lot of people are trying to trade so we do need to ask people to be open to trades and dont ignore emails etc as thats one problem we have from time to time.

But if you look at the winning teams in the FWL they are also some of the most active.  Marco is always active, David hasnt made a ton of trades lately but thats because he made many more before, eg getting a new DT, new HB and other players. 

Mark is doing excellent right now as he has a pretty poor side but hes doing something now to address that with a lot of trades.  Not saying all these will come off but its better than sitting on another 4-10 season. 

But Mario does have a good point.  QB Alli Abrew did very well with Austria, not saying he will throw 3 td's on his first start for every team, Abrew was helped by being on a very strong Austria side, put him on a weak side and he might not do as well but either way there are a few decent veterans out there on the list who could help some of the weaker teams.

I'm shocked Shedrick Bonner didnt get a call from anyone, very good skills, a veteran and quite old but if your QB is putting up some bad numbers hes a great quick fix.

[Marco_Frankfurt]

I can live with the FWL the way it is now.

Paul, especially I like that you had the FAs from last season returning. Like Mario said with that we dont need additional FAs inserted. However usually we had all former FAs retiring ! Then we would need new FAs from time to time.

Still there are too many GMs only looking for age at the moment and the value of veteran players is normally
very low. I mean look at Joe Aska ! what he did the last 3 seasons ! I am sure nobody would trade for him
and definitely not for lets say a 1st round pick.

In the NFL you would certainly get that much or more for a player with similar success.
So I understand that Volker and others are frustrated by this obsession with youth.

[Paul-London]

Well to be honest i dont know why it was different the last few seasons, before when i clicked on 'start new season' all the older players on the FA list retired, now they seem to stay on which is good (dont know why its different !).

Anyway Marco you cant talk benching classic vets like Jon Carter II and Thabiti Davis ! 

Just perhaps the talent level we had was too high so nearly all teams out there werent bothered by Thabiti Davis being a FA as they were already happy with their WR's.

But yeah Joe Aska is a big surprise to me, his last few seasons have been incredible.  But i know its only a game but to me i always try to play it like its the NFL.  When Jerry Rice was a FA i must admit he only had interest from Detroit/Seattle/Oakland.  When Oakland signed him people laughed but when they had a huge year out of Rice they all then went silent !

Its just a pity theres not an easy way to make the retirement age about 12 or 13 years which would make it realistic.  Saying that we cant do it now as then so many career records would be broken because of this new change.

Anyway i think with trades you will get rejections and every now and then you'll get lucky as Mark has shown with a lot of trades processed lately.  Its a bit like drinking on a friday night looking for a girl, you might get a lot of rejections but you might get some very good 'yeses' as well ! 

[jcompton-Orlando]

Each team AFTER RETIREMENTS has to open all I slots !

So if you have less then 7 retirements you have to send players to the FA pool (or trade them to other teams)
If you have more the 7 retirements then you can fill the roster up to 7 open slots.

So a sort of mini-dispersal draft. Yes, I could support "team rosters must be cut to 45 before the draft, one way or another."

First it helps to generate overall trades. It also makes the league more balanced.

It wouldn't generate THAT many trades, because remember, most of us would end up cutting players to meet the ceiling, but yes, it would generate more player movement.

So really its a case of just remembering to check the rosters for new FA's, putting in a bid and hope you get them on the Friday.  I dont see how that would make trading happen again ?

Because as teams pick up value in free agency, they're better able to trade away, too. It emboldens you to make deals, rather than to clutch to what you have for dear life in the hope of winning 8 or 9 games. (unless you're part of the league elite.)

Its a very difficult one.  Perhaps we should set a minimum number of trades that GM's have to make each year ?   Eg a winning team only has to make 3 a season (as obviously their roster is practically complete) and losing teams have to make a minimum of 6 or something.  I mean if you are 4-10 then you have to try and do something to get it right.

I categorically reject this, PARTICULARLY the way you suggest it. It allows the best teams to sit back and cherry-pick deals, knowing that the worst teams are FORCED to accept their offers! No way.

Mark Munro is totally doing the right thing this offseason, has made about 4 trades already and is trying to fix his last rated defense which is great to see.

Levi made a lot of trades, too.

Mario has shown that if you are active you can quickly get to the top.

Levi made a lot of trades, too.

But if you look at the winning teams in the FWL they are also some of the most active.  Marco is always active, David hasnt made a ton of trades lately but thats because he made many more before, eg getting a new DT, new HB and other players. 

Levi made a lot of trades, too.

Mark is doing excellent right now as he has a pretty poor side but hes doing something now to address that with a lot of trades.  Not saying all these will come off but its better than sitting on another 4-10 season. 

Levi made a lot of trades, too. Quantity is no indicator whatsoever of quality.

I can live with the FWL the way it is now.

"League running just fine," says back-to-back champion and league wins leader.

[Paul-London]

Ha ha nice comments

I know Levi made a lot of trades but a lot of his were an all star HB for a packet of crisps sort of thing.

Mark cant win !  After a poor Raleigh season hes making some good trades which should strengthen his team. Granted it doesnt mean if you trade 20 times you'll be winning (look at Levi as you say) yet on the other hand after becoming the team with the worst record i'm personally happy to see Raleigh trading.  If he doesnt trade then people might not think thats good considering Raleighs record, he does trade and people think he might be Levi Ramsey #2 !

Mark had a great draft last year, this year hes made some good end of season trades, if he has another decent draft i think Raleigh could start moving.  Either way doing nothing wont help his team.

But yeah youre right about a potential idea about trades, eg forcing people to trade.  If they have to make a trade to make their numbers they could just trade any idiot to a friend anyway so that wouldnt really work.

One of the main reasons i'm not so keen on adding veterans it that now every single player who is in the FWL has been drafted and has a full career.  Be a shame if a big name HB joins the league as a FA and would essentially be an 8th year pro etc.

Funny comment about Marco at the end though !

But i do think teams still have to look at Montreal/Frankfurts rosters and try to get some ideas.  Eg when Marco had David Ward / Jim Kubiak, both QB's actually were decent but both flopped that year.  Luckily for Marco he had made a trade earlier with Paris which turned out to be the #1 overall pick and got Davey.

But many teams have a QB who starts for 4 or so seasons and never makes the playoffs.  I think with any FWL team if you dont make the playoffs for a few seasons under a QB you should really try something different or make changes.  When David first came to the league he made a lot of good trades, some were because of the Austrian GM disaster but hes made a lot of very good ones and the last few seasons picked up HB Corey Walker and DT Paul Spicer.  Anyone of us could have made the same trade if we had the same draft picks etc.

Its a pity more GM's dont use the forums more as it would be good to have a 'marketplace' with GM's saying who they are offering or who they are after which might make trades much easier.  I've tried to do trades in the past and nothing then i'm slapping my head in frustration as i then see the same GM make a trade with someone else which in my minds would be a bargain and i would have said yes to that one straight away !

If we had a list eg... these players are available for trade or 'Sacramento are looking for a CB , 5-8 years experience' etc.  Then it might make trading better as teams know directly what i want instead of offering me a potential trade i dont even need or want.

What i found fascinating myself was seeing Mario take over a weak side and get them back to the playoffs, i'm sure deep down David/Marco are bored with winning seasons and want to start rebuilding a weaker side eh ? ! 

[Paul-London]

The 'mini-dispersal' draft is very interesting though and something i would like to do perhaps.

Reminds me of the old Plan B free agency in the NFL before normal free agency

Eg after every season people have to put forward 7 players onto the Plan B list.  Then people can sign 7 players and its a bit like a lottery, if i want player b first and you want him 2nd on your list then i would get him.  If two people want him first then its a roll of the dice, a bit like how free agency works in the FWL when all teams are 0-0.

We would have to make sure though that people wouldnt abuse this, eg sign some idiots before the deadline and then offer them.  Reminds me of the Tampa Bay Bucs always signing 7 scrubs and sending them to NFLE one day before the deadline.

Anyway we would mostly have to agree on something like this, might make the league a little bit more easier for teams as many stronger teams wont have so much depth etc.  Interesting though

[jcompton-Orlando]

Either way doing nothing wont help his team.

That's actually not true, for the precise reason WHY everyone wants young players--they improve more in training camp than older players.

A team of all first-year players has a better chance of improving, the GM doing nothing, than a team of all 10th-year players.

I haven't done an exact count but I'd wager that most of my starters are players I drafted and developed. And only the most consistently outrageous random number generation in the brief history of our millennium kept me from doing better with them once they finally reached a point where they were competitive.

One of the main reasons i'm not so keen on adding veterans it that now every single player who is in the FWL has been drafted and has a full career.  Be a shame if a big name HB joins the league as a FA and would essentially be an 8th year pro etc.

But, again, the problem is that these well-developed players are often already in place. If you're (let's say) the Skyhawks and you need to acquire a good player, your only real currency is your draft picks--the very thing you need to be successful in the long run, which is precisely why when Mario's going talent-hunting, the first thing he does is collect all of the first-day picks of the weak, high-drafting teams!

Eg after every season people have to put forward 7 players onto the Plan B list.  Then people can sign 7 players and its a bit like a lottery, if i want player b first and you want him 2nd on your list then i would get him.  If two people want him first then its a roll of the dice, a bit like how free agency works in the FWL when all teams are 0-0.

We would have to make sure though that people wouldnt abuse this, eg sign some idiots before the deadline and then offer them.  Reminds me of the Tampa Bay Bucs always signing 7 scrubs and sending them to NFLE one day before the deadline.

That can easily be avoided. Rather than require "You must put 7 players on the list," the roster size would be the requirement--45 as I suggested, or whatever.

That way, if a team is socked with 10 retirements, they don't have to put anybody up for dispersal/Plan B/whatever, so there's no risk of them just signing a bunch of free agents they wouldn't want to keep anyway.

OTOH, if a team gets no retirements whatsoever, they'll still have to make some tough choices about who to keep and who to let go.

What i found fascinating myself was seeing Mario take over a weak side and get them back to the playoffs, i'm sure deep down David/Marco are bored with winning seasons and want to start rebuilding a weaker side eh ? ! 

Oh, yeah, I'm sure.

[Niki]

hm I am more or less okay with things go as they go! the only suggestion I think I will add is additional picks (between round 4 and 5) for teams that have bene actve in trading (shoudl be the weak teams) and for teams that lost rookies (by age and then by round pick)  that are younger then 4 years and are still with the same team as they are drafted!

But in general I agree that we have to many good draftees. Look at the QB position, when a QB is 4 year old and has okay skills he is old, same goes for WR and Oliners on the other side we have to slow DB's and not many quality TE's (under rated position in the FWL)

[Mario ADK]

stop it here.

Kreiner just traded for a 8yr-starting RB.

And if Kreiner goes for aging players, everyone else can do as well. AGE IS GOOD.
The older, the better. long live the old ones. down with the youth-movement of this league!!!
i might send all my oyung starters to the FAs.... we will see.....

i completely changed my mind - maybe because i am ill and away from my work for 2 days now...

[Paul-London]

I must admit i am quite stunned you traded for Green !

As for sending all your players to the FA list !  I know you are joking but any crazy strange moves like what the old Austrian GM did then that person will be booted out of the FWL instantly.  Not having another Bridson disaster !!

[jcompton-Orlando]

stop it here.

Kreiner just traded for a 8yr-starting RB.

A smokescreen for the 3rd round pick. You'll flip HB Green to some unsuspecting GM for another handful of picks.

[Paul-London]

I know what you mean but after a few emails to Mario today hes thinking of perhaps even starting Green ahead of Jackson depending on what happens in training camp.

Jackson didnt have a great year last season running the ball (3.4 avg) but is an excellent receiving back.  Was quite injury prone.  Green gives Austria a good backup or perhaps even a starting HB

I'm still stunned the way Anes has turned it around.  Complete flop his first season in Austria, since then 2 divisional titles in 2 years , 30 td's and 2 ints.

[Mario ADK]

"smokescreen" means somthing like "camouflage" (or however this word is spelled)??

[jcompton-Orlando]

Right.

[Mario ADK]

funny how different we see some players.....

1) Green has a very good chance to start, depending on his TC-progression. I like the combination of 90+/90+/90+/90 in SP/AC/AG/ST which he "might" get with a good TC....
2) The trio of Green/Jackson/Witherspoon gives me a big cushion for injuries (which is the only thing that might slow me down this season.... grrrrr.....)

So the answer is "No, is was not a trick to get to that 3rd rounder; the trick was to get the third rounder along with Green....."
But acutally there was no "trick" involved. Green is 8yr and dropped in value, Mark wanted Morris right away, due to the aging-factor i got the better pick.
Fair deal.

btw it is starting to get real tricky to trade with Mark, he is getting tougher and tougher when it comes to evaluate trades....
i think his dad should learn a bit from his son to improve his team