Week 1 Discussion

[Sharkn20]

A fresh start!! Welcome to the next season guys!!

[sirem]

Aaaaaaaand we start out with Morgantown at home... Plus it's Jesus bobble head day in Charlotte... ;)

[Guest]

I don't feel so good about my defense. First round pick is looking to be a bit of a bust, maybe.

[Sharkn20]

I don't feel so good about my defense. First round pick is looking to be a bit of a bust, maybe.

Next time use your scout man

[Guest]

Next time use your scout man

I did, his name was Nutah.

[Sharkn20]

I did, his name was Nutah.

FOF7 is very diferent during the draft than f2k7, now scout comments are the key to match bars and combines

[Guest]

FOF7 is very diferent during the draft than f2k7, now scout comments are the key to match bars and combines

Well, Scout Nutah was also a party to the player I was trying to draft being snagged by bomber and I'm going to be bitter about that FOR ALL TIME.

[Aston]

Ooh, that reminds me of another programming note: one thing I didn't realize was that combine accuracy was set to 70 for this league in FOF7 to date. It'll revert to the middle line of 50 going forward, and you may find your drafting experience a little more un-2k7 like in the future :)

Still don't know how a 4.29 WR slipped so far, though.

Side note, I'd love to hear what you guys think about strategy in the new game. What's changed about your approach now? What's stayed the same?

For me, I look at Austin Cash's 70 sacks last season (to Cary Money's 18) and think, well, quarterbacks haven't changed that much -- you still don't want 0 sense rush. We'll be testing out Boston's vertical passing this year to see if it's still viable. In the passing game, the 0-4 looks like a necessity now, and the 9-12 is no longer very reliable. 13-18 seems like a sweet spot, provided you don't overuse it. I'm undecided between "long passing is toned down compared to before" and "long passing ability is even rarer and more special now" -- and I think both may be true.

[Sharkn20]

This link will help a lot people :) If they read and understand of course

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=88766

[Guest]

Side note, I'd love to hear what you guys think about strategy in the new game. What's changed about your approach now? What's stayed the same?

The affects of chemistry seem to be about the same. The seven inactive exceptional affinity/extreme conflict tests I ran in the previous two versions still come up with the same +1.5/-1.5 game difference over a chemistry free team (although I only bothered to go with a 25 season sample this version)

The hassle of maintaining a chemistry based team is what is different now. Those high leadership/personality guys with overall ratings in the 20's don't stick around as free agents forever for you to pick up whenever you need a new position group leader. From what I've tried out in single player it seems like they are more likely to retire earlier even if the are on your team now. Although that might just be my bad luck.

And just keeping your chemistry set together year after year isn't as easy now. It seems even schmucks won't resign for cheap and barely mediocre guys start asking for some serious money in order for you to keep them from hitting free agency. Last season my two, low 40's rated DEs were in the final years of their contracts, both put up generally crappy numbers on the field and both were asking for $10-$12,000,000 per year to extend their deals.

Batson was young enough I was able to resign him as as a RFA for a fraction of that and I let Fitzgerald hit FA where I was able to resign him for a three year deal worth in total about than he was previously asking per year to renegotiate. Next season I'm going to be doing what was previously unthinkable and actually letting my (even more rare now) position leaders deals run out. Keeping out of salary cap hell now is all about being able to let go.

Game planning wise, my 2k7 "Double cover all the plays" defense utterly fell apart last season, but still tests well in single player so that might just be a result of my crappy CBs and loss of cohesion. Offensively we sure felt the reduced effectiveness of those mid range passes, long the bread and butter of our aerial attack, but our running game was better than ever and basically carried us into the playoffs when nothing else on our team was working right.

Looking forward to or second stab at FoF7 multiplayer. We've returned almost the exact same team from last year, but our overall roster strength is up. Still down in the bottom third of the league, and a far cry from where it was in our glory days, but much better than that 30th in the league squad which we somehow managed to drag all the way to the title game in 2031.

[Guest]

Spoiler

Big divisional win against North Liberty for Dakota in week one. We struggled a lot in the first half, but managed to trail only 6-3 at halftime. North Liberty scored on a 78 yard punt return TD early in the 3rd quarter, but after that the Dakota offense came alive after an awful first half from Douglas. Douglas lit it up in the second half after getting over his second interception.

[Aston]

Boston 0, South Maryland 27
So, we got smacked.

Hopefully it's just the game plan - we asked Money to do a lot of short passing, and as it turned out, screen passing. I was expecting less of that and more shots downfield, but that's not how it shook down. Travis Christen returning, a minor adjustment in the lineup - maybe things will change. Still, we didn't look good at all. 3rd round rookie RB's first effort starting produced 14 yards on 12 carries. Or was it the other way around?

Yeah, this was an all-time terrible game. We opened with 8 punts in a row, then decided to go with "Lost Fumbles" for the next two drives (you know, variety!) before finishing with three more points. Oops, typo, I meant punts. We didn't score any points.

GG IrishGuy, grats on the win!

[Guest]

Memphis 16
Waco 20

We survive week one with a four point win over Memphis despite only having 223 net yards. Rookie QB Norm Dakota has an underwhelming OSFL debut going 12/25 for 135 yards, 2 TDs and 1 interception. At least he got the win. Our only real bright spots were our return game and our pass rush. We averaged 9 yards on punt returns and 29.3 yards on kick returns. Our front seven also 2 sacks and forced 10 hurries.

Next up; Irishguy and South Maryland in week 2...

[sawblade300]

Damn. Started the season against the early favorite to win the division. I was hoping to pull it out, but not to be. Rookie QB Heath Morton, after having a pretty good preseason, showed his inexperience and threw three interceptions. Two of them leading to Lake Country scores and the third a pick six. That's the ball game. We don't turn it over and we win...potentially.

On top of that, we lost our top WR with a separated shoulder. After losing one in preseason, that leaves us with only four healthy WR's for the next 2-3 weeks.

[Guest]

GG Foos.

Our offense was bad and then we allowed 3 unanswered scores. Recipe for disaster.