[QuikSand]

The goal

For a long time, I’ve strived to create a set of “house rules” that strike a balance among several goals:

1 - Keep the game challenging for the short term and long term
2 - Keep the game interesting to play
3 - Ensure that the games controls the priorities and direction of the team
4 – Ensure that the game remains fairly realistic with respect to real football management

While these goals are in a sort of descending order or importance (for my purposes) I do find that trade-offs will, of course, occur—and that I do not always resolve issues in favor of the “higher” priority. That said, I’m going to play another career with a set of rules that might get a little closer to getting passing marks in all four criteria stated above.

The rules

Just in case there was any doubt, this will be an FOF 2001 career, played on the Wall Street skill level. I’ll start with an allocation draft, and I will allow my rookies to be automatically signed (I’ve never used this before, but in FOF 2001 it doesn’t seem to be that big a deal as rookies aren’t very flexible).

My first rule will be my usual—I will play “empty cupboard” style, starting with the 2002 expansion team, and foregoing any use of real NFL players. It’s a favorite of mine for a variety of reasons, the greatest of which is probably the fact that the entire team obtains a “home grown” sense, rather than having some players carry pre-conceived notions that may not comport with their game-programmed abilities. I will eschew NFL players completely, and be out of that trap from the start.

Second rule is a financial restriction. I’m going to play my expansion team at or near the location chosen by the CPU, and I will keep my ticket prices no higher than those of my nearest geographic competitor. I’m hoping that this imposes some much more difficult financial difficulties on the team—I candidly have never had to worry about big-picture finances before, but I think having to concern myself over the affordability of a top scout/coach would be a good wrinkle to this game.

The major area of rules regards contracts—one of the biggest areas in the game for house rules. Here are the general contract restrictions I intend to follow:

-no unrealistic contract durations for first and second year players
-no signing non-rookie players outside the 20-stage process
-no backloading of contracts – annual salary increases up to 25% only
-any free agent seeking a bonus gets one at least as big as the median annual salary

I simply feel that there are too many game weaknesses available to exploit here—signing second year players to 7y deals, signing available free agents after training camp, and signing bonus-free stars only to release or trade them later with no consequence. These rules will cut off most of those obvious backdoors.

A special rule for contracts—many of us have debated on how to best deal with undrafted rookie free agents (URFAs). URFAs will typically accept minsal deals for one year, and also for four to seven years, but not for two or three years (which is the closest to the real-world contracts they typically receive). I’ve proposed this elsewhere, and will implement it here—my URFAs will be offered one of two type offers:

-one-year deals at or near minimum salary; or

-four-year deals doubling each year, and including a modest bonus.

The logic behind the second type of deal is that it’s a workaround from the game’s absurd contract demands for deep reserve caliber players, while requiring both some guaranteed commitment, and some substantial pay increases each season the player is kept. Additionally, the four year deal takes the player all the way to open free agency, rather than allowing a reduced-price extension as a restricted free agent. That latter privilege will be reserved for draft picks, who will take (and even insist on) 2-3 year deals.

Another area of concern in contracts is the ability to widely renegotiate practically every player’s contract. While some argue that this is “realistic” as it does happen in the NFL to at least some degree, I personally find it to be far too broad a loophole for financial self-serving. The game is too easy without making tightenings, and this is an obvious place to do so. In this career, I will not renegotiate any contracts at all.

Related to this issue is the other widely-abusable facet of the game, the franchise tag. Similarly, I will not make use of the franchise tag. For those who argue that this leaves me without a means to ensure that a star player will remain on the team, I would counter that there most certainly is a sure way—go into the open free agent market, and make him an offer he cannot refuse. If you’re not making sacrifices to keep your best players, then you’re sacrificing a far more important kind of realism than I am by not clicking a box called “renegotiate” or “designate.”

I also believe that a cheap trick in FOF is to comply with salcap requirements by holding fewer than the 53 player limit. I won’t do that, either—the team will begin each season with a full complement of 53 players.

I also have decided to implement a fairly arbitrary rule that was suggested during another career thread of mine—a spin-off of the various regional challenges that I and others have played over time (which I personally found to restrict goal #3 above). I’m going to ensure that at all times, my team has strong representation from colleges in its area (I’ll define that area when I know my location). I will ensure that my roster has at least one player from my home area at each of the following position groups:

-Running backs and fullbacks
-Receivers and tight ends
-Offensive line
-Defensive line
-Linebackers
-Secondary
-Specialists – QB, K, or P

I think this will add an interesting wrinkle to the team’s roster management, while not wholly compromising the overall management of the team.

My final area for restriction is in trading—one of the areas most ripe for abuse in FOF2, and still somewhat so in FOF 2001. While I’ve played careers that completely eschewed trading, I find that to be too unrealistic. So, I’ll place the following limits on trades:

-I may only initiate one trade per season, and only to acquire or improve draft picks
-I will not have improved or multiple first round picks in any consecutive seasons
-I’ll accept CPU-offered trades only if the team will add a 7th round pick to their offer

The bottom line

I’m trying to play with something close to “house rules” – keeping things realistic, rather than just difficult. While these probably amount to a tougher set of restrictions than do most house rules, I’ll give this concept a name. I’ll call it the “House Arrest” challenge—playing by a pretty tough set of house rules.

I always enjoy building a team from the ground up—my hope is that this set of rules keeps the challenge and interest level fairly high even after my first decade or so.