Drafting, Free Agency & Capology - Strategies that work for me.

[mylosparents]

Here are some of the strategies I use in FOF2004. I think most of these are fairly sound (maybe even obvious), and can be applied to almost any career. I've been running a career that spans over 100 years now, my team has a .730 winning percentage, has 250 more wins than the next closest team. I've been to the playoffs 91 times & am 21 for 34 in the Front Office Bowl. I think that record speaks for how well these strategies work.


1. Drafting

A. Trade Up - Trade Down
I usually end up having a winning season, and draft relatively low - somewhere between 32 - 26. To solve that, every couple of years I will trade up to the #2 slot. This usually costs me 3 1st Rounders (that year and then the subsequent two years) and a 2nd or 3rd round draft choice. Once I take the #2 slot, I will then trade down to somewhere in the top ten (say the #5 slot) for 3 first round draft choices (again, that year and then the subsequent two years). The end result is that I will typically have higher #1 picks for the next three years at the cost of a 2nd or 3rd rounder.
Of course the big risk you run with this, is that if I have an off year, and the team I did my second trade with has a great year, I will have just spent a 2nd round draft choice to move down 7 or 8 slots. Not good. I try to mitigate this by trading with teams that have historically low winning percentages.

B. Take advantage of those back-up quarterbacks.
Whenever a team offers a trade for my back-up quarterback, I always tack on a switch of 1st round draft choices. This can often mean the difference between picking 28th or 3rd. Afterall - if a team is trading for my BACK-UP quarterback, how good can they be?

2. Free Agency

A. Turn off Scouts automatically sign free agents. It is very aggravating thinking I have 40 million in Cap room, only to have my scout sign my kicker for a huge bonus plus about 8 million a year. Especially when I could have drafted a decent kicker in the 5th or 6th round. A waste of money. I usually turn this back on right before training camp, so I don't need to worry about roster fillers.

B. Research Team Needs/Cap and compare it to who's available. This way you are not paying too much to a player when the market says he should be going cheaper.
Let me give you an example. Say I'm looking for a starting LT, RDT & LCB. When I look at what's available in those areas, I see that there is one LT rated at 93, and the next highest is a 71. There are four DT rated between 80 - 86, and one CB rated at 89, and then about six others rated between 55 - 70. I then look at Team needs/Cap list, and see that of the five teams that need a DT, only three of them have any decent Cap room. Only a couple of teams need a CB, and about four teams need a LT. I offer the LT pretty much what he is asking for (see below for contract advice), but hold off on the DT & CB. I then patiently wait until the draft. The draft doesn't offer me a DT or LCB that I truly like, so I pick up some long term projects. I continue to wait until the last week of post draft free agency, and then take a look on what's available. Low and behold - there's a LDT rated at 83 available, and a LCB rated at 64 available. These guys are sweatin bullets now, because it is the last week of free agency and they have no offers. If you structure the contract right, you can get HUGE discounts from their already low asking price. Generally speaking, DT, DEs & WRs are very easy to do this with. CBs, TEs & LBs are possible. OL, QBs & RBs are a lot harder to do - and are not generally worth the gamble of trying to wait.

C. Never sign a veteran free agent (over 10 years experience) that is only looking for a two year contract. They are seriously contemplating retiring, and are looking for a big bonus so they can take their money and run. Even if you spread it out over three years, odds are they will still retire after one year and leave you holding the Dead Cap Money bag.

D. So you absolutely love your big-time, marquee QB, but you just can't afford a long term contract. I don't generally do this, unless I've grown attached to a player, but you can essentially fabricate a scenario that allows you to wait until the last week of post draft free agency to sign your superstar. Here is how it works. On the first week of free agency, make an offer to your superstar. Give him whatever he wants, but front load the contract so that you come extremely close to your Cap limit. Then sign a low cost RFA that would put you over your CAP limit if your QB decides to sign. If your QB waits three or four weeks to make up his mind, and then he decides to sign with you, you will be over your limit, and he will return to the Free Agency pool. By this time, all of the other teams have signed their superstars for the year, and can't afford your QB. Now you just sit back and wait until the last week of free agency and then bam your 400 million QB just signed for 150 million. The big risk you run here is if your QB only takes a week or two to decide, he may re-enter the free agent pool while other teams still have money to spend on him. Also, remember to sign the RFA, otherwise you may be stuck with a contract that will put you in Salary Cap hell for the next 6 years.

3. CAPOLOGY

I have no idea if these are sound practices in the NFL, but they definately work in FOF.

A. Don't back load contracts, front load contracts. Back loading contracts puts you in a continuous cycle of trying to renegotiate with veterans to try and lower your yearly cap cost by trying to avoid those final year balloon payments. Ultimately you end up with an old vetern who you can't cut because you have 50 million in bonuses tied up in him. Additionally, front loading contracts makes your contract more attractive to free agents (since it is essentially guaranteed money), even if the total contract is for less money that other teams are offering.
EXAMPLE:

_______________________________Asking______________Offered
Bonus__________________________40 Million____________40 Million
1st Year________________________6 Million ____________15 Million
2nd Year________________________23 Million ___________22 Million
3rd Year ________________________36 Million___________29 Million
4th Year ________________________52 Million __________36 Million
5th Year___________________________________________43 Million
Total:__________________________157/4 years ________185/5 years

This is a much more Cap friendly contract that doesn't balloon out, and manages to defray the signing bonus over an additional year. This method works very well if you are signing a player during the last week of free agency. You can probably reduce the amounts offered to even less (say start at 12 Million and raise it by 4 or 5 million each year).

B. Use 2nd Year Salary Total when budgeting your current year's salary cap. For example, using the contract above, if I had 200 million in cap room, I would subtract 30 million from it (22 base + 8 bonus) instead of 23 Million. This serves three purposes:
1. It gives me some flex room for the post draft free agency if I don't draft well.
2. It ensures that there is enough room for my scouts to sign roster fillers during training camp. (How many times have you gone into training camp 3 million under the cap, and came out 12 million over & no 3rd round draft choice? - frustrating isn't it).
3. I can more easily project how much free space I will have next year - which allows me to change draft strategy this year if necessary.

Again, I think most of these will work for pretty much anyone. I typically have between 19-16 1st round draft choices on my roster, and barring injuries I remain competitive every year.
Hope they Help!

[GoldenEagle]

Welcome to FOFC and thaks for sharing. Good read!

[The Shadow]

Welcome, mylosparents!!

Before I start off, please don't read what I'm about to say as a criticism. You can play FOF in any fashion you want, as long as you are having fun. And it sounds like you're having fun, so what I'm about to say may not apply to you. If so, please don't read any further.

I've played every version of FOF since FOF2001 and have enjoyed all of them. And like you, I initially started off with strategies that ensured fantastic success.

But after a while, I wanted more of a challenge. Also, I craved more realism. I mean, is it realistic that my team would have 0.730 winning percentage over 100 years, been to the playoffs 91 of those 100 years and to the Superbowl 34 of those 100 years? I guess it's possible, but extremely unlikely.

And as good as FOF's AI is, it's still not perfect. As a human player, I find and exploit "holes" in the AI - that's how I was able to maintain a fantastic success rate. One of the "holes" was the ease of swapping future 1st round picks - once your team is good, it is astonishingly easy to swap future 1st round picks with the perennial loser teams. But ask yourself - is this likely to happen often in real life?

So like other FOF players, I started to use what's called "House Rules" - rules that I follow in playing FOF. These "House Rules" basically prevent me from taking advantage of those "holes" in the AI. Without exploiting these "holes", it will be more difficult to have those incredible success rates.

If you scroll down on the Strategy section (after expanding it to include all posts from 1 year), you'll find a thread started by Quiksand about House Rules. In that thread, you'll find several different ideas for House Rules, being used by other FOF players.

Like I said above, please don't take this as a criticism. I was just thinking that if you ever find your success to be a little "boring", you might try some House Rules to bring back some challenge back to FOF.

Good luck !!!

[mylosparents]

No offense taken. I understand some of what I wrote is gamesmanship (not all though). I'll admit that as the years roll by, I find myself swapping draft picks less and less. I've also found that the AI gets smarter (or seems to), and it is tougher to swap 1st round picks than it was before.

[Kozure]

I agree with Shadow. I've been playing the game for years as well, and I used to trade for first rounders all the time. But the game became boring and stale. I don't want to win every year.
I don't load up on draft picks anymore. I simply build my team through the draft with the draft picks I am given. Sometimes I accept trades or trade away a player from my team for a good draft pick, but i only do this with players that I can no longer afford to sign.
I also trade up and down in the draft depending on which players are available. And when I make trade, I do my best to ensure that the CPU team is getting as much out of the deal as I am.
Sometimes it can take years for me to put together a great team, if i can at all. Devastating injuries can run a franchise into the ground. I think at one point in my currently solo league im playing in I didnt make the playoffs for 8 straight years because of injuries. But its what makes the game fun.

Also, I do similar things when I sign free agents. Instead of backloading contracts, I front load them as much as I can. Sometimes I even out the base salary over the life of the contract. Doing this, you are sacrificing some cap room in the first year of the contract, but you are giving yourself more cap room in the third, fourth fifth and sixth years of the contract when you would normally be paying the player the most. This ensures you always have room to add a player or two to the lineup.

For example, a normal 5 year $75 million contract offer could look like this:

Signing bonus $15 million
Base salary 1st year $2 million ($5 million salary cap hit)
2nd $10 million ($13 million)
3rd $13 million ($16 million)
4th $16 million ($19 million)
5th $19 million ($22 million)

But, if you even out the base salary, a contract could save you cap room over the long run.

Signing bonus $15 million
Base salary 1st year $12 million ($15 million salary cap hit)
2nd $12 million ($15 million)
3rd $12 million ($15 million)
4th $12 million ($15 million)
5th $12 million ($15 million)

If you look at it this way, you are paying much more in the first year of the contract than you normally would, but in the third, fourth and fifth years, you are paying less than you would. In the fourth and fifth years, you are paying much less.

I think this way give you more flexability in the salary cap. But, it always doesnt work. Look at your current team. Are you a young team building for the future, or a older team trying to stay on top. Young teams building up their roster is where my idea works the best because you are paying less for players in the third, fifth and sixth years of the contract when you would normally be paying the most.

be safe, good post

Koz

[hukarez]

I'm probably the one player who isn't getting to the Solecismic bowl as often as others here. From the start, I think I've went to the Solecismic bowl 3 times in my 34 year history...won two of them, lost the final one.

I went to the playoffs a good 9 times since then. Out of those 9 times, I went to the Conference Championship game twice and lost. I made it to the second round 5 times before losing, and got taken out of the first round 2 times.

It's probably my playing techniques...but I'm still finding it to be a challenge for me. I just get leery when it comes to contract signings, and exorburant (sp?) numbers.

[Vince]

Exhorbitant

[hukarez]

Outstanding, outstanding!

[Kozure]

When I first bought the newest fof, i went through the first 20 seasons without winning the championship. And I had some pretty great teams. I would just set up an offensive game plan and use that gameplan for the entire season. Now I have about 10 different gameplans that I use against different teams based on the other team's strengths and weaknesses. If a team has two great safties but terrible corners, I go with a short passing game to take advantage of that weakness. If they have strong corners but weak safties, Ill go with a longer passing game...etc.
When I started doing stuff like that, i started winning more often, even with teams that i thought were superbowl contenders.