My new expansion team, 1st 4 games

[txfalconfan]

So I replaced the bills with the Boston Shamrocks that i created to try and simulate an expansion team. I restarted the 1st chise i did and this is what ive done so far by simming through 1st 4 regular season games. Not Pretty!

In the preason i went 2-0-2 simming them all and lost my MLB D.Edwards for the year with injury and Qb M.Vick for 2 weeks.

I decided to let one of my young qbs try it for 2 weeks especially since I would probably lose to the Pats no matter what and he'd have a fighting chance vs T.B. til Vick got back.

So, game 1 vs N.E.- i got beat 31-10!
My bu now starting qb K.Null was 20/34 for 248 yards and 1 td w/ 0 ints. not too bad.
My entire team only ran for 25 yards and my qb was sacked 8 times.

And then there's Brady- 24/35 322 4/1
and r.moss- 6/102, and b.watson 5/92. They signed former Bills rb M.Lynch ( IDK why) and he ran 21 times for 52 yards.

Game 2 vs T.B....I won 6-3 in OT.
My qb k.null was a horrible 14/42 152yrs 0/1
my rb s.makino touched the rock 22 times for 44 yards
TJ Duckett 4/26 rushingon 4 carries
my young, less than impressive kicker was 2/5 and missed 2 over 50 yards.

For T.B. carnell williams ran for 67 yards on an absurd 37 carries
Tb Qb J.freeman's stats were 9/21 for 80yards 0/2.
B.Leftwich also threw 5/9 for 65 yards and 0td/0ints

That was the good news, bad stats but still squeeked one out. I now also lost MLB D.Brooks for the year with injury so both my top 2 vet MLB's done for the year.

Week 3: vs N.O. and Vick is back! Got smoked by them and we lost 41-10.
Vick was 16 for 27 for 180 yrds w/ 1 td and 0 ints
My bu qb threw 2 passes so vick mustve went down again at the end of the game
Yep, Vick out 10 more weeks with hammy, DAMN!
Brees was an amazing 29/42 for 445 with 5tds and 1 int
no rb pierre thomas 10/41 rushing but the saints wr's obviously did some work:
colston 88 yrds/1td
l.moore 85 yrds/2tds
d.henderson 75 yrds/1td
r.meacham- 71 yrds/1td

Week 4 onto Miami to face the dolphins and the wildcat... We lost 35-6, Whats up with my "d" or lack of?
D.bess returned an 80 yrds punt for 6
C.pennington threw 29/45, 380 yrds w/ 4tds/1int
And my young Qb K.Null now back into the spotlight with Vick out again threw 15/32 for 152 yrds and 0td/1int.

So after that 4th game and Vick out for 9 more weeks I signed Fa Qb T.Bouman but as a backup to Null because my 3rd string Qb is horrible and I might as well test drive my future backup since I plan to keep Null next year and draft or sign Vicks replacement as starter.

Also, my QB's so far through 4 reg. season games have been sacked 25 times!

[txfalconfan]

most of my Ol is 70-75 Ovr, i have s.madison and t.law for cbs behind L.mcelvin, I have boss bailey, had 2 decent vet Lbs but both are already gone for the year, 1 traded for Lb Orakpo from Wash and also signed wr l.evans and traded for supspended/disgruntled wr B.Marshall. So my team isnt all scrubs but my 'd' couldnt stop an old lady from crossing the street and my offense can move the ball to save their lives. WTF!? it shouldn't be this bad!

[txfalconfan]

Ok, done. I simmed the remainder of the 1st season to get to the offseason and try to improve.
Here's how it went down...
week 5- Boston shamrocks lost to Cleveland 27-6
week 6- We lost to the jets 31-14
week 7- we lost to the panthers 27-6
week 8 - we lost to the texans 17-3
week 9- bye week, thank god. i also moved qb t.bouman to starter in d.chart and rb tj duckett to starter ahead of s.makino.
week 10 - We lost to titans 31-13
week 11- we lost to Jax 41-3!
week 12- We BEAT miami 29-13 thanks to a pr for 6 and Rb TJ Duckett rushing for 90 yards (most yards rushing by 1 rb for my team in a single game for the whole season).
The doplhins also didnt have chad pennigton for 2 more weeks cuz of injury which helped me.

week 13- We Again won beating the NYJ in a close one 28-24
week 14- were back to losing, now to K.C. 41-6. They passed for 380 yards on us and Rb L.Johnson rushed 21 times for 130 yards

week 15- We lost to N.E. 34-18 (n.e.) hasnt lost yet
week 16- We lost to Atlanta 45-7 (worst beating yet) M.turner ran 24 times for 213 yards!
Week 17 - We BEAT the Colts 28-10.

My Boston Shamrocks finished 4-12 for the year.

Wow, didnt expect that but the colts ended 6-10 had no Rb j. addai all year from injury and had what appeared to be a very tough schedule but they lost 6 games to non playoff teams and 2 of their wins were against the 7-9 texans. They almost beat N.E. but lost in OT by a Fg 34-31.

My team didnt allow too many rushing yards on average and only a handful of 100 yard rusher but got passed on like I had no secondary so they didnt need to run. My 1st wr b.marshall caught most of the balls my qbs threw since he had more rec. yards than all my other wrs, rbs and te's combined.

My teams Points for was a measly 193 (league low) and points against 451 (a league high). So I got the worst offense and defense! I finished second to last to cinci's 3-13 record.

N.E. finished a perfect 16-0 and beat the Giants in the S.B. 28-10. T.Brady finished the year throwing for 5262 yards, 49tds and only 9 ints.

if it wasnt for my teams 2 PR's for TD's and 2 defensive TD's they might have only won 1 game.
And my 3 Qbs that played were sacked a combined 80 times.

In the offseason I going to get ALL new coaches (my current HC has a -5 AWR bonus for entire team), try to beef up the OL, trade for wr C.ochocinco, draft or sign my starting qb and let someone else deal with vicks crap numbers and injuries, and figure out where my "d" went wrong and fix that!

I'll keep you all posted!

[stlstudios189]

ouch man. Rough season. I'm thinking of replacing the Bengals or Raiders.

[txfalconfan]

I'm ready for regular season 2 and this is what I've done to get ready, I'll keep it somewhat brief cuz there was alot....

Fired and hired all new coaching staff (had to get rid of that HC with -5 AWR bonus)

I had 4 players retire - lb d.brooks, lb d.edwards, cb s.madison and cb t.law.

I currently have all my OL rated in the 70's and 2 in the low 80's
My only 90 rated player is wr b.marshall at 92

I did get chad ochocinco and hes an 89 OVR

I traded vick to cincy in the ochocinco deal and he will backup carson palmer there

I also made some little moves and got a couple more mid round draft picks for depth and heres how it went:
I got an 80 ovr rt with b potential
a 75 rg with b potential
a 69 ovr qb with b potential
a 68 qb with b potential (after trading vick and not resigning the other 2 qbs from last year i had 0)
a 71 olb with b
a 72 hb with c
a 76 fs with c potential
and a 78 k with a potential and 99 kick power
And all with no scouting but took awhile as I thought about it real hard.

So i sign those guys and get my team all set for pre-season thinking maybe we have a chance this yr at 8-8. So as usual I sim the preseason and I go 0-4. Then i look at injuries after preseason and im now without my starting ROLB for 3 weeks, my starting fs for the yr, and my 2 new rookie qbs (1st & 2nd string) one out 7 & one out 8 weeks. DAMN!
Now I have 1 qb and hes the 3rd stringer so i gotta make a move to get another bu and ill give the 63 OVR a try to start the season. So I go to trade block and decide to try and trade my DE Boss Bailey, 81 OVR and 2 picks for a qb and a pick.
So I get 3 offers and the best one of the 3 is cinci offering me............M.Vick. So he's back on my team for now as 4 string but for half the season hell be the backup QB. Crazy!

[econoodle]

I too created an expansion team, mostly to just use to do setting tweaks to get ready for the patch and final roster updates for opening night [fingers crossed].

I created the New Jersey Zen and decided to test by playing the best in the afc then the worst.

I played the Pats and got pretty darn good numbers stat wise.

Interesting to note, Morris didn't have 1, not 1 carry till halfway through the second quarter [I play 15 minutes, acc. clock 15 second runoff], but ended up player of the game after having two runs of 45 or more yards. The second, an 85 yarder was a victim of the dreaed broken tackle turns into Erun that i seem to see at least once a game.

Getting annoying.

Thats what these games are for, to tweak the settings.

But anyways outside of that, the scrubs played as they should have and the pats did what they do.

After one i was down 6-0.

It was all Welker the first quarter, as would be the thing for the game.

Second quarter, again, not much scoring, but that Pats were clamping down on D.

Brady was slowly heating up and the run game started to get its legs under itself.

By the half, it was 13-3.

We rolled along to the 4thh and with five minutes left Welker has 19 catches!
WTF.

Moss ended up with 2 for 6.

Things got crazy in the fourth. Down 22-3, I returned a kickoff all the way to the four, then promptly got stuffed by the Pats D/.

Field goal.

One of two trips to the red zone.

Wlker ended up with those 19 catches, one off the all-time NFL record or 20 set by T.O.
Last two minutes Morris breaks off the aforementioned 80+ yard bogus run, which ballooned his stats something fierce.

Other game notes:

I picked off a brady pass intended to Moss, which earned me that trophy. Which is good because When my Packer franchise starts I will not be playing against them much.

Brady ended up with his usual, 87 passer rating, 258 yards, a td, and a soft touch that would make a woman curl her toes.

My created team did what they had to do, took a beating and smiled during it.

Things looked good going into my final settings test before opening up the franchise.


To the OP, you could change this header to EXPANSION TEAM STORIES or something.
Or not.

also, how did u get Ochocinco?

[Gort77]

I see you guys are creating "expansion teams" to use in Franchises. How are you guys doing this? Are you using the "fantasy draft" selection in the create a team menu and just selecting low rated players? And if so, how do you prevent one of your players from being on another team in the franchise? Or are you using one of the pre-made "team types" madden lets you choose from. I have created a team with a cupcake roster for a franchise. I was just wondering because i think doing an actual draft of real players would be a little more fun then have generic madden players.

[econoodle]

Quote: Originally Posted by Gort77

I see you guys are creating "expansion teams" to use in Franchises. How are you guys doing this? Are you using the "fantasy draft" selection in the create a team menu and just selecting low rated players? And if so, how do you prevent one of your players from being on another team in the franchise? Or are you using one of the pre-made "team types" madden lets you choose from. I have created a team with a cupcake roster for a franchise. I was just wondering because i think doing an actual draft of real players would be a little more fun then have generic madden players.

to load a created team, during the team select screen in franchise, hit the triangle button [ps3].

i am sure others can answer your other questions, good luck.