The Single Best Aspect of this Game

[PioneerCoach5]

It's taken me quite some time to go through all of the small nuances of Head Coach 2009, and it has come with the price of making quite a few mistakes long the way, but one thing that I have discovered that will improve any team immediately is making use of the "Tendencies" chart that the game provides you with.

Now, I have a little experience in the coaching world, and I can say that game planning revolves around figuring out your opponents tendencies in relation to down and distance, formation, and similar. I couldn't tell you how many hours a week are poured into analyzing film and painstakingly writing notes on this subject. What baffles me is the ease with which this information is handed over to you in this game. It almost makes me sick to think that such a large aspect of coaching was not only absent from the first Head Coach game, but is so often overlooked in the new one.

Understand first that every week a task appears on the clipboard that reads "scouting report". To be honest, I think I spend more time analyzing this information than I spend doing just about anything else on this game. There is just so much information made available to you, the coach. You are given the top plays that your opponent runs in every important situation. What's more, during the game you are bombarded with down and distance tendencies and each and every play in your playbook's success rating against these tendencies. Naturally, this speaks more to defense than offense, but it's importance is not diminished by this fact. Let me share something with you all, this is the greatest tool at your fingertips! Imagine that you are inside the opposing coaches head before you ever call your own play! In my experience, the AI sticks so closely to it's tendencies that I am able to predict the play with almost certainty.

The great thing about playing a computer is that it is less likely to deviate too much from it's tendencies than a normal coach would. So how can this be exploited?

Naturally, I am very opinionated on this subject, but I would love to hear what others think about it. Do you use the down and distance tendencies as a weapon against your opponent? How often is it accurate? Do you feel as strongly about it as I do?

[Pass_The_Cows]

I think I may have turned off those notifications way back at launch cause I don't see those at all. This all sounds very interesting though, I may have to go in and turn them back on. My question is does the CPU actually follow these reports in Supersim mode cause that's the only way I play nowadays.

[PioneerCoach5]

I'm not entirely sure if it stays true to tendencies in SuperSim. Either way, you don't see the tendencies chart when you go to choose a play in SuperSim. I actually play through all of my games.

[Ueauvan]

tendancies are fine, however in certain circumstances history is bunk. in game they are behind and need yardage fast they will pass on 1st down when tendancies will say 72% of the time they will outside run. like all data take it with a pinch of salt

rl example alex smith bootleg left vs no

[PioneerCoach5]

Well, of course it changes in the game. It's football. A team isn't going to follow their tendencies when they are trying to catch up, but that doesn't negate the importance of knowing what their tendencies are. Case in point, in one of my recent games, I knew the Texans liked to run the ball, and their tendencies confirmed that they like to run outside on first down. Knowing this, I was able to determine that they typically run to the strong side, and I can blitz my safety on first down to negate the outside run. The result was that their running back finished the game with -15 yards on 22 carries.

Knowing your opponent is the key to winning.

[cutter73]

If that is that powerful of a tool in the game, I'm happy to hear it works. I always just figured it wasn't that accurate so never used it.

I know for a good portion of the games, the formations it tells me that the other teams was going to be lining up in is flat out wrong. It'll tell me the offense is coming out in a 2 reciever set and I'll come out in a base defense only to have linebackers trying to cover 2 of the offenses 4 recievers. Since it was wrong in game so much, I figured it would be during the week. Nice to hear it does work.

I would be interested to know how that translates to the game itself. As in do coaches with higher skill in making adjustments catch on after you stuff a few outside runs and start changing things up. Would the tendancies be less carved in stone for better coaches than for lower rated coaches? That would be interesting to look at and test.

But if it works as well as you say, I still won't use it as a weapon in the game. -15 yards on 22 carries just seems too much of an advantage to me personally. No doubt it's a good tip for people having trouble, but at this point, I really don't want to make the game easier than it already is. When I first started playing it would have been very helpful to know, but at this point there is already too much familiarity with the game that would probably make it overkill.

[Ueauvan]

isnt the personnel vs actual players mismatch linked to your dc or your strategy level?

[rdnk]

I don't pay much attention to it, although now I'm curious about how much they tell you about their defensive tendencies.

Usually what happens when I play a team with my defense, I get ahead by a touchdown or two and they throw almost every down. There are some coaches who don't abandon the run, but usually I send blitz after blitz (with some fake blitzes in there) and most running backs get eaten up by blitzers. Sure, once in awhile they'll break a long run (Ronnie Brown once broke 5 tackles and took it to the house), but in those circumstances I'll just tip my hat.