Custom Play Policy Discussion

[Rich-League Officer]

James said:
I get that but I still think it hurts the league as a whole. The reason I disagree with this and the hiding potentials is simple. It increase the learning curve.It increases the complexity and the time needed to invest in this.


Whether it be custom plays, hiding rookie pots or whatever, we have a very mature group of coaches in real life age and experience. Some of you guys are programmer type brains far beyond my intelligence. Nothing said here is too difficult for the coaches. Discussions that could or might lead to bettering the product is a worthy conversation to have.

I understand the immediate response is, why? well, why not?
As a former coach, I see no harm or danger to me preparing for Barney if he has 4 exclusive weeks. In fact, the more time he spends in the editor is less time he has to do what I do best. I like my odds that he won't create something that tears me apart. And if he does, more power to him.

As for the draft idea which got no traction and that's okay. Trying to come up with ideas to make it more fun seems like a worthy effort to me.
if 18 coaches like perfection over 4 days because you got +1 speed and they got +1 endurance, than okay. But, the draft should have some uncertainty even it's a small amount. I think that's why we talk draftsock again because it helps create mistakes. But, I am perfectly happy if 18 coaches want no change at all.

[James-Eagles]

I agree we are a group of mature group. The problem is if we keep trying to add to complexity for newer or less experience coaches we are putting in a the death nail into the league. As you increase the complexity and work something requires it because less and less worth doing. At some point if we continue down path like this will cause us to lose coaches. It also makes it harder recruit new coaches. If you look at the good changes they have taking complexity out of the league. Anti-Agings is the perfect example of this.

Besides Barney made the perfect point that you already get the incentive to make it. You are making the plays agaisnt the team you playing that week. You get exclusive use against them that week. They don't even know the play exist. This should be enough of an advantage and incentive to make plays. If it is not may be you don't enjoy making plays as much as you think you do.

If you enjoy making plays you will make plays reguardless of what the league does. Exclusive for 4 weeks will not increase plays being made because people already do what they enjoy based on time they have. If you want to increase plays extent offseason time. If you look at the limiting factors on plays being made is about time not advantage.

The reason our plans are similar aren't because of the lack of plays it is because we are playing 25 year old game that has flaws. We have a player base that has power creeps over the years so that are rosters are almost the same. Plays aren't the issue it's rosters and the game. The other aspect are plans aren't the same because hell plans of a single team aren't the same week to week.

This is based on a flawed idea. This idea isn't an idea to increase the plays int he league. This is I do all this work I deserve to be rewarded. The thing is you already are because it is what you enjoy.

Everyone says how it isn't that big of a deal or doesn't do anything. If it isn't a big deal then there is no point in having this discussion. We shouldn't do it. Making changes that don't do anything only fuck things up.

[James-Eagles]

[u][i]James said:

I understand the immediate response is, why? well, why not?
As a former coach, I see no harm or danger to me preparing for Barney if he has 4 exclusive weeks. In fact, the more time he spends in the editor is less time he has to do what I do best. I like my odds that he won't create something that tears me apart. And if he does, more power to him.


[/b]

Most of us aren't you or even close. That being said people talk about growing the league we should look at how the rules we make effect a new coach. Not how it would effect the experience coaches.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Gaining exclusive use of plays for 4 or 6 or 8 weeks would be nice. It will increase the incentive for play creators to continue to refresh the play pool with new plays, which is quite important.

Ratings differentiation is a MUST. I got converted to this cause after seeing how it works in the PCFL. I argued with Mitch over this. I was wrong, and he was right. New coaches join and think our ratings are all cloned players and cookie cutter rosters. They don't understand how we put so much effort to trade for a WR that has one more point of AG and EN. Improving our ratings is a MUST for recruiting new coaches. Doing it soon rather than 20 seasons. I think Rich understands this and realizes it. I'm not sure some league officers and coaches are yet on board with this and see the need to move rapidly to change and evolve our player ratings.

Less compressed player ratings will widely open up new play development. Season 2 of the PCFL will lead the way in showing this, as it showed us how well ratings differentiationworks.As teams figured out defense with the PCFL ratings, the scores have been reasonable. Our 2 playoffs games were 32-20 and 31-25. Those are not ridiculous or high scoring games.

Regardless of both of these issues, I am doing it here in the PNFL. I am submitting new plays HERE that I developed with my PCFL team, with some adjustments to try to make them work with PNFL ratings. I will use these plays HERE in the PNFL, even if they do not work as well as some other plays. As our ratings get less compressed, these new plays I am submitting should become more effective in the PNFL. Even if they work well here, my team sucks because it is ranked dead last, 18th, in defense. My efforts to create new defensive plays have been a complete failure. My effort to create a good defensive game plan using our current plays has been a complete disaster. I may have to use use "headless horseman" type defensive gameplans for my team because I totally suck at creating defense, and just focus on coaching offense and hope the defense is sufficient.

For the PNFL, evolving the ratings as quickly as we can is the single most best thing we can do to move this league forward and make it stronger. There is no assurance this will make my team better, it may not, but it will make the PNFL better.

[Donovon-Steelers]

I want to chime in a few things:

* I am 100% in agreement with Barney in that I also rarely make custom plays because they're only providing a benefit for 1 week. Allowing exclusivity for a longer period would encourage us (and others I bet) to spend some time making something a little more innovative than our clones.

* Testing the plays in the PCFL will be negligible and I wouldn't trust the results because the player ratings are so vastly different. What might work there might not work in the PNFL and vice-versa.

* Allowing custom plays longer exclusive use is not going to endanger this league. Its really not hard to figure out how to do what we do. Brian came in and saw which plays were being used by most of us, started his own variation of those, became instantly competitive and then expanded his skills from there. The difficult part is learning how to win *consistently* and with a minimum amount of time available. Custom play expansion won't change that.

* Rich's idea of hiding some potentials is a great one, I don't want to let this idea die. It brings realism to the league and makes it more interesting - I honestly don't know what good reasons that someone WOULD be against this except for the "we've-never-done-it-this-way-before" mindset.

* Lastly, we need a better system of voting in these changes. Have a forum board category for Proposals where only Rich & Charlie can officially approve such ideas with the built-in voting system. Don't make a "X% of owners to pass rule" because some coaches aren't very active on the boards, esp during the offseason - INSTEAD, have a specific *date* that voting ends, and if there are more Yes > No, then it passes. Anyone not voting doesn't count - they're neutral.

[James-Eagles]

I want to chime in a few things:

* I am 100% in agreement with Barney in that I also rarely make custom plays because they're only providing a benefit for 1 week. Allowing exclusivity for a longer period would encourage us (and others I bet) to spend some time making something a little more innovative than our clones.

* Testing the plays in the PCFL will be negligible and I wouldn't trust the results because the player ratings are so vastly different. What might work there might not work in the PNFL and vice-versa.

* Allowing custom plays longer exclusive use is not going to endanger this league. Its really not hard to figure out how to do what we do. Brian came in and saw which plays were being used by most of us, started his own variation of those, became instantly competitive and then expanded his skills from there. The difficult part is learning how to win *consistently* and with a minimum amount of time available. Custom play expansion won't change that.

* Rich's idea of hiding some potentials is a great one, I don't want to let this idea die. It brings realism to the league and makes it more interesting - I honestly don't know what good reasons that someone WOULD be against this except for the "we've-never-done-it-this-way-before" mindset.

* Lastly, we need a better system of voting in these changes. Have a forum board category for Proposals where only Rich & Charlie can officially approve such ideas with the built-in voting system. Don't make a "X% of owners to pass rule" because some coaches aren't very active on the boards, esp during the offseason - INSTEAD, have a specific *date* that voting ends, and if there are more Yes > No, then it passes. Anyone not voting doesn't count - they're neutral.

I think hiding Pot isn't realistic at all. Everyone knows the players ability and how good they could be. I say the varablity is work effort, coaching and situation. If Mahomes goes to Carolina he is probably a bust. Johnny Football and Teabow were coaches thinking they are better than they are. Both were undraftable at QB. Brady slipped because Hensen at Michigan getting so much playing time, but there were signs to tell you that he could be that good. Draft has never been a crap shoot like people says. There is a reason certain teams seem to always hit and others don't. If you look a lot of the teams that miss it is because non football people get involved.

To say there aren't people who are good that slip

Top rookie WRs

15 Franklin, Troy HOU R WR 23 229 10.0 18 2 (1st)
16 Gould, Anthony PHI R WR 23 333 14.5 37 1(4th)
25 Odunze, Rome PHI R WR 21 253 12.0 23 3(1st)
26 Mitchell, Adonai PIT R WR 21 218 10.4 31 1(3rd)
69 Legette, Xavier PHI R WR 15 231 15.4 29 0(2nd)
70 McConkey, Ladd LAC R WR 15 195 13.0 36 1(3rd)

I have LB Skipper draft in the 4th round starting for me.




As for the voting system I disagree the thing is the league doesn't need a lot of changes. The league is successful for as long as it has because it doesn't change much. If we going to make any change to the voting system it is a system that puts in reviews of these changes because last few rules have got in claiming they would do one or two things and none of them have done that. We have a lot of rules that really didn't work. I say the same thing with this one. It is easy to say you would make more plays if you have more exclusive rights but saying that is contradictory to what Barney said earlier. Plays are made to target who you are playing that week. That means the exclusiveness we currently have is already enough of a benefit.




The other thing I would say is the play pool has been being build for what 20 years I think we all call the same plays because it is what works in a 25 year old game.


I also disagree on the Brian example. Brian is the exception not the rule. Most coaches burn out pretty quick. Look at the East division in both conferences. Other coaches take years to catch on to how plays are name or to complete understand profile rules.


I think the exlsuive rule is bad for the league and coule throw off competitve balance. This isnt' a problem for top teams or good coaches. This would be bad for the weaker and new coaches. Barney is already pushing to be the next Justin and Thomas. Do we really need to create more of a speration?

[Barney - Vikings]

Since James mentioned me a couple of times I’d like to correct any misconceptions. I only draw plays for this week’s game because they would only work against this week’s team. The last few plays I drew were specifically for Shuggy and they only work against his defense because otherwise they suck. I didn’t know that at the time because it wasn’t worth my while to practice them against other gameplans. I would advise people not use them against anyone else. I would much rather try to create plays that work against most of the best and common plays, but that is going to take time and effort which I’m not going to spend with only one week of exclusivity.

I appreciate the compliment about reaching the top of the league but I still have no idea how to beat the Jets while the Cardinals and some others are a 50-50 proposition. What I have done is improved my scouting and tried to learn each week. It has nothing to do with creating great plays. I have created very few recently. The guys who do create most of our plays are far from dominating the league. It would be nice if guys like Dean and Shawn got some reward for creating great new plays other than seeing them turned against them after a week. I also think it would motivate other coaches to come up with new ideas to keep the league fresh.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Most of my plays are NOT designed to play a particular opposing team but to be part of an effective game plan to be useful against many opposing teams. The best new plays are those kinds of plays, which is why longer exclusive usage is a real incentive for good play design.

[Rich-League Officer]

James, you are going to have to make a more convincing argument about hiding rookie pots
The idea that everyone (NFL) know the players potential is silly and inaccurate.
The NFL draft is one of the most inexact sciences in sports.
There are 10-20 undrafted players per team on NFL rosters today.
The PNFL has (if I counted correctly) 49 total players, all of whom are filler.
And, btw, 15 of those are your team alone.
So, 17 teams have 34 or 2 per team.
Why?
Because we know every players potential and nobody makes mistakes.

If you hate the idea because you don't want to be wrong, admit it.
If you get the #1 pick in the draft and there are 2 WRs sitting there and they look similar in actuals but both their pots say this:
A-A-A-B-A-A-A-A
you are afraid that one player might be :
83-85-90-63-95-95-95
the other could be:
84-86-91-64-96-96-96
And if you pick the wrong one, it would sting
As a coach I might not love this either but its reality of the NFL draft.
How does Trevor Lawrence look today?
We were all told he was a can't miss generational talent....hmmm, not so much yet.

At least admit you hate it for selfish reasons

[Rich-League Officer]

Donovon:
Lastly, we need a better system of voting in these changes. Have a forum board category for Proposals where only Rich & Charlie can officially approve such ideas with the built-in voting system. Don't make a "X% of owners to pass rule" because some coaches aren't very active on the boards, esp during the offseason - INSTEAD, have a specific *date* that voting ends, and if there are more Yes > No, then it passes. Anyone not voting doesn't count - they're neutral.

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************
This league is not a democracy, its a benevolent dictatorship.

While, relying heavily on opinion and advice from our large base of veteran coaches.
Including myself, we have 11 coaches with over 200+ coaches games which is more than 12 seasons of experience.
6 coaches over 500 games, over 31 seasons or 15 years!

And, my #1 criteria for any new rule is, will anyone quit if we do this?
That's why slow and steady wins the race.
And any new rule that anyone suggests better be brilliant and bulletproof.