As a new player, I just wanted to know how well the game followed the general conventions for building a 53 man roster. I see some teams with 2/3 CBs on them, which may just be an off-season thing, but I would think a 53 man roster would have at least 5 on it.

Is there something to do with fatigue and substitutions that I'm missing? I've not played a game yet (I joined my league in the playoffs and I hadn't made it), but don't want to construct my roster poorly in my off-season.

Thanks!

The rosters can definitely look a little screwy in the off-season.

I've always built mine as if I were building a real team.

It also depends greatly upon what is available in free agency and the draft.

Another strategy people have is if a player has reached their max at a certain position, they're switch them to another position and have them get better at that spot in case the real starter goes down. For instance, people might switch their TEs to FB or vice versa.

I wondered more about fatigue and substitutions. If there is a relatively realistic rotation on gameday, then it makes sense to have a proper roster make up

There are fatigue and substitutions on gameday, but I wouldn't necessarily call it realistic.

There is a setting where you can determine at what fatigue level players are subbed out, but it is universal. For example, you can't split carries between 2 backs while keeping your OL in the game longer.

You can come close by using overrides and having one back in on all 1st down plays and another on all 2nd down plays, and so on. There are many possible variations on that theme, e.g., short distance running plays, pass plays where the running back is a potential receiver, and pass plays where the running back is a blocker.

The issue I have with doing this is that you have to have that one play type be the ONLY type you use in that personnel group (let alone formation), or it won't work.

For example, if your 1RB/3WR sets have pass plays where the RB is a receiver and pass plays where the RB is a blocker, you won't be able to control who is in on which play.

You can do it based on down, distance and personnel, but not formation or play type or position on field or 4th and 1 only, etc., etc....

I think you can if you limit a RB to a particular formation within a set, e.g., the I formation in a 2-1-2 set, and you call only run plays or pass plays out of that formation. You can further refine this by using rules to only call certain formations in certain situations, e.g., down and distance, position on field, and score. It is not perfect, but you can sort of implement a platoon system.

As an example, using this approach my top two RBs pretty much share the load and get about the same amount of carries in most games. In fact my third RB end up getting somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the carries that my top two RBs get. Keeps my RBs fresh (I think). Occasionally I'll be surprised when a RB appears on a certain play, but I figure it's due to fatigue or a random substitution. Like I said, it's not perfect, but what game plan is?

Maybe I'm missing something.

How can you create a rule to use a certain formation, such as I-Form as you mentioned?

From what I can tell you can only use a personnel group. So if you choose a 2 RB set, you could call an I-Form play or a Pro-Set play, etc.