This primer comes out of a series of observations I've made in the past few allocation leagues I've joined. I joined a few recently to test weights in a full allocation draft, but it's also given me a chance to scout a lot of brand new teams, some with brand new owners or recent rookies. It's also given me a new appreciation for how hard it is to build that first successful offense.
Same general disclaimer as always, use this as you will or not at all. These are just some notes on common pitfalls new game planners run into. Finally, this whole guide assumes you are game planning for regular season games and not preseason.
If you take nothing else away from this post, do a key word search for "Key Locking" and read that section.
Key Terms Key concepts to start.
Play Matrix This is the Offense tab in the Gameplanning menu. It's where you set up what type of play you want to run given a down and distance.
Hurry Up Mode You're going to find this settingin the Misc settings in the Gameplanning menu. Keep in mind where it is.
Play KnowledgeThis is how well an individual player knows a play. You can find this on the player card if you are curious. Here's the important thing about it. The better a player knows a play, the more effective they are at running that play. This efficacy factor has never really been fully explained in terms of percentages, but you can see noticeable changes in a team year-to-year running the same plays.
Misc SettingsLet's jump right into the Misc settings for a moment. There are several things you are going to want to do here before the start of the season.
FatigueYou should be setting your fatigue by position. For skill players, this is particularly important because having fresh bodies rotating in and out of your RB and WR positions helps wear down your opponent's defense more. (You should be considering these settings for defense as well, but I think for offense it matters more.)
GP Distance Adjustment SpeedSet this thing to 0 immediately. This is an interesting idea in theory, but it complicates things so much for the novice game planner. By setting this to 0, you make sure that your Short, Medium, and Long distances stay static. This is extremely important when setting your play matrix.
Here's a break down of down and distance for first-third down (here's the official blog post:
http://blog.myfootballnow.com/2015/03/short-medium-and-long-what-do-they.html):1st Short <5 yards, Medium 5-15, Long 15+
2nd Short <4 yards, Medium 4-11, Long 11+
3rd Short <3 yards, Medium 3-9, Long 9+
Hurry UpIf you're not going to use rules, consider this carefully. I usually set it to 2 and forget about it. By setting it to 2, you will go to pass heavy when down by 6 or more points at 2 minutes left in the game.
Slow DownSet it to 0 and use a rule to run out the clock. More on this later.
The PlaybookThe Off Plays tab of the Gameplanning Menu.
Your offensive playbook like your defensive one is determined by your coach. Here is the key thing to remember. All this means is that some coaches have different plays. Do NOT let your coach pick the plays that your team will run EVER. Seriously, DO...NOT...DO...IT.
First Playbook?If you are brand new, I would recommend doing two things to determine what plays you should be running:
1) Skim the game logs of owners that have really successful offenses and see what plays they run. There are a limited number of really effective plays. You'll catch on to what those plays are quickly.
2) Play careful attention to the average yards per gained over the season and over the past few games for all your plays.
You can sort your offensive plays by average per call, which is a great way of figuring out if you are calling effective plays or not. For instance, I want my short passing plays to average at least 5 yards per pass. If I'm not averaging that after 8-10 times calling the play, I may try a different one.
Play knowledge is an interesting concept here. The thing to keep in mind is that more knowledge of a play, the better the player runs that play. So if a play is successful the first 10 times, it should become more effective as players get to know the play. But you shouldn't also hold onto plays that are not effective and expect them to suddenly become effective (sorry 113 shotgun runs).
Second Playbook? - Avoiding Key LockingIf you already have some plays that you like, here's a good time to think about how to counter defensive keying.
The first question you should ask yourself is "are the passing plays worth it?" Remember that you can only pass out of the 005, 014, and 104 sets. That means every player that has played the game for more than 6 months will have a rule that keys pass against those sets. Sometimes it can still be worth using a handful of those plays. But this depends on your WR, team philosophy, opponent, etc.
But I'm going to yell this next part so you understand how immportant it really is: DO NOT ALLOW YOUR OPPONENT TO KEY LOCK YOUR OTHER PERSONNEL SETS.
What does key locking mean? It means when you do
only run or pass out of a personnel set where you could do either. When I'm scouting an opponent and I see that you are only passing out of the 203, the first thing I do is write a rule that defensive keys pass on every 203 play. Simiarly, if you are only running out of the 221 set, I have a rule that calls the Attack #3 all game against the set in Run Key.
To avoid key locking, you need to balance your runs and passes out of each personnel set. This sometimes means abandoning entire personnel sets if you don't have the right plays or effective ones. It's still worth it. Otherwise, opponents like me are going to key your offense and blow up your effective plays in that one set.
Play MatrixI don't want to spend a lot of time on this because everyone has different tastes in their offense. But I do want to call it out.
It is worth your time to determine what kind of team you want to be. If you have the personnel to run more, then you want to make sure you're running at least 50% of the time on first and second down if not more. If you like to pass more, then reverse that last statement.
Once you determine that set your matrix accordingly. With keeping these things in mind:
1) Make sure you have enough variety of personnel and plays available at each down and distance. I've seen a lot of games where my opponent ended up getting nailed for overusing the same play on 1-Medium and 2-Medium.
2) Make sure you are playing your percentage game correctly in terms of run or pass. The matrix can be difficult to learn and use, so sometimes you think you have it set to call a run on 1-15, but you end up passing. This could be because 1-15 is 1-Long, and you were expecting it to be 1-Medium.
3) Remember this will be your default game plan settings unless you use rules to override it or you are in Hurry Up mode. So whether or not you're ahead by 10 or down by 10, make sure you are comfortable with the plays that will be called.
Personnel OverridesA few quick pointers on personnel overrides for maximizing productivity and efficiency in your offense.
1) Put your best slot WR in the slot. For example, your WR2 is a RB that you've transitioned to WR. He only has 60-65 SP, but he has 90+ receiving skills and good break tackle. With a player like this, I would move him to the slot in the 113 and 203 because most of the plays I'm going to call out of those sets are going to have the slot run short. The short routes utilize the receiving skills more and not SP as much.
2) Put your fastest WR outside in the personnel sets where the outside WRs go long. This seems obvious already, but there are some game mechanics to consider here. The game calculates DB vs WR on medium and long routes as SP vs SP. Further, CBs with bad B&R will often come up and try to jam the faster WR (I don't know why) and fall down on the play allowing the fast WR to run free. CBs with good B&R will give appropriate cushion most of the time or at least not miss the jam.
3) Sub your Fullback out of sets where you're not going to run the ball. The 203 Split Backs is a good example of this. For this set, I sub my best pass blocking running back in for the fullback. I then put my fastest, best pass catch RB in the RB spot. And if I don't have a good pass catching RB for that spot, I sub in a WR. I do the same thing with the 212 Split Backs as well.
RulesRules on offense are not as cut and dry as they are on defense. Here are two example rules that I recommend most consider developing.
1) A rule for 4-Inches. There are a lot of times when it is better to go for it on 4th down than punt or take a FG. Take some time and figure out which of those times works best for you, and create a rule that goes for it in those situations. Maybe you don't trust your kicker from more than 45 yards. Why punt it away when it's better to go for it if you're on the 40 yard line?
2) A rule for when you're losing by >11 or >15. It's difficult to come back from a two-plus score deficit. This is a good time to consider a rule that overrides your play matrix on first and second down in order to be more aggressive. As with your play matrix, the same reminders apply - make sure to vary your personnel sets and play your percentages correctly.
3) [This one didn't get copied from the notepad last night.] A rule to run the clock for when you're winning by >11 in the 4Q. Why use a rule here and not slow down mode? A rule allows you better control how and when you are going to run the ball. You probably only want to run the ball more on first and second down, or you might want to concentrate on inside runs with a fullback, or you might want to run outside everytime and hope to hit that home run. I've used all of the above strategies depending on my team.
Last edited at 12/03/2017 12:34 pm
