Football problems

Seems like I'm not very good at this football game. I'm off to a 1-7 start. Season looks petty much unsalvageable. I have no idea why, apart from my only win com ing before I tried to change my offense and defense styles. Any tips that people can offer would be appreciated.

Link to your team?

http://365.strat-o-matic.com/team/1474995

Hopefully that works. I don't think you have to go into standings to get the team link like you did in the old days.

First thing, I'd find some way to spend that $2.6 million you have in the bank. It's not helping you there. Second, your offense is OK, but not good for this game. Successful teams seem to have either a completion percentage better than 60 percent or are doing quite well with long passes. Unitas is doing neither. You're avg. gain numbers should be better for your running backs. Something is not fooling opponents' defenses.

Not seeing any of your game scores, I have no idea if your crew is losing close or getting blown off the field. In either case I hope you are experimenting with your strategy settings. Maybe you need more risk, maybe less. Study what your opponents have been doing and set your defense to mess with them and your offense put you in charge of the game, whether it's ball-control or quick-scoring that looks like it will give you an advantage.

Other than studying your opponents (and the teams that win 11, 12, 13 games to learn a couple tricks for your next outfit), consider everything else I wrote is worth exactly what you paid for it. But good luck (and dice rolls might be working against you, at least for a couple of your games). You do need to study and try new things to learn a few tricks that give your teams and edge.

Right now, I have some extra money because I just dropped my highest-paid receiver because he was eligible to return Kicks and Punts. Deion hadn't gotten a single return, but he got some last night. So that was technically a downgrade, but I'm not sure how much since he probably cost more just due to the eligibility to return Kicks/Punts. Everywhere else, there is not a lot out there. Most free agents would cost at most .5-.75 million more. For example, I could swap Randall Cunningham ($7.0 mil.) for Terry Bradshaw ($7.5 mil.). I'm not sure that's really an upgrade of any significance. Generally I'd be upgrading backups, and very slightly. The only place there's room to spend a lot, is at KR/PR, but that's more because they'd be eligible to play SE/FL, not because they are great returners. This league has a higher salary cap than most at $160 million, and there's just not a lot on the free agent wire.

Scores are as follows:
W 31-24 1-0-0
L 38-27 1-1-0
L 27-10 1-2-0
L 26-16 1-3-0
L 17-7 1-4-0
L 26-21 1-5-0
L 34-27 1-6-0
L 22-10 1-7-0
W 31-14 2-7-0
W 27-13 3-7-0
Ironically, we won the first game with the default settings - I'd forgotten to change them prior to the first game. After that, I mostly tried going with the "Pro Set Fast TE" offense, since Pihos is a pretty good TE. I've tried a few different defenses, but usually 4-3 of some kind. The two games where I tried to key on pass or run, I was beaten soundly by the other play type. These last two games, which I've won both of, I reverted to the default settings . . . so maybe the problem is me.

I definitely think the two HBs I have are a little too close in cost, I'd rather have a top-tier guy and someone lower, but I wound up with what I have. Do you think it's worth pursuing these $.5 mil upgrades? Swap Back FB for .5 mil. (Ken Willard for Pete Johnson), 3rd string HB for .25 mil. (Roger Craig for Eddie George), 3rd string SE for maybe .25 mil. (Anthony Carter for Ken Kavanaugh . . . though more expensive guys are available, they are eligible for returning kicks), 3rd string FL for .75 mil. (Fred Biletnikoff for Mark Clayton...honestly Biletnikoff has been good for me). There's also a $2 mil. upgrade at Punter, because Chandler can also play PK . . . only real difference in punting skills is that Chandler can go for 90 yards on a 2-roll, Tupa maxes out at 73 yards.

At this point my season is pretty much ripe for experimenting, since I'm highly unlikely to make the playoffs.

Well I think the only strategy is just about exploiting glitches in pricing, injuries, usage and computer play calling etc. Not really much to do with football. There's no way it really can be with such a small level of control over what happens. Not knowing which of your own players will even be playing etc.

I feel like really you have about the same level of control you do over fantasy football. maybe less. Got a feeling everybody still playing is playing off of the credits they bought originally on sale like me or credits they won from those originals.

With a good game this might be peak interest for football with playoffs etc, last league I signed up for took over a week to fill I think, maybe a couple. And now that I'm 2-2 with very random wins and losses for no real reason, I remembered why I had been sitting on credits waiting the first place.

If they don't do something in the offseason to improve this game they need to refund us our money. They aren't even fixing things that are super basic like player pricing. Super frustrating.

Hey there - I wouldn't mind paying some money for football if SOM is using those leagues to fix the system but seemed to me like they weren't moving real fast with it and I'm a little shocked that the Strato boss hasn't pulled it down- what a legacy huh?
Anyways, has there been changes in the last month or two? Is there a way to read the game replay without knowing the results yet? That is the top priority to me as while they're are bigger problems, that fix literally could be done in less than an hour and they emailed me they were working on it quite a while back? Hoping that's there now and they've made some other fixes but I know its hard when they've got to market and advertise - no one told em they're living off of past Strato and their return on investment for advertising dollars is most likely much less than they could garner from investing that same money into fixing broken stuff and allowing for all of us to play more and spread the word. Oh well, what can you expect out of Long Island?

Probably to late for this since you are now 7-9. but a lot of money spent in the fullback spot without using him. 2 tight ends and pro set will utilize the FB more.

Also judging from your scores you defense is and issue ..
Tim