defense card

would like to see the defense card. when the roll is a 456. its like playing baseball witout seeing the pitching card. most would think mike scott would have a good card but gives up many hrs. and we know this because we can see the card. while the new r johnson card you would think gives upna few hrs on it but no its a stud card. the football online game does show the card. i know its all the same team. but SOM should be able to mix and match the defenses from the 3 sets d line linbackers and d backs into a defense card that we can see and evaluate. the fun part of the game for me is looking at that card and see what works and what doesn't

I fully agree.

I also would like to understand when defense substitutes will play. Some DB cards cost more when they have good substitutes.
I have not seen anything in the rules about injury or replacements for OL, DL, LB, DB.

Defensive substitutions will only happen by formation or due to injury...

Your defensive players can get hurt.

Back when Sporting News ran SOM football in 2002/2003 ALL teams used the same generic card. I might be off by a couple % but this what I remember.......

about 18% of the time it depended on the blocking rating of one of the OL or TE or BB for the type of play be it run or pass.
"0" player NEVER makes a BIG BLOCK
"4" player makes the BIG BLOCK 33% of the time (big block being the difference say between a 1 yd gain vs. 15 yd gain)
"5" player makes the BIG BLOCK 66% of the time
"6" player makes the BIG BLOCK 100% of the time

****note "6"s vs. "4"s make the SAME BIG PLAY......however the "6" ALWAYS comes through and "0"s NEVER DO!

about 18% of the time it depended on the rating of the defender in the "zone" of the play:
"0" player NEVER makes a BIG STOP
"4" player makes the BIG STOP 33% of the time (big stop being the difference say between a 1 yd gain vs. 15 yd gain)
"5" player makes the BIG STOP 66% of the time
"6" player makes the BIG STOP 100% of the time

The remaining 64% of the time there were 2 columns if you guessed right or wrong for run or pass on the play and then ALL teams would get the SAME results since the card NEVER varied from team to team.

I'm guessing here that this version of SOM will be the same........meaning there is NO CARD for your DL or OL, etc....the ONLY thing that matters is the number rating for the individual ratings and for you to make sure your player stays in their zone. BLITZING LBs is tricky since if your opponent throws a FLAT pass into the zone where your LB has vacated for the BLITZ it will result in a BIG play (10 to 39 yards typically) so you need to be careful to blitz your LBs too frequently.....IMHO.......

a bit long winded, but let me climb onto my soap box. If you have NEVER played the football board game I would recommend picking up a cheap copy with say four team on ebay just to acquaint yourself with the way the game is played and how the ZONES of CONTROL work for your defenders. It will improve your play IMMENSELY! PLUS it will help you to exploit your opponents with your offense once you get a feel for their defensive tendencies if you have a grasp for the defensive zones.

I LOVE the Baseball game.......but I REALLY LOVE the football game......I'm so jacked about this becoming available!!!

My guess is that we will see incremental improvements to the game over the next two years!

Buy.....study.......and ENJOY!

The problem with having a generic defensive card was that most of the results were the same whether you drafted all 6's or all 0's (you used to be able to draft individual defensive players, not units)

In the board game, if you have say the 85 Bears, not only do you have good individual ratings, but the defensive card itself has better results based on the performance of that team’s defense.

My recollection was that they added a higher percentage of calls to the individual players (as compared to a normal board game defensive card) to help remedy the "problem."

I hope they are doing something similar now. I think strat needs to let us see the generic card they are using, and I’m hoping it’s altered to allow more results to come from individual ratings, especially for defensive players.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they could produce a defensive card for your team based on the individual players? That would probably be pretty difficult to execute. Anyone good at creating algorithms?

Bump

Could someone please explain the ratings to me..

For example on the D Line...
NY Giants...41 pass rush...34 defense...
Does that mean the run defense is 34?

Ok. Next...
linebacker units...
49ers...pass rush 36...defense 14/14...
Does that mean if they blitz they are a 36 rated? Higher is better...right?
And what does 14/14 mean?

OK. Next. Defensive back units...
Detroit. 22/12?
Whst does that mean?

?

Could someone please explain the ratings to me..

For example on the D Line...
NY Giants...41 pass rush...34 defense...
Does that mean the run defense is 34?

Ok. Next...
linebacker units...
49ers...pass rush 36...defense 14/14...
Does that mean if they blitz they are a 36 rated? Higher is better...right?
And what does 14/14 mean?

OK. Next. Defensive back units...
Detroit. 22/12?
Whst does that mean?

?

First these are All Time team ratings, and if I remember correctly I believe all of the all time teams use a 4-3 defense ( 4 D-line man and 3 Linebackers) and none use a 3-4. Either way these ratings have nothing to do with 4-3 vs 3-4.

The numbers you are seeing are simply the totals of the ratings for the players, so if you click on the Giants D-line and see the individual players that make up the starters and subs for the Giants D-line, when you add up their pass rush numbers, they add to 41, when you add their run stop ratings they ad to 36, so yes overall the higher the better, but you really need to check the individual numbers as you ideally like your starters to have the highest numbers (That's why they are starters ), but could ahve say a pass rush specialist on the bench that squews things.

Now with Linbackers, those players have three ratings, Pass rush for when they blitz and rush the passer, Pass defense, for covering backs out of the back filed on pass plays and run defense for defending against the run. Again the team ratings you see are simply the totals of the individuals, both starters and bench players.

For defensive backs, the safeties have both Pass defense and run defense ratings, Corner backs only pass defense, so the higher number is the pass defense ratings as it's all four starters plus the bench players, the smaller number is the run ratings only incorporating the safties.

Those totals are just a quick way to compare units, but again you should really open each team and see how they break down.

Hope this helps

Caveat - be forewarned - I'm not sure about the following information, but I think that this is correct:

For the safeties and linebackers, in the "defense ratings", the first rating shown is their pass defense rating. The second number shown is their run defense rating.

I am inferring this based on 2 things:

1- for the safeties, it seems clear that the second rating is the run rating. Having the linebackers the same as this makes sense (consistent)

2- I compared the overall real life run defense for Green Bay and Tampa Bay for 2016. Green Bay had a strong defense versus the run (but weak versus the pass). Tampa had a weak defense versus the run. The ratings for the defensive cards for both teams makes sense , given their 2016 defensive performances.