Depth as an Issue

[charlie813brown]

A growing concern for me in this league is a team with limited depth but high end well paid players. That just isn't realistic, but because of the way we calculate grades and updates, those are the teams that succeed, instead of teams built well 1-53. Now, it is no fault of the GMs for going in this direction, because you play the hand you are dealt, but my prime example is CFFL New England team as a completely unrealistic AFC champion. He has 1 WR rated above a 60. I am wondering what we can do to address this situation going forward, to be more in line with the REAL NFL and less in line with Fantasy teams.

[Jared A]

Charlie... increasing the depth was voted on and passed. However... my team I. Cffl did have 3 TE's in the 90 range. My passing game was built big. Id love to see a team try to match up with that receiver core.

[Goodell]

A growing concern for me in this league is a team with limited depth but high end well paid players. That just isn't realistic, but because of the way we calculate grades and updates, those are the teams that succeed, instead of teams built well 1-53. Now, it is no fault of the GMs for going in this direction, because you play the hand you are dealt, but my prime example is CFFL New England team as a completely unrealistic AFC champion. He has 1 WR rated above a 60. I am wondering what we can do to address this situation going forward, to be more in line with the REAL NFL and less in line with Fantasy teams.

With all the NFL injuries, I think sim teams without much depth are houses of cards rolling the dice that closely resemble the Indy team -- with Peyton playoff contenders, without him worst in the league. You can do it that way, but not great odds of surviving a season without injuries. I think most of the best teams in the big picture over 5 years here have had lots of depth and survived injuries to remain highly rated.

There have been NFL contenders and even champs with weaker WRs corps. We value the QB much more than WR and I think that's represented in reality too when QBs like Brady can often succeed with lesser known receiving corps. The example, as mentioned, had a ton of TE receivers though.

[Ulrich82]

I'd be in favor of some future rule that says only 2 TE/WR's can be counted towards a teams WR grade as a realism issue (both because NFL teams don't do it and to discourage "hoarding" at certain positions). However, I think we'd have to give a 1 season or more warning because otherwise it isn't fair to teams currently built that way.

[Ben C.]

I'd be in favor of some future rule that says only 2 TE/WR's can be counted towards a teams WR grade as a realism issue (both because NFL teams don't do it and to discourage "hoarding" at certain positions). However, I think we'd have to give a 1 season or more warning because otherwise it isn't fair to teams currently built that way.

I think it is fair to allow a team to have up to 4 TE/WR players. The whole point of these leagues is to allow people to design a team how they would like to see an NFL franchise. If they want to try out an offense with 4 tight ends lined up wide, why not let them? It would surely be an intriguing offense to see defensive coordinators try to game plan for.

[sportznut]

I'm with Ben here. If its a legal formation, we should be allowed to run it no matter how unorthodox it may seem.

[Goodell]

Mostly, though, too we're not like a video game where you'd see every play and who was in at the same time on the field visually. It's primarily just measuring the overall grades of different areas (including receiver in general) against each other. We have some basic requirements toward what makes up those grades that fit usually within reasonable but flexible constraints.

[hoopie44641]

I agree with Ben also cause it gives owners the flexibility to run an offenses based on they strength of the team.

[charlie813brown]

Flexibility is fine, but realism is also the goal. No team would run 3/4 TEs because they know the team would stack the box, their running game would disappear as a result and they would have little to no vertical game. But because we can't call plays here, we use players real stats in an "unreal" system and that's my problem.

Also the QB issue is entirely different than depth at any other position because we are a QB league.

[Goodell]

The general contraints of the grades are for the most part based around reality. If teams push that or find ways to unrealistically impact that, we'd want to look at corrections. I don't think 3 TEs within a receiving corps overall grade is too outrageous given real teams like NE who doesn't have great WR but brilliant TEs.

For vertical players, if a team had only short reception TEs they should be hurt in the game simluator versus other teams because it includes a game update for longest reception. Many TEs are vertical players too making big plays down the middle. But if one team has a WR with an 80 yard reception in their update and the other has 3 TEs with a 10 yarder their longest, it should be a built in advantage in the game simulation to teams with big play players generating those within the game play.

I agree that we don't want it entirely unrealistic. It might be being pushed there in some cases, but there are real teams that are very TE heavy attacks also. I'll look at any max/minimums as far as what makes up that grade, but I could see 3 TEs being allowed realistically for receiver grade overall. That doesn't necessarily mean that every play if we saw it happening would have 3 TEs always on the field. Our grades include backups also. Most teams don't have 5 receivers on the field always at once. But that's just the grade given to your receiving corps based upon overall quality and depth. I would think it shouldn't allow 5 TEs to make up the entire grade (and don't think it does), but I think 3 isn't unrealistic. I would imagine it probably requires already (or if not probably should) 2 WRs as starters being part of the grade.