Offensive line averages

[Jared A]

I can't remember, but what do you HAVE to have as far as offensive line goes?

1 C, 2 T's, 1 G? Or, do you even have to have a guard?

[lucky7jc]

It states 5 starters, you can hit depth chart on your team page and gives you exacts.

[Royce R]

I believe it is C and 2 Tackles. The other 2 are flex. But that might be an old rule

[Jared A]

It states 5 starters, you can hit depth chart on your team page and gives you exacts.

Yeah, but you have to have certain positions. Just like the secondary, you can't have all safeties or all CB's.

[Goodell]

• Front 7 will require 2 DE, 1 DT/NT, 3 LB, flex DT/LB (for 3-4 or 4-3) starters and 1 backup from any of those positions;
• Secondary will require 2 CB, 2 S starters and a backup;
• OL will require 2 tackles, 1 center, 1 guard and another flex spot starter to play guard and a backup as well as a TE and/or FB possibly if they improve your average.

[Dustin S.]

why not make it 2 guards? everything else depth wise in the ratings seems to indicate normal starters (3 DL, 3 LB, 2 CB, 2 S, and a DL/LB depending on base set) why not have 2 T, 2 G, 1 C,like all NFL lines?

[Jared A]

Well, most tackles in the NFL are better than guards. If they were to play G, they'd be rated higher. So, if you have extra tackles, I don't think you should be punished.

Other positions are pretty specific.

[Goodell]

why not make it 2 guards? everything else depth wise in the ratings seems to indicate normal starters (3 DL, 3 LB, 2 CB, 2 S, and a DL/LB depending on base set) why not have 2 T, 2 G, 1 C,like all NFL lines?

It was discussed quite a bit I believe when first set. Don't believe any changes made to that since we started.

There was some feeling by some for wanting very specific rules related to position and alignments, and what if I play a 3-4 or 4-3, etc. What if I want to start 3 wideouts and throw more. What if I move this player to this position since he played it in college, etc.

The aim with those overall strength grades isn't to be highly specific or even represent a starting lineup exactly. It's just meant to be a general score of the overall quality (including depth) of a particular area of a football team generally, so we can make statistical adjustments based upon those area of strength grades in the game simulations.

About Guard vs. Tackle, from what I recall about discussions or thought processes about that original requirement, you often will see Tackles move to Guard. Guards sometimes go lower in the drafts in general over time because there isn't a lot of versatility with a Guard. If they suck at Guard they're often just done. On the other hand, you'll often see first-round Tackles who maybe fail initially at Tackle, but move fairly successfully inside to Guard. There are some high profile examples of that over time. Maybe there are other examples of Guards becoming Tackles, but generally speaking you see Tackles being able to fill in at Guard if injuries come up or through career development much more. If a team has two good Centers, there are also examples of one of them moving over to Guard to get on the field as an interior blocker instead of just riding the bench. So through discussions at that time or my general sense of things, it seemed like there are a lot of examples of Centers and Tackles being able to either fill-in or move to Guard much more than Guards being able to as frequently take over at other areas. Some of that was wanting to allow some flexibility in our rosters for that positional flexibility that happens in reality, but also perhaps just giving a little extra value and requirement to those arguably more specialized positions.

If a team had two good starting Tackles already but drafted a backup who really improved his skills to a starter-calibur and the team had a hole at Guard with lesser starters there, it's fairly realistic that one of the strong three Tackles might be moved inside to Guard. If a team had two strong Centers, one of them realistically probably moves to Guard if a need there where you probably wouldn't see a Center move to Tackle. If a team has extra great Guards, a move of them to Tackle or Center (without any previous experience or skills for those spots) didn't seem as realistic where you don't see as many moves from Guard to something, but instead many more the other way around.

When making those rules, the Guard position seemed a more flexible slot and often involved a player moving to that position from another. There also arguably seemed like more specialized skills in Centering the ball and leading the line or being an outside Tackle against the best pass rushers. Having additional talented lineman at those arguably more demanding and/or higher valued positions, shouldn't be seen as a negative where the system forced you to have a poor strictly Guard's grade instead of using another strong Tackle's grade (if that was the case on your team) when in all realism one of your stronger Tackles would likely be moved over in reality.

It's something that can be brought up again, and with some Guards being higher valued in more recent seasons/drafts, maybe it's something to keep an eye on, but in general that's why it is the way it is now after initial discussions about those early on.

The way it is now, having guys who are labeled as real Tackles and a real Center is most important for a line grade requirement. Those seemed like the most highly skilled areas that involved the least positional flexibility. If you have 10 good Guards on your roster, it doesn't mean you'll have a good LT on your team protecting your QB's blindside, so your OL grade takes a hit with our 2 Tackle requirement if you don't make sure you have Tackles. If you have 4 great Tackles on your team for some reason, though, you'll probably be okay moving one of those highest skilled players over a spot inside as many have made that move inside. While we do devalue the strictly Guard position a bit by doing that, we do require that at least one of your players making up that grade be listed as a Guard or marked eligibile for Guard, so we give some requirement/value to the Guards out there even if we allow the other guard spot to be more flexible if you're loaded at other areas where moves to Guard are fairly common.

[sportznut]

I don't disagree about guards moving to tackle, but strongly disagree about them moving to center. Guards are being drafted higher and higher, and their pay is going up while many starting centers are drafted later than any other line position, and many centers played different positions in college. Its my opinion based on these facts that most guards (certainly the above average ones) could not only be centers, but excel at it.

[Goodell]

It's an area for discussion, and potentially something that's been changing a bit over time.

As it relates to our game, though, I'm not sure I'd personally want at this point to say it's okay for our teams to not have any real Center at all on their teams and we can assume someone else can play Center just fine without any issue. I think there have been some games in recent seasons where teams had to scramble for a different Center within a game with disasterous results or turnovers at times. But I'm sure lots of examples where no problems too. It wouldn't be as realistic in my view to say no real Centers are needed at all on your roster, which is why we have that requirement still for at least one actual Center part of the overall line grade.

I wanted some positional flexibility in our rules, but not entirely ignoring positions where a player was graded altogether where we say it's okay to have 5 Tackles and nothing else because we'll teach one of them to snap and move a couple others to Guard and they'll be just as a good a graded Center despite never playing there as they'd be a graded Tackle or Guard where they've always played otherwise. It's somewhat unfair arguably to highly graded Centers with demonstrated skill in that area being recognized at the best at that position specifically if anyone else can be plugged into there with the same grade applying as it would be to the real position they're being currently graded on.

So we looked to have some balance of some positional requirement and a little flexibility. So we left one spot for flex at the one position that historically (and by discussion at the time) seemed most flexible with the most positional movement.

- You can't completely ignore Center or Guard on your roster. You need at least one real Center and one real Guard as part of your line grade (and better have backups at those real positions if injury).
- We do require 2 real Tackles because those seem to be the most highly specialized positions where you see the least amount of positional movement.

To me that seems somewhat reasonable in terms of a realistic looking group that requires at least one of every position, puts a premium on the position the NFL puts a premium on, and has a little flexibility too.

I'm not talking about change of position from college to the pros, as that happens a lot all over (where you have QBs in college playing WR or whatever in the pros). I'm talking more an existing NFL player playing one position and then moving to another. I haven't studied Centers a lot, but my general understanding would be far more likely to see a young NFL Tackle move to Guard after a while than to start suddenly snapping the ball having never done that. Maybe it's just the high profile examples of highly drafted Tackles eventually moving inside. Far more likely to see an interior blocker NFL Guard perhaps either filling in at Center when injuries or actually moving to Center as primary position. Just not sure we want to drop a requirement of our sim teams having a legitimate Center being required.

But overall, the bottom line is we do want to have our "starter" grade positions that count the most toward your area of strength grade be somewhat realistic in terms of the makeup of that group, but also allow a little flexibility knowing that's part of reality also. It's mostly to steer teams away from the extremes where you can't have 5 Guards only and have a great overall line grade, nor can you only have 5 Tackles or only 5 Centers. Those are unrealistic and not what we want to encourage or reward here. You have to have some realistic looking group of "starters" based somewhat on positions they've generally played in the NFL, but we'll leave a little wiggle room for players moving around in common ways that we also see in reality.