League Discussion: Rules

A couple things, if you have questions, or clarifications for rules, post them here.

Today I want to ask about moving players pre-snap on defense.

Rules wrote:02. Moving Players Pre-Snap
Moving a player is allowed. They must stay in their general area though. For example, a MLB remain between the OLBs. You cannot drag a player across the field out of position. D-Line must stay on the line. You can not pull them back and reposition them. Safeties must stay a few yards or more behind LBs. If in the blitz coverage look, the SS acts as a LB.

In action, it's not major to move your player into a position you're more comfortable with. How does the league feel about moving a player into position, and then moving to your regular player and moving them? Say moving a safety into a spot, and then moving to a LB to move them into a spot?

Pro Player Movement 1: Offense appears to be wide open this year, even as we balance the sliders. If it helps defense tip the scale to more balance, it may not be a bad thing.

Con Player Movement 1: It can create AI issues where pressure and blocking assignments cannot work as intended, opening up the possibility of nano-blitzes and other gaffes.

More input appreciated. Leave as is? Or add a stipulation that player movement is allowed, but you have to user the player you move?

rbal5491 wrote:I have a question about the "going for it on 4th down" rule. I agree with the above rules, but this ignores common sense "going for it" that nfl teams would really run right? An example would be going for it on your half of the field in a game-winning drive with under 2 min left in the 4th quarter. There shouldn't be any restrictions in said situations.

You raise a good point, the rules do not highlight this because it's never been an issue in end game situations. At the end of the game, any situation dictates going for it if you're losing. It's hard to say when that is because there's no way to know how the game was going.

The only issue is making a set rule on the time scenario "end of the game" starts to take precedent. Is it when there are 2 minutes left? 3? 4? Or earlier?

On moving players-
I think we should be able to line up a player for coverage purposes. I have noticed when I run a man blitz, your players are not close to a position to be able to cover their man i.e safeties/LBs(even with man align). I do not think that we should be able to move players to make blitzes more effective. i.e stacking a gap or overloading a side

I agree. I don't see a problem really with alignment issues as it is, but I don't see a problem with moving a guy. Especially moving DBs around, I don't see an issue. The game won't allow you to move them so I dont see a problem with manually doing it as long as nobody is setting up a nano or whatever.

mission8 wrote:On moving players-
I think we should be able to line up a player for coverage purposes. I have noticed when I run a man blitz, your players are not close to a position to be able to cover their man i.e safeties/LBs(even with man align). I do not think that we should be able to move players to make blitzes more effective. i.e stacking a gap or overloading a side

This. I think it should be OK for coverage, not for blitzing.

Realigning players for coverage works for me.  On D I'll normally flip the play to let the DB's and safeties align better, but it doesn't always work.  

On the going for it on 4th, imo if I'm up by a TD or more and I'm in FG range, I'd kick it.  If I'm up by less than a TD and a FG wouldn't make it a 2 score game, I don't think going for it should be frowned upon.  That's just the way I would play it out.  It's one of those risk/reward situations that makes calling plays fun.  As far as when to determine end of the game, 4 minutes to go sounds reasonable to me.

I think playing games with a headset would help out a lot too.  It gives you a chance to talk to the other person and would make situations like this easier to deal with instead of trading texts or chat messages back and forth.  Plus I wanna hear EDJ rage when he throws a pick or something.   

**I have a 4th Down rule proposal change.**
I believe it was the Falcons or Saints that asked about late game situations, something current rules do not adress.

Current Rules wrote:08. 4th Down Rules
Up by 14 or more – You are not allowed to go for it. You must kick (FG or Punt).
Up by 13 or less (or tied) – You may go for it if it is 4th and short (3 yards or less) but only if you have reached your opponent's 35 yard line.
Losing by 16 or less - you may go for it in on 4th and short (3 yards or less) but only once you have crossed midfield and entered your opponent’s side of the field.
Losing by 17 or more - you may attempt a 4th down conversion in any situation.
***If you find that a player broke a 4th down rule, it is expected that the violator punt the ball to the opponent immediately.

I propose the same rules as always stand.
However, in end game situations, that being the 4th quarter, we set a time threshold to let the rules be bypassed to allow a fair comeback chance that both teams are aware of.
1 possession game (8 points or less): Losing team can go for it inside 3 minutes from anywhere.
2 possession game (9-16 point deficit): losing team can go for it inside 4 minutes from anywhere.
3+ possession game (17 points or more): losing team can go for it from anywhere as rules already state.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thoughts?

Sounds fair to me. Thats more real life

I think it is generally fair. My suggestion would be to allow the player trailing 2 possessions to go for it anytime during the 4th quarter. For example, let's say Giants are trailing 30-14 with 4:30 left in the game. Punting doesn't seem like a reasonable thing to do there. And with 6 minute quarters (I think), it isn't really stretching what is realistic.

Just my thoughts as someone frequently trailing, lol

Good idea.

2-3 day max playoff advance. And if preseason games are simmed, injuries should be off. Nothing like starting season without your best players.

mission8 wrote:2-3 day max playoff advance. And if preseason games are simmed, injuries should be off. Nothing like starting season without your best players.

I agree on both counts.

- Keep the same hard deadlines on advancing in the playoffs as you do in the regular season.

- Turn off injuries during the pre-season.

Agree with both, we should try a faster advance throughout the first 8 weeks and see how people approach it and move on from there.

shooter wrote:Just played Mission for the second time, got smoked as usual. He's better than me, in no way am I saying the quicksnap is/was a breach of rules, or that in anyway he plays unsim. That being said, I do think we should have rules discouraging frequent quicksnaps on offense. When a guy has a speed runningback or option QB it's almost impossible to stop a formation where there's no wr on the wide side of the field if the user quicksnaps the ball. I'd suggest that there should be at least a three second pause before snapping the ball on most offensive plays. Just my two cents.

Shooter started a thread about a quick snap, I'm moving the post here.

To respond, I've singled out "quick snaps" in the rules already. It's pretty cheesy if you ask me. No huddle is allowed, I like no huddle. I ran it a couple of times versus the Panthers and Raiders this season as it is. But calling no huddle and then snapping right away is extreme. In many cases I take the time to audible to another play/formation and give the defense time to settle in.

Rules wrote:III.) Gameplay Rules:
01. No cheesing:
While EA has done a decent job of removing AI flaws in their games, should any cheap tactics like rocket user catching, nano blitzing, and LB shaking be found, they will not be tolerated. Play the game against your opponent, not the AI. If an exploit is found down the road that you've been using, you will be booted immediately. Not running the clock down to zero every play, and no excessive, quick snapping with no huddle.

I myself (when I do get to play) tend to spend a lot of time reading defenses and planning out which route to change. The same applies to defense, so when someone does the little quick toss to the TE within a second of setting up it bothers me. It means putting a lineman into coverage in order to block the pass coming right out of the center.

I consider it cheap and child's play for a sim player not to utilize strategy into his plays, to instead use how fast I can press that X button before the defense knows what formation I am in. So in short, I am against it as a primary course to move the ball. Once or twice is fine but it's really easy to abuse.

And keep in mind abuse would not be in the end of a game situation. Can't ask a team trying to rally to run their 2 minute offense slower. It's all about respecting the opponent. If they're trying to flip their defense since the DBs aren't lining up, I'm going to let them get across the field.

Ive never run a no huddle but when I walk up to line and see an area in the defense to attack then I will snap quickly. Am I suppose to wait and let my opponent drop his safety into the box? Now when I played Pitt and came out in twins, he would audible into a zone and I would wait for db to move into position.

Keep in mind that my quick snap after seeing defense is for a run play. Not a quick snap quick throw to a wide open wr.

I hadn't followed up on any accusations yet. As my examples show, I assumed shoots meant no huddle. I don't think we can really limit how long not to snap the ball after breaking the huddle. It's tough because an offense can hot route multiple times before being fully lined up, yet the defense has to be in a certain position sometimes or else the hot route can be different than expected.

I agree with that and I dont think shoots was being negative towards me. I can see what he is saying.

I agree with mission if I see a hole in the D I will use it, but I generally try to wait till like 15 to give the defense some time.

This may be a non-issue, as I've only run into it against one player, but would anyone be opposed to banning QB sneaks? They seems pretty unstoppable, in my limited experience against them.

To be honest, I thought they were already banned. I dont think it should be used

Yeah^

I wasn't specifying no huddle. All I'm saying is 90% of the time you should give the defense at least 3 - 5 seconds to set. When a guy has an imbalanced formation (3 wides left, 1 te right etc) the defense that's called often isn't properly aligned. It's a way to exploit the ai. My other league mandates this rule, makes for a less frustrating game. Again, nothing against Mission, it's within the rules, but everytime he ran option or had an imbalanced set, he would snap the ball the second the game allows it. It's almost impossible to stop when a team has a rb with speed that can bounce outside.

Trading- I think we should be allowed to trade an aging player for cap reasons. Maybe 31 or 32 and older. Ex. Tamba Hali will be to expensive for me to keep butit is crappy that I can not get anything in return for him. Thoughts?

I agree with mission. Aging star players are traded in the real NFL as well. I'd even go as far as saying that any player in the last year of his contract should be allowed to trade.