FFMD Season 2021: What would you like to see?

[EaglesPeteC]

I'd love to hear from people of what they want to see the "FFMD Season" look like.

 

Here is what I am thinking:

During the Season: Keeper League????

Do a free agency and draft simulation and then simulate a couple seasons as we get ready for the offseason. I would love help fleshing this idea out. I know Mike has some ideas that I'd love to hear.

This would be for a hand full of hardcore fans to keep the forum active the the "down times"

Early Feb-Mid March- FFMD presents TCMD. 

I'd love for @ny92mike to run his full TCMD with the full support of the FFMD name behind it. Continuing to grow it into a potential forum wide thing while keeping it true to the hardcore TCMD fans and participants come to know and love. 

This would be for the people willing to get really engaged in a very detailed mock.

Early April-the draft- FFMD II

Draft and trade only. Forum wide no salary cap.

I feel strongly about keeping this simple so that it stays the "gateway drug" to the forum and TCMD and our other more detailed mocks

 

That is just what I am thinking at the moment. Would love to hear what others think

[ny92mike]

On 8/29/2020 at 10:25 AM, EaglesPeteC said:

I'd love to hear from people of what they want to see the "FFMD Season" look like.

 

Here is what I am thinking:

During the Season: Keeper League????

Do a free agency and draft simulation and then simulate a couple seasons as we get ready for the offseason. I would love help fleshing this idea out. I know Mike has some ideas that I'd love to hear.

This would be for a hand full of hardcore fans to keep the forum active the the "down times"

Still working out some of the details for this but I'm not too far off from presenting this for review.  Lot of moving parts with this project and several concepts I'd like to get some feedback on.  I'm currently working on getting you some more information about this.

On 8/29/2020 at 10:25 AM, EaglesPeteC said:

Early Feb-Mid March- FFMD presents TCMD. 

I'd love for @ny92mike to run his full TCMD with the full support of the FFMD name behind it. Continuing to grow it into a potential forum wide thing while keeping it true to the hardcore TCMD fans and participants come to know and love. 

This would be for the people willing to get really engaged in a very detailed mock.

Thanks man...Happy to hear that under your leadership that the ffmd name is behind tcmd.  As you know it's something that we've been trying to achieve for years.  Look forward working with you on making this happen.

On 8/29/2020 at 10:25 AM, EaglesPeteC said:

Early April-the draft- FFMD II

Draft and trade only. Forum wide no salary cap.

I feel strongly about keeping this simple so that it stays the "gateway drug" to the forum and TCMD and our other more detailed mocks

 

That is just what I am thinking at the moment. Would love to hear what others think

From what I can remember, ffmd II worked out rather well.  I'd be willing to help out with workbooks to streamline the process if that is something you'd be interested in.  

Even though this mock is pretty simple to run I still believe that by reducing the workload of the GM would be a step in the right direction. 

I'd propose changing the rules for the war rooms.  With tcmd I provide three options for how the GM can manage their team.  One of these options gives more control to the staff.  We may not need something as in depth but we could take the bits we like and remove or alter the other bits.  

Something like this could prevent the rogue GM from getting too carried away, as I heard that was an issue with at least one team.  It would also require a greater deal of discussion within the war rooms to conduct business.  I mention "FA" so we would need to make adjustments to that since we aren't looking to do that, but if a FA is something we want we could do something like tcmd's fa but with less contract building to simplify the event.  I'm good either way on that.

 

• Total Control style War Room, where those that want to be involved have “total control” to manage their position.  Since this is a new concept I’ll explain in more detail.  The idea behind this is that not all members within the group are going to commit to the same level of participation; however, giving them more control could change that.    Unlike in previous mocks the positions of Head Coach and Coordinators never really carried much value, as they were just titles that simply stated their expected level of participation.  Where with this option, these titles give or take away certain levels of power.  

  • General Manager

    • Hires coaching staff.

    • Determines the first pick selection in the draft.

    • Determines the financial spending limits for each position within the free agency.

      • We may not be looking to get this involved w/ ffmd II, but using private docs created by the house would allow the GM to set the cap spending limits for each positional group.  Having this data throughout the mock would allow mock draft analyst to better grade the team's transactions.   

    • Manages any voided coaching staff positions.

  • Head Coach

    • Total Control over Free Agent signings.

    • Given the choice to make the teams 4th draft pick selection.

  • Offensive Coordinator - Total Control over which offensive players are scouted in both the free agency and the draft.

    • Given the choice to select the team’s 2nd or 3rd draft pick (to be determined by the GM)

  • Defensive Coordinator - Total Control over which defensive players are scouted in both the fa and draft.

    • Given the choice to select the team’s 2nd or 3rd draft pick (to be determined by the GM)

  • Director of Player Personnel

    • Pairs with the GM in finding potential trades.

      • Must be able to negotiate a deal with not only the other team but the coaches holding the draft picks on your own team. 

      • Provided the option to make the team’s 5th draft pick selection.

  • Director of College Scouting

    • These are your scouting gurus that know the draft well enough to find the talent in the later rounds.  As they will make the teams final two draft selections in rounds 6 and 7. 

• Getting Fired - Yes, that's right, you will be terminated from your GM  position, should you or your coaching staff fail to follow the guidelines.  Reasons for being terminated include but not limited to:

  • Refusal to follow the guidelines

  • Neglecting to follow the forum guidelines

  • Non-active membership

  • Gaming the system

 

Let me know what you think about this.  If you have questions on anything hit me up.

[ny92mike]

General concept

The general concept of this keeper is to allow you to build your roster during the off season while managing a salary cap very similar to how we currently manage tcmd and including a formula based system that uses irl stats to determine the outcome of each scheduled game.

The idea is to separate irl data and tcmd data with the exception of player stats.  Making the sim more like a madden franchise mode than actually needing to track irl contract details each season.

The Simulation is basically formulas that collect irl stats and using those stats in conjunction with being able to adjust your rosters depth chart as well as creating simplified game plan each week by using what I like to call “sliders”.  These sliders would allow you to focus more on stuffing your opponents run game or by adjusting your pass/rush attempts on offense to better attack your opponents defense.

Could use some help in refining the slider system, among other details.  I’ve got a general idea on how I want to set this up but with this being the first real attempt at this I’ll be looking for feedback and suggestions to improve the system.

I will be working on this project for the next several weeks and anyone willing to help me out with this would be greatly appreciated.

Here is a link to the guidelines I'm currently working on, still a long way to go.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zkg4VRuUwZj_dCZzHJOCBtCANo97wCdLK67u4vQb-2U/edit?usp=sharing

 

How it works

• Statistical Data Collection
  • Weekly stats are collected using the website PFR.  Their site allows me to automatically collect data by just selecting the week in review.
  • Data collected
    • Offense
      • Passing, Rushing, Receiving
        • I'd love to include offensive line grading from PFF but as we all know that data isn't free and if you ask me their grading system is pretty weak.
        • Open to suggestions
    • Defensive Stats
      • Currently broken down into three sections.
        • DL / LB / Secondary
    • Special Teams
      • Currently only looking at FG but would like to include KR/PR as well as punting.
  • Example of how the data is collected, the link below pulls RB stats for the specified range you select in sheet "Weekly Setup".
    • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GtAUNnmq7xAGV59XAMxvkJkrwRKEZ3uM7OYTiJYa1Uo/edit?usp=sharing
  • Stats are collected using several different sheets like the one above into a single workbook that then formulates power rankings, player rankings as well as projecting the outcome of the game.  Sadly this doesn't have the flash that NachoSim generates but it's more of a straight to the point, providing the home and away score for each week.  
  • I haven't got a complete working version of this for the sim but here is an example of one that is designed to beat the spread.
  • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHS4JgOlYJGKTydhbpiMhPBpeIWvHqwcqoppLZRkI5Q/edit?usp=sharing

In this example, it's pulling stat data from the 2019 season for weeks 8 thru 10 to project scores for week 11.  The actual one for the sim can be reduced since we aren't trying to beat the spread but get as accurate as I possibly can with projecting the straight up winner/loser.  Which has been around the 70+%, dropping when attempting to beat the spread.  

Each week you'll be able to adjust your depth chart as well as change the "sliders".  Having the sliders allows you to refine your weekly game plan dependant upon what you think your opponent will do.

The current sliders allows you to change the offensive pass/rush attempt percentage.  The second slider is what I'm calling the "off/def focus".  Which boost the stat data for the following positions rushing / tight end / receivers.  On defensive focus you boost the stat totals for the defensive line, linebacker or secondary.  

I'd be happy to hear any suggestions on this that would refine the slider concept as I'm not 100% sold on what I've currently created.  The slider adjustments doesn't make any drastic changes to the outcome of the game as stats rein supreme.

The actual version we'll use will be easier to manage with less moving parts and fewer sheets to complicate things but this is basically the system I've created for projecting the scores.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SHS4JgOlYJGKTydhbpiMhPBpeIWvHqwcqoppLZRkI5Q/edit?usp=sharing

Again, it's a ton of data to look but like I was saying above, the actual workbooks you guys would use would be easier to navigate.

I know I didn't explain this for crap so if you have questions hit me up, happy to go into greater detail.  I'll try to clean it up over the next few days.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by ny92mike

[scar988]

The return of a talent agency with a 5-step process for free agency. I've discussed some of it with Mike. But I'm open to making it work as the head of it for FFMD1 in the early winter. That being said, I would want 2-3 agents to help me with it. 

I would be Tom Condon. The name. The primary guy.

Free agency should be handled by an agency. But it should be much simpler than people think. 

Step one: Show interest. 

Ask the agent for the players your interested in the following question and we'll begin the process:

"What is your client, POS Player Name, looking for in his next NFL home?"

or "How do we keep your client, POS Player Name, happy here in LOCATION?"

Step two: Receive what the client's main focuses are

Some clients love the idea of location. Some are looking for good family stuff. Some want to know about the night life and partying scene. Some want to know about how they can contribute to the community off the field. Some just want to know they are being looked out for by a great training staff and have world class facilities.

All clients want a fair market deal though.

Step three: Send Initial Pitches.

Most pitches go through two rounds. The first round is who can hit on the client's needs the best while also offering at a minimum a fair market deal. It doesn't matter how sweet you talk if your contract's structure isn't worth looking at. ALSO, Structure matters. While it's nice to see 6-year, $120 million offers, some of these structures really make the deal a 3-year, $60 million deal. So why would the client sign that?

Be smart with your pitches. Offer money that makes sense. Structure it right. Understand that the players care as much about cash flow as they do about money in the contract. Guaranteeing money matters. But if we have two deals that are close? They're going with the better pitch overall. 

However, here's where round 2 comes in.

Step four: Final Pitches

Unless you've blown us away on the initial pitch, you will find out right here, what the market for the player is. You will see an average of the top three pitches the player received. That's his market. At this point, the player also likes where you are at with your sales pitch about the city. Some of you have made it this far despite being the lowest offer. Call this a reality check. This is what the player is actually receiving as his offers, so be smart. But be fair. At this point, the best structure wins. Not the most money, but the one that helps the client the most in the short and the long term. Be wise and fair about your offer here.

Step five: Welcome to the new team, Player.

Player will announce on his "personal twitter" in 3 tweets who he picked and why. The agent will then announce the details of the contract so everyone saw what it was and why their money offer was the best. It keeps it transparent for everyone as to how the process works.

 

Note: This is how it actually works in real life. It's much simpler than people want to admit.

Edited November 12, 2020 by scar988

[ny92mike]

Calling it the talent agency, I'm assuming that this would be limited to talented players only.  Basically like it was done in the past where there are 10 or so players that all 32 teams are bidding on.  Yourself and the "agents" would be responsible for determining what each player is seeking in terms of location among other personal things.  I think that this gets to become too opinionated.  Not sure how you'd determine these things without doing some serious research into these guys lives.  

From the minute you start by requesting info on the player til the time you have signed the player how many days are we talking about?  Would there be any overlap between the rounds?  

 

 

 

[scar988]

7 hours ago, ny92mike said:

Calling it the talent agency, I'm assuming that this would be limited to talented players only.  Basically like it was done in the past where there are 10 or so players that all 32 teams are bidding on.  Yourself and the "agents" would be responsible for determining what each player is seeking in terms of location among other personal things.  I think that this gets to become too opinionated.  Not sure how you'd determine these things without doing some serious research into these guys lives.  

From the minute you start by requesting info on the player til the time you have signed the player how many days are we talking about?  Would there be any overlap between the rounds?  

 

 

 

We would go in stages. Process should take 3 days max for every player. Lower level guys would see smaller deals if they accepted right up front. Would try to get 45 or so done at a time. Each agent would represent 15 or so players. Super low-level futures contracts players would jump at first offer. This would only be for veterans 4+ years. We would also look at RFAs. And we would all be tasked with researching our guys to know something about what's important. But we'd do all the research in the months leading into the talent agency.

[scar988]

No overlap between rounds, but should be able to knock out around 135 or so within a week and a half.

[scar988]

Also, the Talent agents would work together to try and eliminate some bias. For example, if there's two corners and one team is in the final round for both, we may have just one or neither go to that team even if they have the best pitch because the players would be miffed that they weren't the team's first choice. All about being smart with the money.

[ny92mike]

3 hours ago, scar988 said:

We would go in stages. Process should take 3 days max for every player. Lower level guys would see smaller deals if they accepted right up front. Would try to get 45 or so done at a time. Each agent would represent 15 or so players. Super low-level futures contracts players would jump at first offer. This would only be for veterans 4+ years. We would also look at RFAs. And we would all be tasked with researching our guys to know something about what's important. But we'd do all the research in the months leading into the talent agency.

This reads as if teams would be allowed to bid on any player they wish during this talent agency.  Is that correct?

 

[scar988]

6 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

This reads as if teams would be allowed to bid on any player they wish during this talent agency.  Is that correct?

 

Correct. Every player would be available. Would separate priority for signing quicker with the higher profile guys but every player would be repped by the talent agency. Sorted by regions of prior teams as well. Would also handle re-signings. 

[ny92mike]

10 minutes ago, scar988 said:

Correct. Every player would be available. Would separate priority for signing quicker with the higher profile guys but every player would be repped by the talent agency. Sorted by regions of prior teams as well. Would also handle re-signings. 

Sounding better.

How many players would a team be allowed to bid on during each round?  Can you provide some finer points of this process?

Thanks man.

[scar988]

37 minutes ago, ny92mike said:

Sounding better.

How many players would a team be allowed to bid on during each round?  Can you provide some finer points of this process?

Thanks man.

Teams can bid on as many players as they want every round. Could go for all of them if they choose to do so. The finer points still need to be worked out and it's why I'd want @ET80 as my right hand man.

[ny92mike]

10 minutes ago, scar988 said:

Teams can bid on as many players as they want every round. Could go for all of them if they choose to do so. The finer points still need to be worked out and it's why I'd want @ET80 as my right hand man.

[scar988]

1 minute ago, ny92mike said:

I would even be willing to go by position groupings and have different guys for different groups. 

Secondary Scott would cover defensive backs

Wideout Willie handles the WRs

Linemen Larry and Lenny would handle all the offensive linemen and defensive interior guys.

Backfield Barry would cover RBs and FBs

Quarterbacks Quincy for the QBs.

Just different things we could work with so that people know which agent to talk to for who. And managing a single set of positions would be easier. But we'd also make it goofier. I'd also want to do this through something like Google forms for submitting the offers. That way it's much easier for us to manage.

[ny92mike]

@scar988

So I've been thinking about this for a couple days now and it's just not sticking so I'm gonna play devil's advocate here.  The breakdown you typed up just seems like it would take a lot of time, perhaps I'm looking at this too hard but I'm just not seeing it taking 3 days max from start to finish.  

• Step one: Show interest

  • This is where the general managers reach out to one or more "agents" to determine what the team's targeted player(s) are seeking in terms of location, position, salary, etc.  With the option to bid on as many players as the team wants, "Could go for all of them, if they choose to do so".  This stage alone, unless I'm missing something would take days to complete.  Not to mention a salary cap nightmare should you overbid, winning more players than your cap can handle.  Creating another sorting issue.

• Step two: Receive what the client's main focuses are

  • After the agents have received several hundred inquires, it's then up to the agents to expedite this information back to the general managers.  Which creates the question, do we really know what players are in search of outside of money?  Giving weight to things like if a player would rather play in New York or Cleveland would in my opinion rub some the wrong way if they offer more money and aren't awarded the player.  Regardless how much research is done 80% of it would be subjective opinions and would take days to relay this information back to all 32 teams.  

• Step three: Send Initial Pitches

  • "Most pitches go through two rounds. The first round is who can hit on the client's needs the best while also offering at a minimum a fair market deal. It doesn't matter how sweet you talk if your contract's structure isn't worth looking at. ALSO, Structure matters. While it's nice to see 6-year, $120 million offers, some of these structures really make the deal a 3-year, $60 million deal. So why would the client sign that?  Be smart with your pitches. Offer money that makes sense. Structure it right. Understand that the players care as much about cash flow as they do about money in the contract. Guaranteeing money matters. But if we have two deals that are close? They're going with the better pitch overall."
    • Writing pitches for that many players is going to take a lot of time for the team managers, if they have a small war room odds are they'll get killed simply because they can't mass produce at that level.  Not to mention the time it takes to allow for game planning to determine which players they'll be bidding on.
    • I'm on board with what you're saying about creating a contract that makes sense.  Which can be created in docs to make it easier to determine the better deal based on position, age, contract length and exactly how the money is paid out.  The year I helped out I can't tell you how many errors were made when members submitted their contract structure that went unchecked, simply because their wasn't a structured format to receive this information.  So it was just a jumbled mess to sort.   
    • Submitting these pitches and structures is going to take some time, not only for the GM and his/her staff but for the agent.  Most people don't have the time that it would it take.  In the past it took a lot of time to manage this with several agents and only like 14 players being bid on.  I just don't see how that process would be faster without increasing the agent count.  It would also be difficult to separate  those agents receiving pitch and contract structures if they've got a dog in the race.

    • Step four: Final Pitches

      • "However, here's where round 2 comes in...Unless you've blown us away on the initial pitch, you will find out right here, what the market for the player is. You will see an average of the top three pitches the player received. That's his market. At this point, the player also likes where you are at with your sales pitch about the city. Some of you have made it this far despite being the lowest offer. Call this a reality check. This is what the player is actually receiving as his offers, so be smart. But be fair. At this point, the best structure wins. Not the most money, but the one that helps the client the most in the short and the long term. Be wise and fair about your offer here."

      • "Unless you've blown us away on the initial pitch" this statement makes me think that a player could be signed before ever determining the market value."  Perhaps, I'm reading too much into it but based on how I'm comprehending it, the agent seems to be setting the market value.

      • I'm thinking step 4 would take several days to sort out and now we're just getting to the actual bidding to be awarded the player.  All that work put into step 4 just to determine the market value.  Step four is a little cloudy for me so perhaps you could explain it a little more.  Once you have the market value, average top three pitches/salary.  Are teams allowed to change their offers once they see the market value? 

      • I get the best structure and not necessarily the total dollar amount, it's how tcmd is set up.

    • Step five: Welcome to the new team, Player.

      • "Player will announce on his "personal twitter" in 3 tweets who he picked and why. The agent will then announce the details of the contract so everyone saw what it was and why their money offer was the best. It keeps it transparent for everyone as to how the process works.

 

I just can't imagine how all of this could be handled with a limited agent count in the amount of time you're suggesting.  In the past it took around a week to sign a handful of players, using the pitch method and at the end the pitches were rarely used to determine the winner because it created so much heat if the team wasn't awarded the player giving the most money.  I do agree with you about it not being about the total money but how the contract is structured though.

Anyway man, hate being that guy but that's just how I'm seeing it after mulling over it the last couple of days.  Perhaps, the other guys love the idea of going back to the talent agency, but for me it was the reason I went a different direction with tcmd as I felt it created too many issues.

If you guys do opt for the talent agency I'd suggest being 100% transparent with detailing exactly what the player is looking for in terms of contract structure prior to having to ask, as it would save time on both the agent and GM.  Otherwise if for example you've got 10 teams requesting information on the same player, the agent isn't having to send exactly the same thing to 10 different teams.  Also something to consider is the number of messages that we are allowed to fire off per day.

2 cents.