starting with the 1.2.2, the 2.2.1, and the completely futile 2.3.0, MFN has a dominant TE heavy offensive play selection and a near extinct TE draft pool.
My thoughts are there are not enough mediocre TE's - much less "good" TE's available in the player pool for anyone to accomplish success with the play selections given.

Thus 2.1.2 dominant, everyone wished 2.0.3 was still valid.
It's why people put WR's, FB's and the occassion RB at TE.
Not enough TE's . Too many TE dominant formations.

I think the player pool should match the plays available pool. With MFN Offensive plays so reliant on TE's - there should be a better draft pool at the TE position.

I hope I put this right.

We do not have enough TE's in any league to achieve the potential from the TE dominant offensive plays currently available in MFN
We just don't.
No long plays, not enough TEs for a quality short game.

I took 3 stabs at explaining this which means i'm overexplaining the concern and hoping to not get punished by the community.
Ohhhm.

Out. :)

Not to diminish my point, but OCD me is all " "dammit, I used "to" and not "too." "

If a “good” TE does show up the draft, they usually get converted to rb or even wr if they can drop the weight….just sayin

i admit to drafting 6-7th rd te's to make FB/RB. I've had pretty good success doing so - your thoughts indicate I am not alone in that.
I hope I'm not wrong, but if they were a #1 or #2 TE, they would not be converted in the first place.
Every GM is lucky to have a starting TE (let's use setherick's 4.5 weights and his limited contributions about weights post-2019). the drop off is significant. Either it's a starter or that TE is a blocker with a 50-50 at best catch %.
If MFN continues to offer TE dominant plays, it should offer draftable TE's in proportion.

Your comment underlines my point - there are not enough players at any position - that even if a player could be a #1 TE - they tend to be converted to another area of need.
I hope we can agree that should not be the case in the first place.
For me, that leads me back to square one.
The talent pool of draftable players in relation to the plays available (no TE's vs all TE offenses) is something worth addressing. ...and it is not just at the TE position (see LB's).

We certainly have a lot of common ground on this topic. Thank you for that.

Goes along with the speed/weight problem we have across the board. You put a fast guy with hands in the te slot and it dominates the passing game. So many savvy owners convert players to exploit that. Also plenty of the actual rb and wr that appear in most drafts show up with decent strength and run blocking, but sub 70 speed….so guess where the depth goes….

Using WRs at TE isn't an exploit to me!!

We have no ability to create, modify or design plays so when you select a play that uses 113 personal (RB/TE/3 WR) and you put a WR at TE then the play simply becomes a 14 personal play which obviously exist.

We only have a handful of plays that actually work and we have to put the best personal at the right position to get the best results because Defensively our opponent is putting his best cover corner on the TE. If you use a legit TE at TE and the defense puts his best CB on that TE then we are typically talking about a 10 speed difference plus the DB has 50ish pounds less in weight which further extents the speed difference.

The term "exploit" really bothers me because I see it as a legal move countered by another legal move. That's what this sim is all about...finding the advantage against your opponent.

Originally, I joined MFN for the roster management aspects of MFN, drafting, signing free agents, trading and managing the cap. Initially, I had a blast and built what I thought at the time were great rosters but I often finished 5-11 and there were owners I could never beat. Then I slowly realized the default player weights weren't optimal and when he created my own custom player weights, I realized I had drafted, signed and traded for some horrible players which meant rebuilding all my rosters over the next few seasons. I started to win more but there was still owners I couldn't beat. So I really started to dig into gameplanning and play calling and I got alot better and went to the postseason but still there were owners I couldn't beat.

Then I started to use overrides to optimize my plays after learning that certain positions were targeted more in the passing game and I adjusted on offense and defense and I finally beat those owners I never could before and won some Titles.

The greatness of MFN is the many layers you dive into and you can always fund ways to improve you roster and gameplan. It's a Neverending series of moves and counters and calling anything an "exploit" is really a lazy way of saying "I can't compete" and it pushes an owners failures to win into some weird realm of ethical or moral superiority because my opponent isn't playing the right way.

I've said this before and I will say this again....I would love the Sim to force players to play "at weight" for the position they are playing but until it does then I have to put my best players in the best positions to succeed because I can only assume my opponent will do the same.

As far as the TE position is concerned....every TE generated in the draft class including a "perfect" TE who has 100s across the board and 88 speed.....will ALWAYS be better converted to either RB or WR....ALWAYS!!!

The example of the perfect TE above at 257 lbs will be a near 95 speed RB or WR with 100s across the board so unless you have a primary blocking TE on the roster, there is no reason to have anyone remain a TE on the roster. That's just the truth as the Sim is currently.

I prefer to play players of the position at their positions.
I change a player's position to the position I want them to play.
I do "spice it up" if league rules allow me to do so.

Not a knock on you or anyone else, but not everyone plays the exploitation offense/defense.

CJ, You did not actually address the issue - which is too few actual TE's to draft - and by extension the lack of draftable players nor did you offer any solutions other than playing players out of position (+/- some blahblahblahs).

I see 2 offensive formations in GP that have no plays and 2 offensive formations (2.2.1 and 1.2.2) that are not usable becuase of talent (unless one plays players OOP).
Playing a player OOP should not be the go-to - as it is for you and others, but having enough players of a position to use the plays currently available in MFN should be.

Expand. Not enough player available to draft anything but position change hopefuls and all the drop-fulls post round 4.
A definitive problem since at least 4.3, in all draft leagues.

Given the important of speed, and the way it's implemented on a position by position basis, playing a WR as TE is absolutely 100% an exploit of the game engine.

People have two choices how they play; use reasonable oop as you'd see in real life (TEs covering at FB, for example) or just simply game the sim.

My general rule of thumb - if it's something that a sim change would cause to not be effective, don't use it.

As for the point around TEs...

I tend to compromise. A great pass catcher, great blocker should be a rarity - it's unbalanced to want otherwise. What's needed is a range of TE - good blockers that are average/below average receiving, good pass catchers down the seam average or below blockers and TEs that are average at both. If I can find O line I can convert, then great.

Gameplan, use overrides appropriately.

The minor problem with this approach is that unless you go for an absolute bare minimum, you really need 3 different TE player weights to apply.