Something that just came to my mind (that might be useful all-around) is the ability to do... Well, for a lack of a better term, a "virtual scrimmage" against another team in the league.

Say for instance, I know I have a game against Pittsburgh in a few weeks, and I want to see how I'd fare, where my weaknesses are, etc., so I can be prepared to gameplan and shore up holes when I actually -do- play them. So I can sim a game against them, with full gameplay and stats, to see where my team might need improvement.

I could see this also being useful as a 'developmental tool', to see where some of my rookie talent might be ready for the big-time despite their ratings, or what veteran might be ready to falter.

I could see this most easily being implemented during the midweek portion of the sim. Give us the option of 'simming' a 'game', and it'll run separate but alongside the rest of the sims run for the other leagues during that time period. Obviously stats won't count towards the actual league, so have a separate "practice sim" flag set for those ones, so that stats, injuries, win/loss, etc. don't get added into the league.

It could be a step in the direction towards the practice squad setup I've seen mentioned before, but it already uses the established rosters and sim engine. The big things that would have to be 'copied' would be having separate gameplans, depth charts, and possibly coaching options for experimentation purposes.

Whatcha think?

Interesting idea. I'd be curious to hear others' feedback on it. I wouldn't want to actually use your opponent's game plan or depth chart (maybe use their previous game's game plan and depth chart, or let the AI set it, or require you to set it). Maybe instead of actually playing a game, you could plug in a series of situations that the game sims with your playbook vs. the plays you are scouting. I'd want to keep to the types of tools a real team would have, but something like this might help you strategize closer to how you would in the real world.

The regular season should be games only, but it's not a bad idea. How about some kind of offseason in-team scrimmages. Sort of like a sandbox environment where you can call plays on both sides of the ball and see what happens... or at least set the gameplan for both teams and see what happens.

I agree. If you allow this to happen during the regular season, it will be exploited.

Thanks for the feedback on this, y'all.

Looking it over, I could see where it would be a slight exploitative (as I described it) during the regular season. However, I think JDB has something with using maybe the most basic of the information available.

For example, maybe look at the coaching styles the head coach and offensive / defensive coordinator from the opposing squad use, then have the AI randomly choose plays that fit that scheme for your team to go against.

I think this would mirror the fact an NFL coach gameplanning a game wouldn't have the EXACT playbook another team uses, but would know the general style of offense / defense a team uses, and could plan reasonably against that. But they wouldn't be prepared for any specialty plays that're peppered in, or wouldn't be able to prepare for plays from a different play scheme (which I know coords do on occasion to mix things up).

Would that help patch the possible exploitive nature?