I've been giving some more thought to this, and here's what I think is the most fair or at least would give you a fair proximity of how technical attributes compare to physical ones.

I don't know how play overuse works now, but how I would adjust the algorithm would be to add a player's intelligence attribute to all of their improvable attributes (since these are usually the technical attributes) so that a player's temporary max attribute would be 200 for these improvable attributes.

So a team that blitzes a lot is suddenly facing a QB with 200 potential accuracy and receivers with 200 potential route. Or RBs with 200 potential ball carry and break tackle.

Similarly, an offense is suddenly facing defenders with 200 potential tackle, punish, and cover.

I would run this through the test bench and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn't, then you'll know how badly skewed physical attributes and technical attributes are.

For defensive playcalling, are you still thinking of overuse as a specific play being called too many times, or would any blitz play count towards the overuse threshold?

For example. In MFN-1, for the most part I have been able to call 100% blitz plays for multiple seasons now, while rarely ever calling a single play enough to get hit with the abuse penalty.

I don't think there is an issue with someone being in base man or zone most of the time. It really comes down to calling all (or nearly all) blitz plays being the issue (for me).

There needs to be a penalty for blitzing 90% of the time, even if the individual plays aren't being called too often. A bad team with a balanced playbook should beat a great team who blitzes all game.

As far as overblitzing goes I think the primary culprit is that man coverage is simply too potent, and double coverage is simply too weak (and zone too exploitable). In the NFL you almost never leave a fast WR alone in man coverage without any help over top. If you did do this, it'd be a calculated gamble, because if you did it with any consistency the opposing team would just call go routes all day long, and once the CB started given a huge cushion and twisting his hips early, they'd switch to comebacks and take the free yardage. In MFN however there's much lower risk to doing this. As long as your CB is remotely competent, they'll stick like glue to their guy on a go route.

So if doubling up on a WR grants such little benefit, you're basically wasting two players every snap that you don't blitz them. Compounding this issue is that in 4.1 the only way to stop the run is via blitz. So if they call any runs from a formation, you're ceding a free 6-10 yards every time they run if you aren't calling a blitz against it.

One other element that might be helpful would be the addition of designated quick passes (especially bubble screens) to take advantage of off coverage. Inside screens I expect are incredibly difficult to code, so I'm fine with those being left off the docket until much later in the game's development.

I think that in he latest version, a CB with average man coverage skill will let his man go, at least from time to time. It's almost caricatured right now, as the CB just looks like he stumble during the coverage, but it's efective. To play man real safe, the CBs have to be very skilled at M2M coverage, IMO.

The biggest impact for M2M skill is an opposition to a WR's route running skill. When a WR makes a cut, the sharpness of the cut in determined by his route running skill, and the ability of the DB to cut with him is determined by the M2M skill. On fly routes the M2M skill and route running skill are not really used, in those cases it does boil down to speed.

Statements like this make it really hard not to hate this game. ....

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I can't immediately find the quote. But you were the one that was getting on my case a year ago about criticizing the game as being a one-dimensional text based sim where you could match players up based on attribute vs attribute. You went on for a few sentences about how the game was more complex than that.

I'm intentionally simplifying it to make it easier to understand. It becomes a bit tedious to reply with:

"Speed is of primary concern with a fly route between WR and DB, although within that speed calculation there are other nuanced calculations considering experience, fatigue, turf type, weather, crowd noise, injury status, etc, and of course once the ball arrives there are additional calculations that are included such as pass catching, courage, punish receiver, strength, height, fatigue, experience, turf type, weather, crowd noise, injury status, etc, not to mention the flight path of the ball that is effected by ... etc, ad nauseum ..."

Now that I'm home and I can explain this more here's what upsets me about it.

All of the minutia about weather and turf aside, the calculation boils down to Speed vs Speed. While this makes sense if you're talking about a clear differences in player type and position, Speed vs Speed only occasionally makes a difference in WR and CB interactions. Otherwise, Tyreek Hill would be a 2500 yard player.

If I'm a CB and I'm playing someone that I know is faster, I have two options when in M2M (and really I'm only going to talk about M2M here since it's stupid to run deep zones against teams that run a lot of go routes in MFN unless you like to see your DBs abandon the play):

1) I can give the player cushion and sacrifice the underneath route so the WR can't go over the top.

2) I can play close and knock the WR off the line. And thus disrupt the WRs ability to accelerate to top speed.

Now, as a coach, I have multiple options for when to do either 1 or 2 above. I may exclusively go 2 Deep safeties and put the CB in B&R. That way if the CB doesn't make a clean jam, the safety is there for over the top help.

Or I may play 3 Deep man to defend it.

Now here's why this won't work in MFN.

1) I have no control over whether my CBs are in B&R or playing off.

2) I have a limited selection of 2 Deep, Cover 2 plays. And most of these are blitzes, so I have an even more limited selection if I want the LBs to drop into coverage.

3) I have an even more limited number of effective 3 Deep Man plays (there are only two that I run in specific situations). And, for that matter, there is only 1 decent 4 Deep Man Dime (I think it's Dime) defense.

4) Zone defense is so bad against deep passing teams that it's a liability.

5) Play overuse means that the effective plays that I have to cover these deep passing routes will leave me more vulnerable because defenses get called for play abuse more than offenses because, well, speed vs speed means that no other defensive attributes matter so my bad coverage becomes worse.

It's no wonder that the most effective passing offenses overuse the following plays:

122 - Medium passing routes where the WRs run go's.
014 - Medium crosses where the WRs run go's.
113 - All Go
104 - All Go

This makes a lot more sense now. And confirms my suspicions that I'm just playing Madden or Techmo Super Bowl or any of the other throw long every down games...

Baby steps, my friend ... baby steps.

But I have more to add to that list. :)

6) DBs play really sloppy coverage on go routes. They allow the WR to run to them and then try to play in their pocket. But since M2M doesn't actually allow them to disrupt the WR's SP, they play trail or get burned on every play.

7) There is a disproportionate number of fast WRs compared to fast DBs. Since Pass Catching doesn't seem to matter all that much with elite catch receivers dropping too many open passes, any 95-100 SP player on the outside is immediately better than 90% of all DBs in a league.

8) SP vs SP is ridiculously outmatched. Is this algorithm figured exponentially? A 95+ SP WR streaks down the field while a 70-80 SP DB leisurely jogs. The relative attributes make this more noticeable.

9) This more diminishes the need for non-speed attributes for WRs and DBs. I've already set my coverage ratings for safeties to 15 in my weights. It looks like I should do this for my CBs as well. It also means that a 90 SP, AC Punter is as an effective CB on a Go Route as a 90 SP, AC, Coverage CB. Still can't wrap my head around that one.

I hope that you follow through with the draft idea where everyone's SP increases and then it's a gamble for secondary attributes. Because so many of the complaints people have about the passing game right now make so much more sense...

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Also, how about this for a novel suggestion, defensive plays that don't blitz can't be flagged for overuse penalties? That would stop people from having to blitz every down and help defensive game planning against the pass.