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Please look at the defensive stats for this WR:

https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/player/16832

and the rushing stats for these CB's:

https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/player/18397
https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/player/17297

These highlight absolutely unreasonable effectiveness for *certain* out of position assignments. These are especially bad since they are not only out of position, but "across the ball". These players are absolute garbage in many critical attributes for these positions that they are playing, yet they are far more dominant than those who have those attributes. WR's get picks when playing in the secondary at an insane rate, I assume due to their high pass catching rating. The problem is that they should almost never be in position to get those picks due to their absolute incompetence in any form of coverage. CB's are the smallest players, so you can find them with the highest acc and speed, and that alone propels them to dominance out of the backfield even though they have none of the other attributes that a RB *must* have to be successful in the NFL.

Another thing that I've noticed is that a strong FB with high Break Tackle can be nearly unstoppable on kickoff returns. I've seen them consistently break 5-10 tackles per return, and go for 6 at an alarming rate. They don't even need to be fast to do it.

https://victory.myfootballnow.com/watch/123#22130

Here a FB getting run down...yes there were a few broken tackles, buts its the blocking that is broke.

Almost every guy but three broke free of the intial blocker. I could get some 40 times on those tacklers but they were flying in comparison to the FB.

The blocks have an engagement then blocking skill is rolled then another re-engagement is what looks to have been applied. The problem is there little movement within the engagement...It makes running the ball look wierd in general as there is no real flow.

In pass blocking i see guys move all the time..sometimes yards, but that pushing part of the run blocking should act differently when different speeds and masses are moving at different speeds. OTs should blow dbs backward, and if a aguy is gunning a full speed the slightest nudge would send his tragectory off wildely at times. Here thay all lock up and stop moving.

Tweaking run blocking would no doubt have a drastic effect on the FBs on KRs...as theres no argument there. My best guy was a RB with full breaktackle..even as a ten year FB i bet hed still be a threat, but he took back 6 for TDs in 36 attempts during his career or 16% .

Raising the value of zero speed has changed alot in beta tests. Guys are gettign to the correct blocking angle quicker. The one league has only 5 runs over 30 yards after 6 weeks, but running feels easier....more consistent... especially when facing non blitzing plays.

Good or bad..the blocks are too static the futher the engagment is down feild. The tackle rating seems to matter a bit more as slower guys are getting better tackle angles as well, but a think there should be more of a swarming of multiple tacklers. Too bad they are locked up 30 yards away from the ball carrier.

I'm thinking about in a future version blocking the ability to put a player into the depth chart or overrides outside of their defined position group. I didn't initially want to do that since there is no rule against it in the NFL, but it does seem to potentially be a source of exploit.

A corollary to this change might be requiring that you have the minimum number of each position group on your roster, instead of just the minimum number of players.

Thoughts on those two ideas?

Anything that makes gameplanning more important than exploiting loopholes is good for me :o)

depends on your definition of position group. blocking offensive players playing defense or CBs playing DL would be great. Not allowing OLBs playing DE in passing situations or using my great SF in LB spots in certain situations would take away a lot from the game.

A lot of complaints for unrealistic stats are not only driven by exploits but also by very bad playcalling. If a team in the NFL would always pass from a certain formation or always cover a certain player with a very slow player, the stats would be also be off the charts.

if you do it, please allow different builds for the respective positions and don't force every guy from a position group to the same weight.

Moving around guys, trying to find a mismatch is a lot of fun imo.if all guys are the same, a lot is lost.

imo, the way to go would be to make the strength loss of of smaller players more obvious.
Let us pay for the extra speed with more missed tackles, more fumbles, more broken blocks, etc. It would be great, if the mismatch would be mentioned in the play by play like the overuse penalty, so the

A player should only be able to 'train' and play in the positions listed on his player card. Some players should be 'hybrid'/utility players that can switch eg DE/OLB, SS/MLB, FB/TE/OL

I completely agree with the above post re: downsides to using speed - perhaps the way forward is to have open field tackling and scrimmage tackling as the two are very different and break tackle gets split between stiff arm/power and feint/juke/cut.

Also, if a player is listed in one position, his attributes should improve for those areas specific to that player group, with points lost in areas that are not position specific - eg primary skills/secondary skills/unused skills. The quality of the Coach should have an impact into how and where a player evolves/devolves. This could lead to a players max value fluctuating based on where he plays and where he trains and not the linear upward or downward trajectory.

I think for now as a band-aid, not allowing players to be put in the depth chart across the ball is reasonable and necessary. I'm not sure I would go any further than that. This unfortunately wouldn't stop somebody from changing a WR with the right attributes (speed, acceleration, pass catching, maybe strength) to CB and getting a lot of picks from him. What the focus really needs to be is tweaking the code so that it's not advantageous to play guys in an unrealistic position. I know this is a huge project, but I think that is what should be aimed at for the future.

The problem is the speed gaps caused by weight. The major thing to exploit...in general. Making rosters a set way would limit things but in all my leagues my teams are not using goalline sets on defense. A similar one is using Dime sets vs. "larger " offensive sets. Those same speed advantages are created by limiting the formation matchups.

I dont even use rules and can accomplish something semi effective. If you limited both formations and rosters the window gets smaller. But the all the elite users do some form of this, and like holly said it would take alot of fun out nof it.

Another thing that diminishes the "game planning" is the presnap aligning of guys...Its pretty close between certain matchups, but look at man for example.....a LB will give up his run gap responsibilities by lining up directly "inline " with who he should cover.

IRL They might "shade over" toward where the RB is lined up...like when facing "split backs" or the "I" formation, but what our LBers do when lining up presnap sometimes puts them out of position for "run fits":

I think its one of the reasons running has had a recent boost. Big holes are not being filled quick enough by LBers. Call a blitz and it's like a different game....

We currently have decent run defenses only cause were blitzing alot. Even with the use of only a four man down front vs. all possible running sets. No goaline, because blocks are held too long and no nickel formations because of the LBers pre snap alignments when in man.

These blitzers hit the gaps hard and stuff alot of runs. The pass D suffers at times but were near the lead in top defenses with what i would consider an exploit of some sort. It is not better than agreat dline but system is gameable.

Most of my point is to get this stuff out in the open for fixes and to touch on roster limits would do nothing major for what i desrcribed . Theoretically the AI logic to fill a place "properly" could get lenthgy and messy to code, but that is certain speculation as i am not a coder.

Game planning matters....... i could turn the Jumbos around quick with a few tweaks ....all to gameplanning, but i would not use "nfl " schemes. So, game-planning will still be an "in the know" sorta thing.....till the responsibilities with the specific postions are adhered to from pre snap till the whistle.

Perhaps only allow a player to change position once per season?

Are available positions determined by default player weights or personal player weights? If the latter, some people will just spend the time to radically edit their weights, and have that much more advantage over those who don't.