My two cents on my favorite dairy product

Blakehawk54

Contributor
After all the talk this week I have been thinking a lot about cheese and offenses and whats sim and not sim and whats right and wrong. I don't think it is easy to figure out a set standard of rules. It isn't black or white. Honestly there is some velveeta in all of our games. It is just a matter of how we view it and police ourselves.

I think in this years game it all started with our first game against the computer. Within the first quarter we all witnessed cheese first hand when on every single passing situation on 2nd and 3rd down the cpu digged into its fridge and pulled out corners if you were in zone. Pulled out the ol stick play and consistently threw it to the strong side with multiple out routes or if you were blitzing the cpu threw the slant to the unjammable wr. This layed the ground work for just about every casual online gamer.

Now when it comes to human controlled games I don't think it is always so black and white. Every game and every player is different and I don't think can be judged from one set of rules. I do believe there are some definite areas that can be defined as lack of skill/cheesy.

Example one was brought up this week. TE play has always been a question mark when it comes to ncaa.

I will give you two TE's and
TE A will be the non cheesy example-

TE A- 92 overall leads team in receptions or close to team lead. Plays in multiple positions during the game (some as TE, some in slot, out wide and also in the backfield) I think a key to this too is that he is your number one/two rated pass catcher on your team.

TE B- 84 overall and leads the team in receptions but yet is the fourth best receiving option on the team and doesn't move around and lines up in the same position and only runs a couple routes (stick and nod/ quick throws)

The rb question also came up this week and breaking records. In my opinion no rb should probably every have 25 or more rushing td's. Build your depth. Some records shouldn't be broken.

Another thing that bothers me about the cheese question is where do we draw the line on how many times is something being ran before it becomes cheesy? If a defender is playing cover 4 and refusing to play up on your wr is it really cheese to run hook after hook? Is it cheese if you are constantly being blitzed and being given cushion and you run slant after slant? I don't think so, at some point your defender has to make adjustments to try and stop these things. I just think that it is such a gray area it is hard to no what is and what isn't cheese. Some of us have been playing this game long enough to know what is and what isn't.
Is it cheese to run slant and drag after slant and drag no matter what d is being called simply because with the way the game is made your going to catch 90% of them? Yes that is straight cheddar. Just because you run slants and drags out of 12 different formations doesn't make it any less cheesy.

What about hot routes? What is excessive and what isn't? 1, 2, 3? Are you changing the fundamentals of the play with your hot routes or are you just smart routing or shortening them up? Or are you simply just reading a blitz and keeping in a rb or te? In the past I used to run a lot of dummy hot routes that didn't change anything but gave the impression that I was changing something or even changing from a pass to a run. This to is the hardest to police.

I do think that it probably wouldn't hurt if we all expanded on the polls a little more and set up some guidelines. But I also believe that after all the original players from the first roster are gone that we will see less and less of the 99 overall type guys and I think that can only help.

I am sure I will probably edit this and heck maybe nobody will read it anyways. Maybe its just as simple as self policing and not texting during a user vs user game. Emotions seem to run a little higher then. Well atleast they do for me sometimes lol.
 

majesty95

Admin
Staff member
You bring up some good points. My thoughts on a few of them:

As far as someone blitzing heavily or playing cover 4 all the time? I think we have well rounded enough users in here that C4 repeatedly isn't likely so that's kind of moot. I've researched the blitzing thing and 60-70% blitzes is on the very high end. I, personally, don't see why anyone needs to blitz more than 40% but everyone's thoughts will differ. However, even if you do run into a guy blitzing a lot, there are many different ways to beat a blitz than slants. There are many different ways to beat every coverage, not just one route. There may be one route that is the easiest but being sim is not taking advantage of that over and over and using your knowledge and skill to beat them in multiple different ways. At least that's what I've gathered through several leagues on another site that bills it self as the "home of sim".

Hot routes are tricky too and not something I'd want to set a definitive line on. I don't think there should be hot routes every play and most of the time the hot route should consist of only one route. After all, a hot route is designed for the "hot" receiver. Meaning he has one of 2-3 different routes that he would run depending on the coverage. Hot routing 2,3,4 receivers isn't realistic. I've had people bring up Peyton Manning before but A. He's doing that in the NFL and didn't in college, B. He's the only QB I think we've ever seen do it and C. he's not calling hot routes all the time. Sometimes he's changing the protection. Sometimes he's audibling to a new play. So on and so forth. I won't say I never hot route more than once at the line but when I do it's usually a receiver and then the back into block or into a route. I think the thing we want to avoid is going to the line and creating completely new plays. Even hot routing as a decoy, if excessive, because eventually you'll run into receivers that think you actually called something or cant hear because of the crowd.

I also think your point about receivers is a good one. I think a good rule of thumb is that your top rated receivers should be your top pass catchers. Sticking a 82 OVR guy in the slot and having him lead the team in receptions when you have a 90 OVR and 87 OVR receiver starting is pretty bunk. Why is it that the guy with the lower ratings in the core attributes puts up better numbers? Some would say its his speed or maybe he's rated lower in another area that affects his OVR. To that I wold say, well then put him at your #1 or #2 WR position and he should still be able to get open just as easily. If he doesn't could it be that maybe there's an AI deficiency allowing that? The other counterpoint would be that the slot receiver is probably better than the #3 corner that's covering him. Well, that could be true as well but, if so, then why doesn't he put up similar numbers in real life? Outside of guys like Wes Welker (who's always in the 90's) is pretty rare to see a slot receiver lead the team in receptions. Same for tight ends (as we covered already).

I like the dialogue and appreciate you voicing your thoughts. I don't really want to run a poll for everything because A.it get overwhelming and B. there are hardcore sim guys in here (as evidenced by the votes to never score over 60). This league has always been a good option for them and I don't want to stray too far from what a good sim league is just because maybe we have more casual sim guys. I've also played in deeply hardcore sim leagues where they banned anything that could possibly be construed as cheese (fullback dives, motioning players, moving players before the snap, etc). I don't want to go too far that way wither.

I'll take the polls, what I've read in the chat and anything posted on here and then put together a more streamlined set of rules that will hopefully alleviate some of the confusion and give everyone a better baseline to go off of starting next season.
 
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