Front Office Football 7 Mods
Front Office Football is a sports management game where the player directs a fictional NFL football team. Buy the Game at the website or on Steam. Beginners Guide. Player Guide by Solecismic Software.
Before Starting This Guide Just a quick mention I want to make before you go on to read the basics - If you have questions about deeper aspects of the game that go beyond this basic guide (and I am sure you will) - A great place to ask those questions is here: Front Office Football Central [www.operationsports.com] This is the message board of the biggest FOF fan site on the internet, and there is a lot of in depth reference material available there already, as well as a group of knowledgeable fans of the game who are always glad to help. GAME SETTINGS One of the first things we should address is the game settings. Click the gear button on the toolbar at the top of the game screen. You will be presented with the following options:
1: View General Manager Records - This is not really a setting as much as it is a list of your best performances as a GM in your history with the game. There are records for single season and career, and a button at the bottom of the screen that allows you to erase the records and start fresh. (Clicking this DOES NOT erase your saved game, just the records you have accumulated).
2: Edit Franchise Nicknames - This is where you can change the team nicknames of all the teams in the game. This is the place to go if you want to rename the teams after their real life counterparts, or if you want to name every team after bodily functions, or whatever else you can come up with.
3: Edit City Affiliations - This option is only available right when you open the game, before you load a league. In here, you can change the city affiliated with each team in the game. This is where you can create a completely new universe of 32 cities of your choice. If you want to have 4 teams each in 8 different states, you can do that. (This may require some additional tweaking via the next option in the single player settings menu).
4: Edit City Names - This is where you can change the names of any of the cities modeled in the game. Unfortunately you cannot change the size of the cities or the weather patterns the city is known for, but you can at least create the illusion of a world wide football league if you so desire. Just take a city like Anchorage, affiliate it with a team via Edit City Affiliations, then change the city name to Yakutsk, and boom - You have a team in Russia.
5: Edit Single Player Options - This is the section of the game settings menu that effects your single player games. Your options are as follows:
A: Hide Results on Schedule Overview Windows - When selected, this will hide your team record and the score of your most recent game from the SIMULATION menu. This is helpful if you wish to view your games in 'Solevision' (which basically amounts to watching your team play.)
B: Coaches Reset Depth Chart Prior To Each Game - When this is turned on, you will have no control over your depth chart week to week aside from declaring active and inactive players. The coaches will set your starters and backups for you.
C: Coaches Reset Game Plan Prior To Each Game - When this is turned on, you will not need to set your game plan week to week. Your coaches will do the game planning for you.
D: Staff Automatically Signs Players To Fill Roster - When this is turned on, your coaches will sign players in the event your roster is undermanned. The coaches will sign enough first year players so that your team can field a 46 man active roster.
E: Add Formation Information to Game Logs - Turn this on to add formation information to game logs. This will require slightly more hard drive space to store the game logs, but if you want this piece of information available to you for whatever reason, this is where you make that happen.
F: Cap Increase Range - This is where you determine how much the cap increases from year to year when the league negotiates a new television contract. If you want a static cap, set both parameters to 0. If you want a widely fluctuating cap, set the first value to 0 and the second value to 100. Every 5 years or so, your league will sign a new television contract and based on the range allowed in this setting, the cap will be designated to increase each year by a set amount.
G: Injury Setting - Set this to 0 for no injuries, set this as high as 400 if you want to simulate a world where everyone has significant body integrity issues. 200 is said to be similar to real life, and 100 is the setting many multi-player leagues use.
H: Combine Accuracy - Set this to 0 to make drafts almost a crap shoot, set it to 100 to make it so that the combine numbers of a potential draftee tell you a lot about the player you are about to draft. At a setting of 100, a guy that runs a 4.3 40 will be fast, almost without fail. A guy who bench presses 35 reps will almost always be strong like an ox, etc.
6: Multi-Player Options - Aside from these options only having an effect on multi-player mode, there is only one new option that needs to be explained, which is the option to save game plan and depth charts on export. What this will do is keep the changes you make to your lineup and game plan when you export your multi-player file to the commissioner. Essentially, this basically acts as a bookmark for any roster or game plan changes you make between stages in a multi-player game.
And now, on with the guide. What follows is a walk through for each step of a season, starting from the beginning of a new game to the start of your second season as GM. Good luck, and enjoy! When you are done reading, feel free to leave comments or suggestions and I will do my best to address them. Pre Season The Beginning
This is where a new game will begin, the first week of the Pre Season. You will be preparing your team for their first foray into battle on the gridiron, and you will need to set lineups, declare inactive players, and possibly sign or release players prior to getting started.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. On the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View Rosters.
Here you can declare inactive players (You may only have 46 active for game day). To quickly declare inactive players, simply right click a player to change their status to inactive. They will be highlighted in green. Right click again to change an inactive player back to active. After declaring inactive players, exit the View Rosters screen and proceed to step 2.
II. On the DEPTH CHART/GAME PLANS menu, you will see an extensive list of options for preparing your starting lineup, game plan, and other strategic elements.
For now, lets just use recommended settings for everything, later you can delve into each option and go more in depth with your game preparation. You will want to click Recommend All Depth Charts, and then Recommend Entire Game Plan. Your team will now be ready for its first week of action.
III . We are ready to simulate a week of the Pre Season. On the SIMULATION menu, select Simulate Games, then select Simulate Week. Once you have done this the week will simulate, after which you may view the game log or the box score for any game simulated by clicking on the box or the log next to the game. You may also right click a game for a quick recap of the top performers and the final score.
IV. For the remaining weeks of the Pre Season, you may need to shuffle your lineup due to any injuries that may have occurred. To do this, go back to the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View Rosters. A player that is too injured to play will be highlighted in red. Make any highlighted players inactive, replace them with another player to bring your active roster back to 46, then repeat steps II and III above as necessary until the Pre Season has come to an end.
Now we can move on to part 2 of the guide, the Regular Season.
Regular Season / Playoffs (PLAYOFFS!?) By now you have finished the Pre Season, and it is time to look forward to the games that matter. The Regular Season is here, and if you're lucky/good enough, the Post Season awaits to whittle the survivors down and give the league a champion.
First, before we start simulating, you'll have a couple things to take care of. One, checking out the development your players showed in the Pre Season, and Two, trimming the roster to 53 players. Your coaches will have changed their evaluations of many of your players based on their observations during the first 2 weeks of the Pre Season, and you in turn will likely want to re-evaluate who you want active and inactive to start the season.
When evaluating and trimming down the roster you'll want to keep a few things in mind. Young players will be harder to pin down in many cases because they have yet to prove themselves to your coaching staff, so in a lot of cases their true skills have yet to be revealed. They may be worth keeping around even if they look like they are useless at the moment. By the same token, older players or players coming back from major injuries may see their ratings drop off quite a bit. It will be up to you to determine who stays and who goes. You may also want to consider the contract status of players when making cuts as well, because cutting a player with a lot of years left on their deal can cause cap problems down the road.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Evaluating players - To make this quick and painless the first time around, we're going to trust the coaches to give us a good evaluation of the players on the roster and use that knowledge to determine who to keep and who to let go. To help us make the decisions this time around, we're going to go under ROSTER COMMANDS and select View Rosters. Once there, select Scout Overview. Now sort the players as follows: Click Future Estimate, then click Pos. You need a certain amount of players at each position to field a legal roster, as follows:
QB: 3 RB/FB: 3 (At least 2 RB) TE: 2 WR: 4 OL: 7 (At least 1 C, 2 G and 2 T) P: 1 K: 1 DE/DT: 6 (At least 2 DE and 2 DT) ILB/OLB: 5 (At least 1 ILB and 2 OLB) DB: 6 (At least 3 CB and 2 S) LS: 1
A good rule of thumb is to keep at least one more than you need at any given position aside from K, P and LS. To make your cuts this time, your best candidates will be the lowest rated guys at positions where you have an abundance of players. Now lets move on to part II.
II. Cutting players - Across the top of the View Rosters screen, you can see the total number of players you have under contract, inactive, and active. You will need to trim to 7 inactive, 46 active in order to start the season. To cut a player, find the poor sap who you are about to render jobless and left click them to open their player page. If you are sure you wish to cut the player, select Release. The game will let you know of how much money you will save and any cap hits this will cause, and give you a chance to reconsider the move. Once you are sure you want to let him go, select Yes, and he will be dropped from the roster. Repeat this process until you are down to 46 active and 7 inactive players. To do it this time around, simply trim the lowest rated guy at positions where you have excess players until you get down to 53 players on roster.
Once you have finished this, you will be ready to simulate through your first season by repeating steps I, II and III from the Pre Season guide.
III. At the end of a season (before the playoffs start) is a good time to re-negotiate contracts that are set to expire after the season ends. You don't want that stud QB in the final year of his deal testing the free agent waters do you? To re-negotiate, go back into the View Rosters screen, then select Contract View. Now sort the roster by clicking Exp, then EndCntc. This will sort the roster so that all the guys with contracts ending will be sorted to the bottom of the roster in experience order. This helps avoid re-negotiating guys in their 3rd year or less, because you will have exclusive rights to them next season anyway. You focus will be on guys with 4 years or more experience. Keep in mind your salary cap status, as you won't always be able to afford to re-sign everyone. Your current cap and the cap number for next season are shown directly under the list of players.
When you are done with the contracts, simulate the Playoffs, and you'll be one step closer to your first off season as GM. End of Season The end of a season is a great place to take the time to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year. There are many places you may want to take a look at, both to gloat over your accomplishments and to get an idea of what areas to work on for the coming season.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. The View Team Summary screen - This screen is a great one to look at during any time of the season, but lets take a look at it now and get a feel for it. Under the SIMULATION menu, click View Team Summary. Now, in my opinion, this is one of the most useful screens in the game. Here, at a glance, you get a ton of data about your team to look over, from individual statistics to team statistics, as well as a look at the schedule for the season. There is also a quick access look at your coaching staff and your teams historic record. Additionally, if you want to, you can choose to look at other teams in the league to see how they fared as well by clicking the drop down menu at the bottom and selecting a different team.
II. The ALMANAC menu - This is where you can peruse all the stats and awards from the previous season and any past season as well. I won't go over each individual item in the ALMANAC, but each section is pretty self explanatory. The Career, Season, and Game records screens allow you to sort by record and by team, giving you a great look at the legends of the league and the best who ever played for your team (or any other team for that matter). The Season Awards screen will give you a run down of the All Pro 1st and 2nd team as well as the Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, Offensive and Defensive player of the year, the League MVP, and the League Championship MVP of any season. One of the more interesting screens is the Quarterback Coterie, which gives each QB a grade for each season of their career. After you have simulated a good amount of seasons, this is a fun place to come back and look to get an idea of just how good a QB was in a given year of his career. Lets say you want to know if that rookie QB just had the best rookie season in league history. This is the place to check for that. I'll leave it up to you to browse and discover the rest of the awesome depth of the Almanac.
When you have looked at all the records you can stand and celebrated or lamented your teams success (or lack thereof), then it is time to rebuild for another run at the title. Click the End Season button on the CALENDAR menu, take a look at coach Herb's review of your performance as GM, and lets move on to the next league year. Staff Retention / Staff Draft Ah, the beginning of a fresh new year. Time for the GM to really shine. This is where you begin shaping the team for the coming season. Ticket prices, stadium proposals, coaching staff, free agency and the draft loom large on the horizon.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Stadium Proposals - Each year you will have an opportunity to renovate, build a new stadium, or relocate your team. This option is accessed under the CALENDAR menu on the button that says Make Stadium Proposal. Click that and you will be brought to a screen that gives you the opportunity to add seats to your current stadium, renovate the playing surface and parking lot, or build a brand new stadium. This is also where you would apply to move a team if you attempt to build a new stadium and the city votes against it. Currently, you will not have the option to move the team, so that option will be grayed out. For now, lets try just renovating the field and the parking lot. You'll notice that there is an option that says Contract High-Quality Construction Firm, which you may want to consider to ensure the best results if you decide to try and renovate. To help make your decision, there is some info to the right regarding public support for new projects and the current condition of your existing stadium. If it is in satisfactory condition, you may not want to bother with renovation, as it can be quite costly. If you do decide to renovate, you have the option to try and get the public to pay in full for the upgrades with a local tax hike, or you can pay up to half the cost yourself. Contribute your share by inputting the amount you wish to pay in the Team Contribution field.
When you are finished with the stadium plans, exit that screen and move on to handling your coaching staff for the upcoming season.
II. Retain Staff - Also featured on the CALENDAR menu, the Retain Staff button will take you to a screen listing your current staff and the amount of years left on their deals. At this point, you will want to click and review each staff member and determine whether or not they are going to keep their jobs. Coaches entering the final year of their deal will have an option to be re-signed when you look at their coach profile. (For now, lets simplify things by simply re-signing anyone who is eligible.) When you have decided on your plan of action regarding the coaches, click Finished With Renegotiations and you will be moved on to the Staff Draft stage.
III. Under the CALENDAR menu, click Staff Draft to move on to one of the more unique aspects of Front Office Football 7. You will be taken to a screen somewhat similar to the Amateur Draft screen, but this draft will be for coaching staff as the title implies. To the right, there will be a list of the draft order for teams in this stage. This is NOT in any way related to your amateur draft position, but is instead based on your profitability as a team. Teams that make more money get to hire their coaches first. Teams highlighted in blue are teams who have a vacancy to fill in that round of the draft. There are 5 stages to this draft, as follows:
1 - Head Coach 2 - Offensive Coordinator (Can be poached by another team for HC job) 3 - Defensive Coordinator (Can be poached by another team for HC/OC job) 4 - Assistant Coach (Can be poached by another team for HC/OC/DC job) 5 - Strength and Conditioning (Cannot be poached)
To make this quick and easy the first time around, lets just try and keep the staff from last season together. Select the drop down menu labeled Draft Speed and select Fast. Then click Begin Draft. When your selection comes up, you will have the opportunity to choose a new coach from the available list, but for now, select Skip Pick. In the event that another team poaches one of your coordinators for a promotion to a better coaching job, you will have to hire a guy to fill that vacancy. Do that if necessary. The easiest way to ensure a quality hire for now will be to simply sort the available coaches by clicking the Suitable button and selecting the highest available coach to add him to your staff. Click the coach you wish to select to highlight them, then click Select Coach to hire them. All coaches are signed to 5 year deals when newly hired. Repeat this as necessary to finish the staff draft.
Now you have your staff and stadium taken care of, so it is time to get down to the beginning of free agency. Pre Free Agency Before we get to Free Agency in earnest, there is a brief interlude where you have the opportunity to change ticket prices and designate a franchise player before free agency begins. If you were unable to re-negotiate a deal with a player you really do not want to lose to another team, now is the chance to guarantee that he will remain a part of your roster at least for the coming season.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Ticket Prices - To change your ticket prices for the coming year, go to the CALENDAR menu and click Set Ticket Prices. On the following screen, you can adjust the prices for various tickets at your stadium. For now, simply click Recommend Prices and click OK. The CPU generally has a solid idea of how much to charge the fans for the upcoming season.
II. Designating a 'Franchise Player' - Under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, click View Rosters. On the roster screen, select Contract View and sort by clicking EndCntc. This will sort the players without contracts to the bottom of your roster screen. Scroll down to them, and note any players with a UFA designation. You may wish to ensure that you keep one of these players on your roster and stop them from testing the free agent market. If you do, select the player you wish to place the franchise tag on and their player card will pop up. There will be a button at the top of their card that says Designation. Click that to apply the tag to that player. You only get ONE tag per season, so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that using this tag can make a player pretty upset. Using it multiple times increases that risk. If a player becomes mad enough, they will refuse to re-sign with you in the future. Also keep in mind that by applying this tag, you secure exclusive rights to that player for the coming season. You may still attempt to negotiate a long term deal with them at any time during the year if they are interested.
When you are done setting ticket prices and declaring franchise players, it is time to move on to the beginning for Free Agency. Under the CALENDAR menu, select Begin Free Agency to move on to the next stage. A warning will pop up to make sure you are ready to advance, click OK and the game will continue to the next phase. Free Agency / Pre Draft Free Agency is a big deal in FOF 7. The free agency stage is when the draft class is revealed, and it is where you will do most of your work when it comes to shaping the destiny of your franchise. Will you land a big name free agent that can get your team over the hump? Will you find a gem in the draft that becomes a legend of the FOF gridiron? This is where it all begins.
POINTS OF INTEREST
i.
Free Agency Stage 1 - Stage 1 of free agency is where you will make decisions on whether or not to bring back young players whose contracts have expired. The players you will be looking over in this stage will be restricted free agents (RFA). RFA are players with expired contracts who have not yet entered their 5th year in the league. The good thing about restricted free agents is that you are given exclusive rights to negotiate a new deal with them leading up to the draft. If you do not sign them prior to the draft, they will become unrestricted free agents, free to sign with anyone during the post draft free agency period.
To browse and sign RFA, go to the ROSTER COMMANDS menu and click View Rosters. From here, select Contract View, then sort by clicking EndCntc and scroll to the bottom of the roster. You will see your RFA at the bottom, players with no contract who do not have the UFA designation next to their name. Decide who you want to keep on board and negotiate their contracts as needed. You will want to keep an eye on the Room Under Cap and Max For New Player boxes to give you a guideline regarding how much you can spend.
II. The Grey Sheet - Before proceeding to the free for all signing period that begins in Free Agency Stage 2, you might want to take a look at the top free agents according to 'The Grey Sheet.' - Under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View The Grey Sheet. The Grey Sheet is your inside source for the top 88 players on the open market, giving you information about what stage they hope to get a deal done, as well as their overall grade. This grade is adjusted to account for the more coveted positions, which means a decent QB will generally be more highly coveted than a solid RB, etc. This is a good way to put a plan in place by comparing the weak spots on your roster with the available talent on the open market. It can be helpful to check this page during each stage of the free agency period so you know who is still on the market and who is looking to sign for that particular stage. Generally, players will not sign before the stage during which they desire to sign.
III.
One more thing before you continue into the uncharted waters of free agency - Take a look at the preview of the draft class. To do this, look under the CALENDAR menu and click View Draft Preview. This will take you to the Amateur Draft preview screen, where you can browse all the incoming rookie talent and get an idea for who you might want to go after when it is time to make your selection. You can browse by position by using the drop down menu at the top of the screen. You can also sort by clicking the top of the column over any of the measurement criteria listed next to the prospects in the player list. You also have 12 interviews you can use, which can be utilized by clicking a player you wish to get a closer look at, and selecting Interview on their player card. This will give you added information from the eyes of your coaching staff regarding that player. Coaches can be wrong too, so you will have to decide how much you trust them when it finally comes time to pull the trigger and draft a guy.
After you have formulated your plan for the free agency period by using the draft class, your current roster and the available free agent pool to determine the best course of action, it is time to move into the meaty part of the off season, the bidding war known as unrestricted free agency.
IV. Free Agency Stages 2-12 - Starting now, you will be bidding against other teams for talent on the open market. You will need to keep in mind your cap room at all times, because it is easy to go out and overspend and leave yourself in a bind. You will need to determine whether or not it is worth the expense to go after that big time veteran that you know you're going to have to over pay for. You may also want to try and re-sign some of your own players if there are any valuable players left unsigned on your roster.
This part of Free Agency is where the Player Search comes in handy. This can be accessed by looking under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu and selecting View Rosters. At the bottom right of the roster screen is a button that says Recommend Player. Click that, and you will be taken to a screen that allows you to search to your hearts content for that specific missing piece to round out your roster. You can search by position, by experience, by specific attributes, by asking price, or any combination of those. Use this to find and make offers to players. You can also use the Grey Sheet for making offers to the bigger name free agents. Both screens are quite useful for finding and bidding on talent.
Once you have placed your bids, go back to the main game screen and look under the CALENDAR menu. Click Continue Free Agency to take a look at your current offers and to advance to the next stage of the signing period. To sort your offers to the top during any stage, simply click the Name column. This will move your current offers to the top, highlighted in red. To advance the stage when you are satisfied with the offers you have made for the current stage, click End Stage. This will advance the game one week. Signings and CPU bids will take place. Once the stage has been advanced, the status of an offer may change on the screen from Pending to Signed. next to that will be the 3 letter abbreviation of the team that signed the player. Repeat this step as necessary until the signing period comes to an end.
Next up is the amateur draft, the place where legends are born. The Draft / Late Free Agency / Training Camp Ok. Time to really flex your muscles as GM. This is the part of the game that Front Office GMs everywhere salivate over, where you get to stake your claim as a legendary judge of talent or a miserable failure who couldn't draft a talented player if your life depended on it.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I.
Accessing the draft - Now all your preparations are done and it is time to get in the war room and make the hard decisions. On the CALENDAR menu, click Begin Draft. On the draft screen, there are a few key points of interest. One is the View Draft Order button. This will show you where you are picking in the draft. There is also a drop down menu to increase the speed of the draft and a button to offer trades in the event you would like to try and move up or down in the draft. This time around, lets keep it simple and just draft from our original draft position.
To advance the draft, set the speed you wish the draft to run, then click Begin Draft. When your pick comes, you can sort through the available players and make your pick. You can get a better look at any prospect by double clicking them. Once you have made your selections and the draft has come to an end, your picks will automatically sign deals commensurate with their draft position, and you will be ready to move on to the post draft free agency period.
II. The post draft free agency period is essentially an exact replica of the pre draft free agency period, except that it primarily features restricted free agents who were not re-signed, undrafted rookies, and other players who were not signed in the pre draft free agency stages. This is a good place to try and scour through the scrap heap and try to find a rookie that might have slipped through the cracks or supplement your squad with good special teams players and role players who can fill out the deeper parts of the roster. Repeat step IV from the free agency guide until you have advanced through late free agency, and it will then be time to move on to training camp.
III. Training Camp is where your coaches do their best to prepare your team for the grind of the upcoming season. Under the CALENDAR menu, select Begin Training Camp. This is where you will decide how to delegate time for the off season training sessions. You can learn what each section of the training camp schedule is about by clicking Details next to any of the items on the list, but for now lets just leave the default settings on and click Run Training Camp. After you have finished training camp, you are back to square one, a fresh preseason waiting to get underway. Good luck!
Before Starting This Guide Just a quick mention I want to make before you go on to read the basics - If you have questions about deeper aspects of the game that go beyond this basic guide (and I am sure you will) - A great place to ask those questions is here: Front Office Football Central [www.operationsports.com] This is the message board of the biggest FOF fan site on the internet, and there is a lot of in depth reference material available there already, as well as a group of knowledgeable fans of the game who are always glad to help. GAME SETTINGS One of the first things we should address is the game settings. Click the gear button on the toolbar at the top of the game screen. You will be presented with the following options:
1: View General Manager Records - This is not really a setting as much as it is a list of your best performances as a GM in your history with the game. There are records for single season and career, and a button at the bottom of the screen that allows you to erase the records and start fresh. (Clicking this DOES NOT erase your saved game, just the records you have accumulated).
2: Edit Franchise Nicknames - This is where you can change the team nicknames of all the teams in the game. This is the place to go if you want to rename the teams after their real life counterparts, or if you want to name every team after bodily functions, or whatever else you can come up with.
3: Edit City Affiliations - This option is only available right when you open the game, before you load a league. In here, you can change the city affiliated with each team in the game. This is where you can create a completely new universe of 32 cities of your choice. If you want to have 4 teams each in 8 different states, you can do that. (This may require some additional tweaking via the next option in the single player settings menu).
4: Edit City Names - This is where you can change the names of any of the cities modeled in the game. Unfortunately you cannot change the size of the cities or the weather patterns the city is known for, but you can at least create the illusion of a world wide football league if you so desire. Just take a city like Anchorage, affiliate it with a team via Edit City Affiliations, then change the city name to Yakutsk, and boom - You have a team in Russia.
5: Edit Single Player Options - This is the section of the game settings menu that effects your single player games. Your options are as follows:
A: Hide Results on Schedule Overview Windows - When selected, this will hide your team record and the score of your most recent game from the SIMULATION menu. This is helpful if you wish to view your games in 'Solevision' (which basically amounts to watching your team play.)
B: Coaches Reset Depth Chart Prior To Each Game - When this is turned on, you will have no control over your depth chart week to week aside from declaring active and inactive players. The coaches will set your starters and backups for you.
C: Coaches Reset Game Plan Prior To Each Game - When this is turned on, you will not need to set your game plan week to week. Your coaches will do the game planning for you.
D: Staff Automatically Signs Players To Fill Roster - When this is turned on, your coaches will sign players in the event your roster is undermanned. The coaches will sign enough first year players so that your team can field a 46 man active roster.
E: Add Formation Information to Game Logs - Turn this on to add formation information to game logs. This will require slightly more hard drive space to store the game logs, but if you want this piece of information available to you for whatever reason, this is where you make that happen.
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F: Cap Increase Range - This is where you determine how much the cap increases from year to year when the league negotiates a new television contract. If you want a static cap, set both parameters to 0. If you want a widely fluctuating cap, set the first value to 0 and the second value to 100. Every 5 years or so, your league will sign a new television contract and based on the range allowed in this setting, the cap will be designated to increase each year by a set amount.
G: Injury Setting - Set this to 0 for no injuries, set this as high as 400 if you want to simulate a world where everyone has significant body integrity issues. 200 is said to be similar to real life, and 100 is the setting many multi-player leagues use.
H: Combine Accuracy - Set this to 0 to make drafts almost a crap shoot, set it to 100 to make it so that the combine numbers of a potential draftee tell you a lot about the player you are about to draft. At a setting of 100, a guy that runs a 4.3 40 will be fast, almost without fail. A guy who bench presses 35 reps will almost always be strong like an ox, etc.
6: Multi-Player Options - Aside from these options only having an effect on multi-player mode, there is only one new option that needs to be explained, which is the option to save game plan and depth charts on export. What this will do is keep the changes you make to your lineup and game plan when you export your multi-player file to the commissioner. Essentially, this basically acts as a bookmark for any roster or game plan changes you make between stages in a multi-player game.
And now, on with the guide. What follows is a walk through for each step of a season, starting from the beginning of a new game to the start of your second season as GM. Good luck, and enjoy! When you are done reading, feel free to leave comments or suggestions and I will do my best to address them. Pre Season The Beginning
This is where a new game will begin, the first week of the Pre Season. You will be preparing your team for their first foray into battle on the gridiron, and you will need to set lineups, declare inactive players, and possibly sign or release players prior to getting started.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. On the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View Rosters.
Here you can declare inactive players (You may only have 46 active for game day). To quickly declare inactive players, simply right click a player to change their status to inactive. They will be highlighted in green. Right click again to change an inactive player back to active. After declaring inactive players, exit the View Rosters screen and proceed to step 2.
II. On the DEPTH CHART/GAME PLANS menu, you will see an extensive list of options for preparing your starting lineup, game plan, and other strategic elements.
For now, lets just use recommended settings for everything, later you can delve into each option and go more in depth with your game preparation. You will want to click Recommend All Depth Charts, and then Recommend Entire Game Plan. Your team will now be ready for its first week of action.
III . We are ready to simulate a week of the Pre Season. On the SIMULATION menu, select Simulate Games, then select Simulate Week. Once you have done this the week will simulate, after which you may view the game log or the box score for any game simulated by clicking on the box or the log next to the game. You may also right click a game for a quick recap of the top performers and the final score.
IV. For the remaining weeks of the Pre Season, you may need to shuffle your lineup due to any injuries that may have occurred. To do this, go back to the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View Rosters. A player that is too injured to play will be highlighted in red. Make any highlighted players inactive, replace them with another player to bring your active roster back to 46, then repeat steps II and III above as necessary until the Pre Season has come to an end.
Now we can move on to part 2 of the guide, the Regular Season.
Regular Season / Playoffs (PLAYOFFS!?) By now you have finished the Pre Season, and it is time to look forward to the games that matter. The Regular Season is here, and if you're lucky/good enough, the Post Season awaits to whittle the survivors down and give the league a champion.
First, before we start simulating, you'll have a couple things to take care of. One, checking out the development your players showed in the Pre Season, and Two, trimming the roster to 53 players. Your coaches will have changed their evaluations of many of your players based on their observations during the first 2 weeks of the Pre Season, and you in turn will likely want to re-evaluate who you want active and inactive to start the season.
When evaluating and trimming down the roster you'll want to keep a few things in mind. Young players will be harder to pin down in many cases because they have yet to prove themselves to your coaching staff, so in a lot of cases their true skills have yet to be revealed. They may be worth keeping around even if they look like they are useless at the moment. By the same token, older players or players coming back from major injuries may see their ratings drop off quite a bit. It will be up to you to determine who stays and who goes. You may also want to consider the contract status of players when making cuts as well, because cutting a player with a lot of years left on their deal can cause cap problems down the road.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Evaluating players - To make this quick and painless the first time around, we're going to trust the coaches to give us a good evaluation of the players on the roster and use that knowledge to determine who to keep and who to let go. To help us make the decisions this time around, we're going to go under ROSTER COMMANDS and select View Rosters. Once there, select Scout Overview. Now sort the players as follows: Click Future Estimate, then click Pos. You need a certain amount of players at each position to field a legal roster, as follows:
QB: 3 RB/FB: 3 (At least 2 RB) TE: 2 WR: 4 OL: 7 (At least 1 C, 2 G and 2 T) P: 1 K: 1 DE/DT: 6 (At least 2 DE and 2 DT) ILB/OLB: 5 (At least 1 ILB and 2 OLB) DB: 6 (At least 3 CB and 2 S) LS: 1
A good rule of thumb is to keep at least one more than you need at any given position aside from K, P and LS. To make your cuts this time, your best candidates will be the lowest rated guys at positions where you have an abundance of players. Now lets move on to part II.
II. Cutting players - Across the top of the View Rosters screen, you can see the total number of players you have under contract, inactive, and active. You will need to trim to 7 inactive, 46 active in order to start the season. To cut a player, find the poor sap who you are about to render jobless and left click them to open their player page. If you are sure you wish to cut the player, select Release. The game will let you know of how much money you will save and any cap hits this will cause, and give you a chance to reconsider the move. Once you are sure you want to let him go, select Yes, and he will be dropped from the roster. Repeat this process until you are down to 46 active and 7 inactive players. To do it this time around, simply trim the lowest rated guy at positions where you have excess players until you get down to 53 players on roster.
Once you have finished this, you will be ready to simulate through your first season by repeating steps I, II and III from the Pre Season guide.
III. At the end of a season (before the playoffs start) is a good time to re-negotiate contracts that are set to expire after the season ends. You don't want that stud QB in the final year of his deal testing the free agent waters do you? To re-negotiate, go back into the View Rosters screen, then select Contract View. Now sort the roster by clicking Exp, then EndCntc. This will sort the roster so that all the guys with contracts ending will be sorted to the bottom of the roster in experience order. This helps avoid re-negotiating guys in their 3rd year or less, because you will have exclusive rights to them next season anyway. You focus will be on guys with 4 years or more experience. Keep in mind your salary cap status, as you won't always be able to afford to re-sign everyone. Your current cap and the cap number for next season are shown directly under the list of players.
When you are done with the contracts, simulate the Playoffs, and you'll be one step closer to your first off season as GM. End of Season The end of a season is a great place to take the time to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year. There are many places you may want to take a look at, both to gloat over your accomplishments and to get an idea of what areas to work on for the coming season.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. The View Team Summary screen - This screen is a great one to look at during any time of the season, but lets take a look at it now and get a feel for it. Under the SIMULATION menu, click View Team Summary. Now, in my opinion, this is one of the most useful screens in the game. Here, at a glance, you get a ton of data about your team to look over, from individual statistics to team statistics, as well as a look at the schedule for the season. There is also a quick access look at your coaching staff and your teams historic record. Additionally, if you want to, you can choose to look at other teams in the league to see how they fared as well by clicking the drop down menu at the bottom and selecting a different team.
II. The ALMANAC menu - This is where you can peruse all the stats and awards from the previous season and any past season as well. I won't go over each individual item in the ALMANAC, but each section is pretty self explanatory. The Career, Season, and Game records screens allow you to sort by record and by team, giving you a great look at the legends of the league and the best who ever played for your team (or any other team for that matter). The Season Awards screen will give you a run down of the All Pro 1st and 2nd team as well as the Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year, Offensive and Defensive player of the year, the League MVP, and the League Championship MVP of any season. One of the more interesting screens is the Quarterback Coterie, which gives each QB a grade for each season of their career. After you have simulated a good amount of seasons, this is a fun place to come back and look to get an idea of just how good a QB was in a given year of his career. Lets say you want to know if that rookie QB just had the best rookie season in league history. This is the place to check for that. I'll leave it up to you to browse and discover the rest of the awesome depth of the Almanac.
When you have looked at all the records you can stand and celebrated or lamented your teams success (or lack thereof), then it is time to rebuild for another run at the title. Click the End Season button on the CALENDAR menu, take a look at coach Herb's review of your performance as GM, and lets move on to the next league year. Staff Retention / Staff Draft Ah, the beginning of a fresh new year. Time for the GM to really shine. This is where you begin shaping the team for the coming season. Ticket prices, stadium proposals, coaching staff, free agency and the draft loom large on the horizon.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Stadium Proposals - Each year you will have an opportunity to renovate, build a new stadium, or relocate your team. This option is accessed under the CALENDAR menu on the button that says Make Stadium Proposal. Click that and you will be brought to a screen that gives you the opportunity to add seats to your current stadium, renovate the playing surface and parking lot, or build a brand new stadium. This is also where you would apply to move a team if you attempt to build a new stadium and the city votes against it. Currently, you will not have the option to move the team, so that option will be grayed out. For now, lets try just renovating the field and the parking lot. You'll notice that there is an option that says Contract High-Quality Construction Firm, which you may want to consider to ensure the best results if you decide to try and renovate. To help make your decision, there is some info to the right regarding public support for new projects and the current condition of your existing stadium. If it is in satisfactory condition, you may not want to bother with renovation, as it can be quite costly. If you do decide to renovate, you have the option to try and get the public to pay in full for the upgrades with a local tax hike, or you can pay up to half the cost yourself. Contribute your share by inputting the amount you wish to pay in the Team Contribution field.
When you are finished with the stadium plans, exit that screen and move on to handling your coaching staff for the upcoming season.
II. Retain Staff - Also featured on the CALENDAR menu, the Retain Staff button will take you to a screen listing your current staff and the amount of years left on their deals. At this point, you will want to click and review each staff member and determine whether or not they are going to keep their jobs. Coaches entering the final year of their deal will have an option to be re-signed when you look at their coach profile. (For now, lets simplify things by simply re-signing anyone who is eligible.) When you have decided on your plan of action regarding the coaches, click Finished With Renegotiations and you will be moved on to the Staff Draft stage.
III. Under the CALENDAR menu, click Staff Draft to move on to one of the more unique aspects of Front Office Football 7. You will be taken to a screen somewhat similar to the Amateur Draft screen, but this draft will be for coaching staff as the title implies. To the right, there will be a list of the draft order for teams in this stage. This is NOT in any way related to your amateur draft position, but is instead based on your profitability as a team. Teams that make more money get to hire their coaches first. Teams highlighted in blue are teams who have a vacancy to fill in that round of the draft. There are 5 stages to this draft, as follows:
1 - Head Coach 2 - Offensive Coordinator (Can be poached by another team for HC job) 3 - Defensive Coordinator (Can be poached by another team for HC/OC job) 4 - Assistant Coach (Can be poached by another team for HC/OC/DC job) 5 - Strength and Conditioning (Cannot be poached)
To make this quick and easy the first time around, lets just try and keep the staff from last season together. Select the drop down menu labeled Draft Speed and select Fast. Then click Begin Draft. When your selection comes up, you will have the opportunity to choose a new coach from the available list, but for now, select Skip Pick. In the event that another team poaches one of your coordinators for a promotion to a better coaching job, you will have to hire a guy to fill that vacancy. Do that if necessary. The easiest way to ensure a quality hire for now will be to simply sort the available coaches by clicking the Suitable button and selecting the highest available coach to add him to your staff. Click the coach you wish to select to highlight them, then click Select Coach to hire them. All coaches are signed to 5 year deals when newly hired. Repeat this as necessary to finish the staff draft.
Now you have your staff and stadium taken care of, so it is time to get down to the beginning of free agency. Pre Free Agency Before we get to Free Agency in earnest, there is a brief interlude where you have the opportunity to change ticket prices and designate a franchise player before free agency begins. If you were unable to re-negotiate a deal with a player you really do not want to lose to another team, now is the chance to guarantee that he will remain a part of your roster at least for the coming season.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I. Ticket Prices - To change your ticket prices for the coming year, go to the CALENDAR menu and click Set Ticket Prices. On the following screen, you can adjust the prices for various tickets at your stadium. For now, simply click Recommend Prices and click OK. The CPU generally has a solid idea of how much to charge the fans for the upcoming season.
II. Designating a 'Franchise Player' - Under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, click View Rosters. On the roster screen, select Contract View and sort by clicking EndCntc. This will sort the players without contracts to the bottom of your roster screen. Scroll down to them, and note any players with a UFA designation. You may wish to ensure that you keep one of these players on your roster and stop them from testing the free agent market. If you do, select the player you wish to place the franchise tag on and their player card will pop up. There will be a button at the top of their card that says Designation. Click that to apply the tag to that player. You only get ONE tag per season, so keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that using this tag can make a player pretty upset. Using it multiple times increases that risk. If a player becomes mad enough, they will refuse to re-sign with you in the future. Also keep in mind that by applying this tag, you secure exclusive rights to that player for the coming season. You may still attempt to negotiate a long term deal with them at any time during the year if they are interested.
When you are done setting ticket prices and declaring franchise players, it is time to move on to the beginning for Free Agency. Under the CALENDAR menu, select Begin Free Agency to move on to the next stage. A warning will pop up to make sure you are ready to advance, click OK and the game will continue to the next phase. Free Agency / Pre Draft Free Agency is a big deal in FOF 7. The free agency stage is when the draft class is revealed, and it is where you will do most of your work when it comes to shaping the destiny of your franchise. Will you land a big name free agent that can get your team over the hump? Will you find a gem in the draft that becomes a legend of the FOF gridiron? This is where it all begins.
POINTS OF INTEREST
i.
Free Agency Stage 1 - Stage 1 of free agency is where you will make decisions on whether or not to bring back young players whose contracts have expired. The players you will be looking over in this stage will be restricted free agents (RFA). RFA are players with expired contracts who have not yet entered their 5th year in the league. The good thing about restricted free agents is that you are given exclusive rights to negotiate a new deal with them leading up to the draft. If you do not sign them prior to the draft, they will become unrestricted free agents, free to sign with anyone during the post draft free agency period.
To browse and sign RFA, go to the ROSTER COMMANDS menu and click View Rosters. From here, select Contract View, then sort by clicking EndCntc and scroll to the bottom of the roster. You will see your RFA at the bottom, players with no contract who do not have the UFA designation next to their name. Decide who you want to keep on board and negotiate their contracts as needed. You will want to keep an eye on the Room Under Cap and Max For New Player boxes to give you a guideline regarding how much you can spend.
II. The Grey Sheet - Before proceeding to the free for all signing period that begins in Free Agency Stage 2, you might want to take a look at the top free agents according to 'The Grey Sheet.' - Under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu, select View The Grey Sheet. The Grey Sheet is your inside source for the top 88 players on the open market, giving you information about what stage they hope to get a deal done, as well as their overall grade. This grade is adjusted to account for the more coveted positions, which means a decent QB will generally be more highly coveted than a solid RB, etc. This is a good way to put a plan in place by comparing the weak spots on your roster with the available talent on the open market. It can be helpful to check this page during each stage of the free agency period so you know who is still on the market and who is looking to sign for that particular stage. Generally, players will not sign before the stage during which they desire to sign.
III.
One more thing before you continue into the uncharted waters of free agency - Take a look at the preview of the draft class. To do this, look under the CALENDAR menu and click View Draft Preview. This will take you to the Amateur Draft preview screen, where you can browse all the incoming rookie talent and get an idea for who you might want to go after when it is time to make your selection. You can browse by position by using the drop down menu at the top of the screen. You can also sort by clicking the top of the column over any of the measurement criteria listed next to the prospects in the player list. You also have 12 interviews you can use, which can be utilized by clicking a player you wish to get a closer look at, and selecting Interview on their player card. This will give you added information from the eyes of your coaching staff regarding that player. Coaches can be wrong too, so you will have to decide how much you trust them when it finally comes time to pull the trigger and draft a guy.
After you have formulated your plan for the free agency period by using the draft class, your current roster and the available free agent pool to determine the best course of action, it is time to move into the meaty part of the off season, the bidding war known as unrestricted free agency.
Fof8
IV. Free Agency Stages 2-12 - Starting now, you will be bidding against other teams for talent on the open market. You will need to keep in mind your cap room at all times, because it is easy to go out and overspend and leave yourself in a bind. You will need to determine whether or not it is worth the expense to go after that big time veteran that you know you're going to have to over pay for. You may also want to try and re-sign some of your own players if there are any valuable players left unsigned on your roster.
This part of Free Agency is where the Player Search comes in handy. This can be accessed by looking under the ROSTER COMMANDS menu and selecting View Rosters. At the bottom right of the roster screen is a button that says Recommend Player. Click that, and you will be taken to a screen that allows you to search to your hearts content for that specific missing piece to round out your roster. You can search by position, by experience, by specific attributes, by asking price, or any combination of those. Use this to find and make offers to players. You can also use the Grey Sheet for making offers to the bigger name free agents. Both screens are quite useful for finding and bidding on talent.
Front Office Football 7 Mods 2
Once you have placed your bids, go back to the main game screen and look under the CALENDAR menu. Click Continue Free Agency to take a look at your current offers and to advance to the next stage of the signing period. To sort your offers to the top during any stage, simply click the Name column. This will move your current offers to the top, highlighted in red. To advance the stage when you are satisfied with the offers you have made for the current stage, click End Stage. This will advance the game one week. Signings and CPU bids will take place. Once the stage has been advanced, the status of an offer may change on the screen from Pending to Signed. next to that will be the 3 letter abbreviation of the team that signed the player. Repeat this step as necessary until the signing period comes to an end.
Next up is the amateur draft, the place where legends are born. The Draft / Late Free Agency / Training Camp Ok. Time to really flex your muscles as GM. This is the part of the game that Front Office GMs everywhere salivate over, where you get to stake your claim as a legendary judge of talent or a miserable failure who couldn't draft a talented player if your life depended on it.
POINTS OF INTEREST
I.
Accessing the draft - Now all your preparations are done and it is time to get in the war room and make the hard decisions. On the CALENDAR menu, click Begin Draft. On the draft screen, there are a few key points of interest. One is the View Draft Order button. This will show you where you are picking in the draft. There is also a drop down menu to increase the speed of the draft and a button to offer trades in the event you would like to try and move up or down in the draft. This time around, lets keep it simple and just draft from our original draft position.
To advance the draft, set the speed you wish the draft to run, then click Begin Draft. When your pick comes, you can sort through the available players and make your pick. You can get a better look at any prospect by double clicking them. Once you have made your selections and the draft has come to an end, your picks will automatically sign deals commensurate with their draft position, and you will be ready to move on to the post draft free agency period.
II. The post draft free agency period is essentially an exact replica of the pre draft free agency period, except that it primarily features restricted free agents who were not re-signed, undrafted rookies, and other players who were not signed in the pre draft free agency stages. This is a good place to try and scour through the scrap heap and try to find a rookie that might have slipped through the cracks or supplement your squad with good special teams players and role players who can fill out the deeper parts of the roster. Repeat step IV from the free agency guide until you have advanced through late free agency, and it will then be time to move on to training camp.
III. Training Camp is where your coaches do their best to prepare your team for the grind of the upcoming season. Under the CALENDAR menu, select Begin Training Camp. This is where you will decide how to delegate time for the off season training sessions. You can learn what each section of the training camp schedule is about by clicking Details next to any of the items on the list, but for now lets just leave the default settings on and click Run Training Camp. After you have finished training camp, you are back to square one, a fresh preseason waiting to get underway. Good luck!