[quote name='MasterAwesome']I think initially I was on board with honoring the real-life trades (in respects to one team owing another a draft pick), but I'm fairly strongly against it now. I agree it sucks that someone would have to take over a team without a first rounder in the next draft because of something they had no control over...especially if that person was given the team rather than him having chosen the team himself.
Let's look at the 2 most notable trades involving draft picks in recent years:
1) The recent Rams/Redskins trade for the Redskins moving up from pick 6 to pick 2.
2) The Oakland Raiders trade for Palmer giving up 2 1sts or a 1st/2nd (whatever it was).
[/QUOTE]
The two trades you're citing are certainly far more lopsided than any trade we've had to honor in the past (I couldn't agree more that both are ridiculous from a Madden perspective). By saying you were on board with it before and now strongly against it basically seems like saying we should stop doing it because NFL teams are getting dumber. I'm not totally unreceptive to that line of thinking, but I'm just not sure yet. The impact it has had in the past was always pretty minimal, and it will certainly have a bigger one this year - it just really hinges on whether it makes enough difference to change the policy so a couple of teams don't get hosed. I'll give it serious thought and also see what uber thinks when he's back.
It's never been a universally popular policy, but there's always been agreement that it was a good one. If everybody wants to stop doing it, we're obviously not going to continue just because we've done it in the past.
[quote name='MasterAwesome']
We don't know if that's cause it's an exploit or if it really does help BV get in rhythm and make plays.[/QUOTE]
I'm going to try not to respond to all of your post (edit: and fail, lol) because I'm honestly so tired of rehashing this all the time. I'll just respond to the above: It does help me get in rhythm and make plays. That's 100% of the reason I do it, and also 100% true. If you want to claim something like "the technique BV uses might take advantage of a hole in blocking AI that he's not aware of", fine. I don't think that's the case, but there's a way to discuss it without implying that it's possible I've spent the entirety of this season lying about the reason I do it.
As to the larger point, I've had a top 5 defense all four seasons, but never the top defense (twice best in scoring, including this season). I've never been higher than 5th in sacks (2012, I'm 10th this year). The reason my scoring defense is so good is less because of my overall defensive talent and more because I turn the ball over less than pretty much anyone. I'm good at usering linebackers the same way some people are good at ballhawking with safeties or linebackers (like yourself). That technique allows me to get more user tackles for loss and sacks (most of my sacks are user sacks) the same way the latter strategy allows people to get more user picks. I believe you yourself once said that being good at something is not reason enough to cause suspicion. The truth is, not a lot of people blitz linebackers successfully in this league (many people don't do it at all). Look at the list of guys with more than 5 sacks on the season, it's mostly populated by defensive ends (I assume most of those are coverage sacks). The linebackers who get to the QB a lot (and there's only 2 or 3 of them) all have TFL ratios around 50% or a little above. Carswell's volume is higher for sure, but wouldn't that just be because, like you said, I user him all the time (it's really more like 60% Carswell, 35% Wake, 5% everyone else) and am therefore more committed to the strategy on every play? Carswell's TFL ratio is 59%, the LB with the next most sacks, Lance Briggs (8 sacks) is at 54%, Martez Wilson (6 sacks) is at 55%. Carswell certainly fills up a stat sheet (and is taking a lot of the sacks which once went to Mayo and to a lesser extent Wake), but I see no evidence he's worlds better at getting into the backfield than other elite defensive players who their owners use in similar ways.
Anyway, we're not getting dragged into this again. As I've said in the past, if anyone can show me that I'm inadvertantly triggering a deficiency in AI blocking, I'll never do it again. It wouldn't even be that hard to prove if it was happening - just take a look at the replays and see if anything funky is going on with linebackers passing through the ethereal bodies of offensive linemen or anything like that. I've never seen that happen, but if someone showed me it was and I was missing it, I'd seal the technique away in the vault forever and find some other way to stay in rhythm at the snap.