Digital Sportspage Blog

I played quite a bit last night, taking the Dolphins from the off-season, in order to go through free agency and the draft.

* I like the timed aspect of free agency…it really puts pressure on you to make a decision quickly. I signed quite a few free agents, since the Dolphins have tons of cap room. However, there wasn’t a lot of variety…you basically wait for all the other teams to bid, and then once there’s only one other team left, you make one bid. I’ve never seen the other team make a bid above that, and you always get the player.

A nice improvement would be having to decide whether you want to submit a bid without knowing if the other teams have bid. It would force you to be involved in bidding, instead of just watching and waiting for the price to stabilize and deciding whether you want to pay one bid more.

* I absolutely love the draft. It is extremely interactive, with lots of trade offers, player information, changes in approval ratings, the ability to trade up and trade down, etc. Playing with the Dolphins, I chose Jake Long with the #1 pick. One minor issue: my GM recommended I choose Long, but I wanted to look and see what teams were offering me to trade down, out of curiousity. In order to look at trade offers, you have to reject your GM’s recommendation, which makes him angry. I ended up choosing Long anyway, so that was unnecessary.

With the first pick in the second round, I really wanted to take a cornerback, but there was a run on the position. This was great, because I kept getting tempted to trade up to pick a good corner, but never could make an offer that would make a team trade down. None of my slated corners were available, so I ended up choosing a wide receiver (Devin Thomas). My next pick was late in the second round, and I wanted Brian Brohm. With nearly every pick before my late second rounder, I had to decide whether to try and trade up or hope that they wouldn’t pick my guy. (Something that would help: the ability to see the picking team’s need in order to judge whether they would be more/less likely to pick a certain position in the next round.) Fortunately, he dropped and I chose Brohm, followed by the corner Godfrey a few picks later.

Finally, with the last pick in the second round, DeSean Jackson was still on the board, as well as a 75 rated corner. I really didn’t need a wide receiver, but I wasn’t happy with the corners available. So I looked to trade down and got a very good offer from the Ravens. However, there is one thing about Head Coach that isn’t very intuitive: once you go into a negotiation screen (whether it be contract negotiations, trades, free agency), you can’t back out to do any research. I tried, and lost every trade offer, and was forced to pick Jackson (a pick that the fans loved). You have to remember to do your research before going into any of these screens, or you won’t be able to do anything.

Unfortunately, I don’t have too many gameplay impressions, as I kept getting a dirty disc error in the second half of my first preseason game. If I can get the game to work, I hope to have more impresssions later today.