Buffalo Sucks - a Madden Franchise with only street free agents

[Theov]

Good day everyone, except me, and welcome to the Buffalo Bills.
After building franchises for a decade, I decided to try a new challenge.
Instead of improving an NFL team or doing a normal fantasy draft, I wanted to give myself the biggest challenge possible.

The Buffalow my god they suck Bills were assembled in a fantasy draft (original Madden08 roster) by consistently selecting the worst possible player available. The worse a player was, the greater my desire was to draft him.
Give me your poor, broken, your huddled masses.

If a position was full, I would simply move to the next worst available player and select him. After all roster requirements were met, I would again draft the worst player available and that way fill my roster.

This means my roster is now filled with insurance salesmen, car dealers, stock brokers, drug dealers and other people who should not be in the NFL.

The Year of the League is 2007.
62 OVR team, the Buffalo Bills. (League Average is 88)
62 Offense
63 Defense
59 ST
QBs: Brian St. Pierre (64 OVR) and Jared Lorenzen (63OVR) (rest in peace Big Guy)
Best Player: DeDe Dorsey (HB 70 OVR)
(the worst NFL player outside of Buffalo is a 69OVR Vikings center)
Fastest Player: LeRon McCoy (WR 92 SPD)
Strongest Player: Richard Collier (RG->C 90 STR)


We are 78.76M under the salary cap of 106M in year 1 and 2.
I will use a lower cap space and a lower yearly increase.
I will keep player morale on a steady 99 throughout the league, because with this amount of Cap Space, we have enough money to get everyone beer and strippers.

My restrictions:
1: No trading or signings in season 1 (I can sign the worst free agent if injuries occur).
2: I will not trade for players or sign free agents better than 68 OVR.
3: I will do my drafts as normal and trade up or down during the draft. I will not trade picks for picks before the draft.
4: Only 3 progression points: after the pre season, week 8 and week 17.
5: Community created historical drafts.
6: An adjusted salary cap with a smaller yearly increase.

Allowed:
1: Roster moves / formation subs / profile sub packages etc.
2: position changes: I will put player in another position in Madden - I will not use an editor to do this. So WR to CB I could do, but CB to QB I will not.
3: Draft pick trades during the draft only.
4: Mini camp.
5: Contracts / resignings / etc.
6: Players for picks trades.
7: Sign undrafted rookies after the draft regardless of OVR.

Let's meet the starters of the team:

Offense:


Defense:

click "open image in new tab" for a better view.

[TVGuy22]

Hell, you've just created the Miami Dolphins.

[Gronky]

Cool scenario.
Sure to be lots of lore involved.

[Theov]

Some additional information about the games:
I play all games myself.
All Madden and 50-50 sliders.
5 minute quarters.
Formation subs and personnel audibles are allowed.
Accelerated clock: no

On with the Bills...

The Buffalowww shit Bills have started their first off season.

Offense:

On Offense we have moved DeDe Dorsey to Wide Receiver. He has 69 CTH which is low, but he has 87 SPD which is low for a runningback (I need speed there) but alright for a receiver.
Rod "He Hate Me" Smart will be our starting runningback. He has 91 Speed. That's all the positive there is to say about him at the moment.

Isaiah Stanback (or "A") has 85SPD which is not a lot for a WR so he has moved to TE, he's not much of a blocker, but that's ok.

I shuffled the Oline around, to make sure we get the best 5 blockers... who am I kidding.
I shuffled the Oline around, to make sure we leave the worst blockers on the bench. This is a group that enjoys eating together and they love to go hunting and drinking on weekends. Practice, hitting the gym and playing football is not high on their list.

The starters look like this from LT to RT
STR: 84/83/90/82/87
PBK: 77/78/74/80/76
RBK: 82/80/84/80/77

Defense:

We needed some help at the linebacker spot and since we can't sign any free agents this year we looked at the secondary for reinforcements.
Cameron Worrell has moved from SS to ROLB, he has 85SPD, 82 ACC, 64 TAK but only 54STR. He is a smart choice for coverage and blitzes, in the run game he shouldn't be at the point of attack, so let's hope opposing offenses don't run at him.

We didn't have speed nor strength at the end positions, so we moved Chase Blackburn, originally a MLB, to Right End. He has 73SPD and 75ACC which is good for an End, but only 70 AGI and only 68 STR. Hmmm, I am really starting to hope teams will not run to our right side.

The running theme here is speed. We have the need, the need for speed.

After all this, we opened Mini Camp.

Ade Jimoh improved his TAK with 7 points, so he's our best tackling guy in the secondary now. He will be moved from CB to SS to take the spot vacated by Worrell going to Outside Linebacker.
Cam "the other" Newton will move from SS to FS.

Receiver LeRon McCoy, the racecar of the team with 92SPD, improved his catching and now has 74 CTH, which is actually not that bad for a taxi driver. Only Sean Morrey has more with 75, but he only has 84 SPD...

The QBs have improved as well, I could squeeze 3 points out of Brian St.Pierre - he now has a 82/83 arm (THP/THA).
As said, our backup QB is the late great Jared "the Hefty Lefty" Lorenzen, he improved too and now has a 83/79 arm now; he's actually deceptively mobile for his size with 64SPD/ACC and 63AGI. If I could put St.Pierre's arm on Lorenzen's body, I would have a half-alright QB.

After all drills were done, our roster got a little better. Improvement is slow, but it's there.

Kick Offs will be handled by Bill "brother of" Gramatica who after Camp has a 95KPW leg, which is the only thing interesting about our kickers and punters, since I don't kick FGs nor do I ever punt.

Soon we will start the season versus the Denver Broncos!
Remember, this is a fantasy draft, so at QB the Broncos have Seneca Wallace (the poor man's Mike Vick) at QB and Fitzgerald at WR, they run the ball with Rudy Johnson.
On defense they have 'Terror' Terrell Suggs, James Farrior, Kendrell Bell and Michael Strahan.
It will be a nice matchup versus our group of street free agents.

5th Best Player Watch: Boomer Grigsby, FB 68 OVR.
[edit] we can only sign players as good or worse than him [/edit]

[NaruTheBlackSwan]

5th Best Player Watch: Boomer Grigsby, FB 68 OVR.

It's pretty cruel for the player on which all your FA decisions hinge on is a FB. Madden really inflates the OVR of that position, and DE for that matter. Still though, give us all the Boomer highlights you got.

[Theov]

Thank you for reading about my cover-your-eyes-bad Bills franchise filled with street free agents, practice squad rejects, minor league heroes, XFL stars and other people that should be doing another job.

We played a little pre season to made some in-game substitutions on goal line situations and to get used to the team, but other than that, let's not make meaningless games meaningful and let's continue to the Regular Season.
I can't wait to get my toes wet. (and let them get eaten by piranhas)

2007 Week 1 came and went, leaving behind a trampled field and dirty locker rooms.
The Broncos came to town.

Their QB Seneca Wallace isn't what you would call an Elite Quarterback, but he managed to beat Jon Kitna for the starting QB job. Wallace's 80THA and 84THP shouldn't scare anyone, although his legs could be a factor - this guy has some wheels.
Don't get me wrong, he would instantly be the best player on my roster with 81OVR, but on any other team he's one of the worst starting Quarterbacks in the League.

Spoiler:

I checked it, and only Trent Dilfer is worse with 79OVR

We got our asses royally beaten, but the silver lining is that it took the Broncos to the 4th quarter to really show the difference in quality.

Looking back at the player stats, I was surprised we kept the Broncos to only 60 passing yards (sack yards are counted in the passing stats).


We managed to 'throw' for a yard more, so where was the big difference?

Well, that's in the amount of sacks we took. We managed to sack Wallace 4 times, but the Broncos managed to sack us 9 times. I played too many PA-passes and I am not yet used to the o-line giving up so much pressure. This, combined with a lack of arm on Brian St.Pierre, really forces me to small ball the entire game. No deep passing game here.
And with 9 sacks, we were behind the sticks too many times, so we could not get much of a drive going. This led to giving the Broncos short fields to score on - which they did happily in the 4th quarter.


We tried to get some Jared Lorenzen going, trying to see if we could run for a first down, or to buy some time, but his arm is just not going to cut it. He finished without a completion on 10 attempts.

Rod Smart was our leading rusher with 31 yards on 12 carries.
Sean Morey and Isaiah Stanback ("A") both finished with 3 catches for 36 yards.

On defense our outside linebackers shone the brightest. Brandon Jamison had 5 tackles and 2 sacks. Converted Strong Safety Cameron Worrell also had 5 tackles, but he had 1 sack.

Notable is also that Rod Smart, our kick returner, averages 29.1 yards per return, which is on a team underpowered like our Bills pretty darn good.
I will keep returning those kicks with him.

Our fullback Boomer Grigsby didn't get much action other than blocking.
Our backup running back Dee Brown will be sharing the position from now on with Boomer. Boomer will be our blocking specialist and Brown will be catching and running from the backfield.



Dee Brown actually has an higher OVR than Rod "He Hate Me" Smart but I prefer Smart's speed.



Next week we will travel to Pittsburgh to play the Steelers.
They have Peyton Manning throwing to Torry Holt and Tony Gonzalez. Brandon Jacobs plays the position of Plow Truck, he has 97 BTK but has sub90 speed.
On defense they have Javon Kearse and Shawne Merriman on their left side, so we will be running away from them as much as possible.
Fun times.

[Danchat]

I really like this idea - I'll keep my eyes peeled for more updates!

LeRon McCoy... is he a LeSean McCoy bootleg or something?!

[Theov]

The story of the Buffalo Math Teachers continues...

We traveled to Steel Town for our 2007 week 2 matchup against Peyton Manning and his endless audibles.
As mentioned the Steelers have some key pieces on defense; Shawne Merriman (arguably Defensive League MVP) plays in front of a great D-line.
Jevon Kearse, Mountain Ted Washington and Igor Olshansky (the first USSR born NFL player) are a great lineup.
In the backfield they have speed with Kelly Jennings and Bryant McFadden at CB and Reggie Nelson at FS.

I learned a lot our first game. So my goals were to get the ball out quicker and limit the amount of sacks. Running from the pocket with St. Pierre is impossible so if the first few reads aren't open I just chug it to a fan in the stands.
On defense I didn't figure to get many sacks versus Peyton Manning, so I played a lot of cover 2 man.

On to the game.

We right away stopped their offense on their first drive with a 3-and-out and stopped their offense for most of the first half.
Peyton Manning was not in groove and didn't find his receivers.
We drew first blood and capitalized our second drive with a short goal line run with XFL's Rod "He Hate Me" Smart. Our goal line sub-package consists of only o-linemen on the line. Lots of fun to run behind.



I you are wondering what the 57-yard 'fumble return' for TD is... that is actually a field goal that Alfonso Marshall blocked and returned for TD! Yay!

After that it took the Steelers to almost half time to score a TD with a 0-yard TD pass to Tony Gonzalez.
Adam Vinatieri booted a 50-yarder with time expiring in the half.

All with all - I was happy with the outcome of the half, we were even leading by 2 points! This could become a major upset! I looked forward to the rest of the game.



We moved the ball well, but we just couldn't hold on to the win in the end.

We 'only' got sacked 4 times this game, which is far better than the 295 times we got sacked last game. 4 times is normally not so much, but remember we are playing with gardeners and gym owners on an NFL football team. So getting sacked 4 times typically means giving the ball up 4 drives.

Alright, so let's take a look at what typhoon hit us in the 4th quarter that cost us the game.



Yes, that is them going for 2. Smart.

I don't know exactly what happened, but I do know it had something to do with Torry Holt catching a bunch of passes and we missed a containment and let Justin Fargas (the backup HB!) run for a long touchdown. Then again... Fargas has 93 speed which is faster than anyone on our team.
Three TDs, two 2-point conversion and a normal conversion and a field goal adds up to 26.

Team MVP by far was Dee Brown, our backup HB.
On the ground he had only 4 carries for for a whopping 58 yards with a long of 24. That means he still had 34 yards with those other carries. Not bad!!
He also was our leading pass catcher with 5 for 32 yards. In total, 90 yards from scrimmage is not bad for the current West-Orange Warriors high school football coach (yes, really).

Wide Receiver LeRon "older brother of" McCoy had 1 grab for 20 yards. It was a beautiful deep cross right between the cover2 safeties from the Twins-I formation.

On defense Brandon Jamison had a sack and 6 tackles, but for the rest it was just sitting back, tackle everything in front of you and hope for a mistake.
The safeties Ade Jimoh and Cam "not him" Newton did a lot of cleanup work with 4 tackles each.

Things learned: don't let them beat you in the 4th quarter.

Eye on Week 3:
We have an away game versus the Patriots.
In the fantasy draft they got Rex Grossman, Marvin Harrison and Jeremy Shockey in the passing game, which makes me wonder how many good Tight Ends this game has.
Steven Jackson is their HB.

On defense, their D-line doesn't scare me, but their linebackers have speed with Nick Barnett and Boss Bailey. Willy McGinnest is also a good linebacker and they have Hall Of Fame safety Brian Dawkins.
I will keep an eye on where he is and then run the other way as much as I can.

[Theov]

Welcome to Week 3 of the Not-so-Buffed-up-alo Bills.

Week 3 brought us to Gilette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. This time not quarterbacked by Tom Brady, but by Rex Grossman. So I guess... we have a chance?

They have speed on defense, but their D-line is not the best.
On offense they are able to run and pass the ball, holding them to some stops would be a great game for us.
Our mantras for today are ball control, slow drives and no sacks. If we limit our mistakes, we could bag our first W of the season.


Them yards though

We nearly doubled the patriots in yards and had first downs in spades. We moved the ball really well this game. They also ran the ball really well with their 1-2 punch of Steven Jackson and Marshawn Lynch for 96 yards, but we doubled that with a really strong blocking game up front.


Them yards!

Dee Brown was again easily MVP of the game, he comes in when Rod Smart is tired and he just racks up yards. As slow as he is, he's performing pretty well. Our running backs can't break a tackle to save their lives, but we're not in the live saving business here.
Rod Smart had a good game and to be fair to him, he does it against the opponent's starters, Brown comes in when everyone is winded.
Right now Dee Brown is performing better and he's also valuable in the passing game as the passing-down fullback.


1 pass. 46 yards, yes. THEM YARDS!

Any time someone catches more yards than his OVR rating, I celebrate.
Everyone catches just above the 10 yard mark per catch. That is actually much more than I expected. But I generally don't throw many passes around the LOS (we get tackled anyway), but I also don't throw many passes far down field.
Well... I don't complete many passes deep down field. One pass to LeSean "big brother" McCoy was a beautiful broken coverage, where both cover 2 safeties decided to play center field. And another deep pass was to Sean Morey that the defender miss-swatted and got Morey off to the races. A footrace he eventually lost, but that was many yards later.
We can also see we have a serious case of the dropsies. We will have to address that in minicamp in the offseason. 6 drops in total today are just drive killers, which brings us to the things that went less well...

One sharp look at St.Pierre's day learns that we have thrown our first touchdown pass of the season!! 3 in total!! If it rains, it pours!
Well, we also threw 3 picks, but WHO CARES!
Ah ok. We care. So yeah, that pretty much cost us the game.


It was only a 2 touchdowns difference.

We could have gone into the locker room with a tied game, but a devastating pick-6 made it 8-20 instead.
We did our best to rally a comeback, but another pick-6 and another untimely interception smashed those dreams like a sledgehammer on an ice-sculpture.

Next week.
In Week 4 of our 2007 campaign the Jets will visit us.
They have Alex Smith at QB, Clinton Portis at HB and speed on top of speed at CB in Asante Samuel and Dunta Robinson.
Fun times!

[Theov]

Thank you and welcome back to the Buffalo Blue Pills versus the ...
J! E! T! S! Jets! Jets! Jets!
The NY Jets came to town. And what a crazy game it was.

1st Half
After a 2 play drive we scored on a 7 yard run by XFL's Rod Smart.
2 plays, 30 seconds.
Then, immediately after, Clinton Portis ran for an 85 yard touchdown straight up the middle.
1 play, 11 seconds, 85 yards.
You can't make it up.

So, a long run by Portis, 2 pick-sixes and a pair of field goals were all the Jets produced in the first half.
We scored on an opening drive run and a blocked field goal and... a short TD run by backup quarterback Jared Lorenzen. He walked in on 2 tries from the half-yard line. 2 runs, 0 yards, 1TD. Well done big guy.

2nd Half
The third quarter went quickly and remained scoreless. Score 26-22... we were IN it.

Then in the 4th quarter, after they scored a FG I threw an untimely interception. Damnit. I needed that drive to stay close.
But on their drive I stalled them to a FG, only to block it and return it for a TD! After a failed conversion, it was only 29-28! One stop and one drive is all I need!
Then Dennis Northcutt returned the kickoff for TD...
Alfred Morris shut our coffin with a 40 yard TD run.
We had a great final 80 yard drive, but with only 20 seconds left on the clock, there was no time to win this anymore.

The Jets had only a handful of good plays on offense and still racked up 32 points - mostly due to bad play by us.
We, on the other hand, forced quite some points ourselves, but in the end, it wasn't enough. The Jets handed us the 4th tough loss of the season.
The arrow is still pointing up - because we only lost by one score this time. I'm getting more and more used to this team and if I can keep the mistakes to a minimum, the first win of the season is on the horizon. I can feel it.


The first half was a story of big plays versus big plays.
Well, the second half wasn't different.





By the end of the game I had thrown 5 picks, 2 for touchdowns the other way. That was just a really rough day.




A new MVP this week will be Alfonso Marshall. Dinner's on me my friend.
Dee Brown didn't get so many touches this week.
I had to think about this one - both Rod Smart (110 yards on 15 carries) and Alfonso Marshall (6 tackles, no catches allowed, 2 blocked field goals for TD) had standout games this week.
In the end, I don't think we would be this close without Alfonso on this team. I'm really starting to like this guy.


not bad



Next week will be week 5 with another home game versus... the Dallas Cowboys.
They have Marc Bulger (remember when he was good?) throwing to Mushin Muhammad and some other guys that are fast. And there will be yet ANOTHER great TE in speedster Benjamin Watson. When is this streak of good TEs going to stop?
Jamal Lewis runs the ball with his 97BTK.

On defense they have one of my favorite players at Strong Safety in Adrian Wilson.
At corner Leigh Bodden starts and he's not that fast with 89SPD, teaming up on the other side of the ball they have Will Allen with 98SPD and Phillip Buchanon with 97SPD in the slot.
Fun times.