NFL Head Coach Career Mode: Part 2

In part 2 of NFL Head Coach Career Mode, I'll talk a bit about the specific duties and responsibilities you have as head coach.


First Things First

After you start your job, one of the first things you do is have a meeting with the owner. He rehashes some of the goals for the team in a "yearly meeting" that takes place directly following the Super Bowl. In addition to reiterating some of the goals he had mentioned during the interview process, I believe my owner also said something about wanting to improve our red zone offense (this particular meeting was with the Buffalo Bills owner, by the way).

Weekly Staff Meeting

When you take over your new team, you are left to make decisions about who will be kept on from the existing staff. You can take your time in making these changes, but during your first meeting some of the coaches will speak up and say they hope they can stay. The interface during the staff meeting is pretty simple. If a coach has something to say, an icon appears near him that indicates that he would like to speak to you. When you get to the preseason and regular season, some of the coaches may have suggestions for you when you meet each week. After a solid week of practice, the Redskins WR coach told me he'd like to see Taylor Jacobs get a shot at starting. I told him I didn't think that was a good idea and he responded by saying "whatever." I thought this was interesting because it made me wonder how it might affect my relationship with the coaching staff if I didn't listen to their ideas. I'd like to experiment with that some more when I get my hands on the game again. Coaches will also remind you when it's time to re-sign certain players. My offensive line coach let me know that one of our O linemen's contracts was about to run up, and I took care of it immediately.

Scouting Players

I'll be totally honest here and say that this is the part of the user interface that confused me the most. There is a menu where you can set aside time to scout players from not only other teams, but rookies as well. I couldn't figure out how to use it and because of the limited time we had with the game, I skipped through most of this. One thing I did figure out is that scouting players is very important in this game. Because I skipped this during the off-season, I was not prepared for some of the tasks associated with signing and drafting players. Hopefully this is an area where EA will work to fix some of the confusion. I think a lot of the problem here was that the tutorials weren't yet in the game and that it was an early build. Some stuff just didn't work like it was supposed to.

Free Agency

This is an area that I think will take quite a bit of time to complete in career mode. You contact agents of players you'd like to sign or re-sign by using the telephone. What I noticed is that the agent typically has an offer in mind and that you either accept it or respond with a counter offer. During one of my free agency periods, I decided I wanted to re-sign JP Losman as QB of the Bills ( yeah ok, not the best coaching decision). This was interesting because the agent wanted to renegotiate Losman's existing deal for a 1 year deal instead. I offered Losman a 3 year deal with a little less guaranteed money and the agent said he didn't think Losman would bite, but that he'd get back to me. A couple of days later I received an email that said "thanks, but no thanks." It was kind of hard gauging free agency without enough time to complete the whole FA period, but I did get the feeling that agents can be just as much of a pain in the neck as they are in real life. There are no real agents licensed in the game, but there are definitely some "Rosenhausish" ones that you can deal with.

Trades

Trading is one of the things I had the most fun with. This is similar to talking to agents in free agency only you're talking to coaches of other teams on the phone instead. There is more of this offer/counter offer interface, and it works pretty well I think. During free agency I signed Freddie Mitchell (can you tell I have a nose for talent?) because I wanted to see just how hard it would be to trade him to another club. I decided to talk to the 49ers because well, they seem to me like the kind of team that I might be able to pawn him off on. Due to my Madden trading experience, I felt that even though Mitchell was not really well rated, that I might be able to snag a 4th or 5th round pick for him. I mean it's the 49ers, right? In my initial offer to them I asked for a 4th round pick from this year's draft. The 49ers asked me if I was joking. I asked for a 6th and they still weren't interested. For a 7th rounder I was finally able to unload Mitchell. I have to say I was pleased that the 49ers weren't that easy to fool.

The Draft

This is the area I know a lot of people are looking forward to checking out. By now most of you have read that Mel Kiper has commentary for this year's 2006 draft class as well as 39 other classes that are randomly spread throughout your career. Kiper is pretty interesting to listen to during the draft, and he does seem to make some comments that are helpful. Many of the 2006 draft class weren't yet in the game that we played, so this part of the commentary was pretty buggy. You do the draft in real time and are on the clock to make your picks. Rather than skipping through the other teams' picks like some people do in Madden, here you need to use that time to monitor the draft and get on the phone and make trades. I tried this out myself. It was a little stressful because I was trying to work out a trade with a team and their pick was about to come up. There is a definite sense of urgency during this part of the game. I did notice that with regard to trading draft picks, you could only trade picks from the current season, same as Madden. This is something I'd like to see expanded on.

Practice & Drills

Practice? We're talking about practice? In this game practice seems to be pretty important. I did get to training camp and I noticed there were several drills you could try out. There is a non contact inside running drill for the HBs, a pass skeleton drill, a drill that puts receivers 1 on 1 with a DB, and a drill that puts HBs 1 on 1 with a LB. I tried the non contact running back drill and it was a lot of fun. You are actually on the field coaching in real time, telling players what to do. You set up the scenarios, decide who is on the field, everything. I had Clinton Portis run this drill first against the first team defense, then against the third team defense. He totally tore them apart. The WR/DB 1 on 1 drill is the other that I tried. This one was pretty cool too as you get to give the WRs and DBs instructions on the play. If I remember correctly you can also tell the QB to throw deep, short, etc. the same way you do pre snap in the game. Sean Taylor picked off Brunell going against Taylor Jacobs. It was a sight to see.

Wrapping Up

This is the last article I'm posting related to MN's recent trip to EA to see NFL Head Coach. I will continue to answer questions in our NFL Head Coach forum for anyone who is interested. I must say that there is a lot more to this game than what I've posted in this series of articles, and there was just no way in 6 hours for us to find all of it. I think this speaks volumes about the depth of this title.