The CSL

Does anyone know how much worse a team does if I run sets taht I dont practice? As I still havent spent the time to look into these sets so I am just running on auto pilot right now until I figure out what I am doing...

No idea. Your guess is as good as mine.

Well there's also a setting for your offense to either play structured or free flowing. If they don't know your offense well, I suggest you do more of the latter. There's pros and cons to both which I'll post when I'm not on mobile

Excellent! Can't wait. Best part of online leagues is learning new things about the game.

So the main thing you want to focus on is on the right hand side there, under "Offense Settings." There's a box for Offensive sets % and Transition offense %. How you set these will determine how much your team runs your sets vs. how often they will just play freely and improvise as they go. If your team doesn't really know the offense that well, you will want to turn your settings towards transition offense more. This is because your players will freeze up, commit more turnovers, and take bad shots as they will forget where to go and when to cut and that sort of thing. As your players learn your offense more and more, you want to turn that up, so that your team will run your offense. I recommend keeping a balance though, so that even if your team knows the offense really well, they will still have the freedom to create a little. Conversely, even if they don't know the offense all that well, having them run it a little in the game gives your team some structure to their freedom and creativity.

Keep in mind, in order to run a free, creative set you will want players with high SCR ratings so that they can create offensive opportunities, and preferably high IQ so that they make smart decisions. Obviously handle and pass come into play as well, but they are important in both situations. Having a more free offense will allow your higher rated players to be highlighted and take over the game.

On the other hand, having your players know the offensive sets really well and running them should overcome lower ratings. A disciplined team that runs their offense in sync will win more games than a team of the same talent level that isn't on the same page offensively. Of course, this is provided you run an offense that matches your talent distribution (inside vs. outside, how strong of a passing team you have, etc). I'll talk more about that another time.

Thanks for the info myles..appreciated.

Good stuff! I hadn't considered the link between having players being unfamiliar with the offense and high turnovers. Definitely true in hindsight though.

Also, I haven't noticed a difference in the impact of the scoring trait between structured offense and a free offense. Much to consider.

Thanks!