Yes, that's right.....I dislike the playoffs.  Or rather, I think that Gameplan goes downhill at the playoff stage.

You work hard all season to win enough games to reach the payoffs,using the turnsheet to its best advantage in every game and then, just when you would expect to have everything available to you for the "big games", you are restricted to a poxy eight situational changes!!!

This takes the coaching into a lottery situation as far as I am concerned.  Having gone from 1-6 to 10-6 in NFLC to get into the playoffs I am totally disinterested in the wildcard game now, as there is no enjoyment for me in not being able to put a gameplan in place that I would want for this game.

Obviously I will be trying to win, but I have decided to treat these paltry 8 situations available to change as a training exercise and experimental process only.

I cannot understand why we can not have a proper turnsheet for the playoff games - does anyone have a good reason why we don't!?

The only reason behind it I can think off is that if you make the playoffs there shouldn't be major changes required to your gameplan. If you have been good enough to get through to this stage of the season then you shouldn't have to change the core of your gameplan as much as someone who struggles week in, week out.

Im a little on the fence in this issue, I do see the point that limiting teams to only a few changes means they have to keep the gameplan as it has been and not flip flop. But IMHO the 8 only lines instead of 32 is just another cop out by the designers, they went to email gave us the extended turnsheet but doing it in the playoffs was too hard for them so they just let us think its like that to be more realistic.
The 8 lines restriction won't cramp my style very much, but it does make it harder to experiement in these weeks if you are not in the playoffs.
I don't think the designers should limit gameplan executiuon in any way, that is what we give them tonnes of money to do, control our own fate, its not like they put a limit on the number of tiems you can call BZ in a game, or the number of formations you use on offence, so why limit the ability to alter the gameplan?
If a team is brave enough or desperate enough to want to change 10 lines on offence, or try a completely new defence for a specific playoff oponent and they think they can succecssfully do so within the constrains of roster strengths and training I say let them do it.
I am not holding my breath though and 8 lines will be fine by me as my GP is usually fairly solid by the end of the season.

I am not talking about making major changes. It is having the ability to make even minor changes in a lot of situations (maybe just one play call in a situtaion) restricted that annoys me.

I quite often will change offensive formations in different situations on a game by game basis, why should I have to enter the playoffs with  a gameplan designed to beat a week 16 opponent if it is not applicable for my next opponent?

The gameplan may not actually need changing at all, but, having had the ability to adjust and change it during weeks 1-16, I want to be able to have the same licence to do so in the playoffs!

This is just a personal view. It is the same for everyone in the playoffs I know, but I take great care and pleasure in formulating my gameplans and will sometimes change something in the majority of the situations.  One small change could be the difference between winning and losing.

I would rather lose after having made a change I thought would work rather than win having not had the opportunity to make the changes I would want to make.

So, anyone getting to play me in the playoffs can feel confident of winning!!

l agree Mike, l'd love the full monty for playoffs just to make a little change here and there.

i agree you should be able to change every line (as i quite often do during the regular season)

but i have set my O and D plans up so come playoff time i can get by nicely with just 8 changes

i just cant win in the playoffs
 

I agree that the number of changes should be consistent, but personally (and I can see I'm in a minority here!) I wouldn't really have any issues in restricting weekly changes to 8 across the whole season. It's really no more restrictive than only having 4 playcalls per situation IMO.

I'll admit that when I do enter my turns online, I'll more often than not sneak in an extra line here or there (although conversely, sometimes I won't even use 8!), but they're generally just a case of trying something a little different just for the sake of it. IMO you don't NEED to make more than 8 changes in any given week - being restricted to 8 just means you have to focus on what changes are important/ need to be made. Quite often, you'll still find space for a non-necessary change as well. If you really want to mix up your gameplan from week to week you could always make more use of sorting situations, although admittedly it does limit the number of situations you have in your "front-line" plan.

Anyway, remember this is all coming from the perspective of a 7-7 coach - maybe I'd have been more successful if I'd changed more situations each week!  
(although most of my greatest fuck-ups, e.g. almost losing to Miami last week, seem to come when I change the most lines!)

I always struggled with only 8 changes per game.  Right now in AY I probably use 12-14 per week.  Most are only very minor but depending on the opponent I will tweak a number of things one way or another.
I do not understand the reasoning behind only 8 changes in the playoffs! If I am playing two teams in consecutive weeks with totally different gameplans then I need more than 8 changes.  

Quote :

TOM RICHARDS wrote : I do not understand the reasoning behind only 8 changes in the playoffs!

I think the main reason is so that postal players aren't at a disadvantage in the post-season - mind you, I'd be surprised if there are many coaches who don't have online access these days!

Quote :

I think the main reason is so that postal players aren't at a disadvantage in the post-season

Spot on, I believe Pete/Danny said exactly that when advanced became online for turn entry. The "full" turnsheet was the test version I think, I believe they always meant to restrict it back down to 8 as per the original postal version of advanced, but probably can't be arsed! To my mind it should be one or the other, having all situations up for change weeks 1-16 and then only 8 total weeks 17-20 just seems stupid IMO. Are they suggesting that postal players aren't at a disadvantage during the regular season?! And to play the game one way ffor the regular season and another for the post season just doesn't make sense. In NFLC week 16 just gone thankfully I'd already won my div so all the changes I had put in week 15 for a pointless possible play off preview against Troy, I could change back prior to the play offs with the limited changes in mind. It did however mean I didn't really plan for my week 16 opponent. In this case it made no odds apart from for draft position, but that wouldn't always be the case!

Bottom line, it should be consistent, all situations all the time or only 8 situations all the time. I'm sure with the very few postal players out there now Pete and Danny could handle the "extra" workload of inputting more than 8 changes a week...

with the time they save having us all use the website would certainly save enough time to do 32 lines for any remaining postal players?!