Sim Dynasty Rulebook

Sim Dynasty Football Game Guide

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Contents [hide] 1 Introduction 1.1 Objective of the Game 1.2 How Sim Dynasty Football Differs From The NFL 1.3 How the Game is Played 2 League Information 2.1 League Names and Structure 2.2 League Types 2.2.1 Single Season Leagues 2.2.1.1 Renewing a Single Season League 2.2.2 Premium Leagues 2.3 Leaving a League 2.3.1 Single Season Leagues 2.3.2 Premium Leagues 3 Game Information 3.1 Gameplay Schedule 3.2 Season Schedule 3.2.1 Preseason 3.2.2 Regular Season 3.2.3 Postseason 3.3 Gameplay Rules 3.3.1 The Field 3.3.2 The Ball 3.3.3 Game Timing 3.3.3.1 Regulation play 3.3.3.2 Overtime play 3.3.4 Players 3.3.5 Scoring 3.3.6 Penalty Enforcement 3.3.6.1 List of penalties 3.4 Weather 3.4.1 Precipitation 3.4.2 Wind Direction and Speed 3.4.3 Temperature and Wind Chill 3.4.4 Weather effects 3.4.5 Domes 3.5 Viewing Game Results 3.6 Injuries 4 Team Information 4.1 Roster Size and Salary Cap 4.1.1 Enforcement 4.1.1.1 Controlling who gets auto-waived with Waive Priority 4.2 Drafts 4.2.1 The Initial Draft 4.2.2 The College Draft 5 Player Information 5.1 Player Abilities and Numerical Values 5.2 Salaries 5.2.1 Salaries in multi-season leagues 5.3 Overall Rating 5.4 Player Cards 5.5 Improvement Chances (ICs) 5.5.1 Overview 5.5.2 Improvement Mechanism 5.5.3 Training Plan 5.5.3.1 Position Training 5.5.3.2 Drills 5.5.4 Accumulating Improvement Chances 5.5.5 Converting Improvement Chances to Improvements 5.6 Name Changes 5.7 Conditioning and Fatigue 5.8 Positions 5.9 Roles 5.10 Playing Players out of Position 6 Managing your Team 6.1 Roster 6.2 Depth Chart 6.2.1 Depth Chart Qualification 6.3 Coach Preferences 6.3.1 Offense 6.3.2 Defense 6.3.3 Kicking 6.3.3.1 Punting 6.3.3.2 Fourth Down Situations 6.3.3.3 Onside Kicks 6.3.3.4 Last Second Field Goals 6.3.3.5 Two Point Conversions 6.3.4 Returns 6.3.5 Time Management 6.3.6 Strategy Tester 7 General Manager Information 7.1 Trades 7.2 Injured Reserve 7.3 Watch List 7.4 Waiver Wire 7.4.1 Waived Players 7.4.2 Free Agents 8 League Information 8.1 League News 8.2 Standings 8.3 Schedule 8.4 Schedule with Results 8.5 Scoreboard 8.6 League Info 8.7 Team Statistics 8.8 Individual Statistics 8.9 League Leaders 8.10 Player Rankings 8.10.1 Player Statistics 8.10.2 Player Abilities 9 Glossary 9.1 Football Terms 9.1.1 CHAIN 9.1.2 DEAD BALL 9.1.3 LIVE BALL 9.1.4 LOOSE BALL 9.1.5 FUMBLE 9.1.6 MUFF 9.1.7 DOWN 9.1.8 SERIES OF DOWNS 9.1.9 LINE TO GAIN 9.1.10 FIELD GOAL 9.1.11 YARD LINE 9.1.12 FORWARD PROGRESS 9.1.13 FOUL 9.1.14 SPOTS OF ENFORCEMENT 9.1.15 HUDDLE 9.1.16 Punt 9.1.17 Angle Punt 9.1.18 Drop Kick 9.1.19 Placekick 9.1.20 Line of Scrimmage 9.1.21 OUT OF BOUNDS 9.1.22 PENALTY 9.1.23 PLAYER 9.1.24 SAFETY 9.1.25 TIMEOUT 9.1.26 TEAM TIMEOUT 9.1.27 TIME IN 9.1.28 TOUCHBACK 9.1.29 TOUCHDOWN 9.1.30 TRY 9.1.31 TWO-MINUTE WARNING 9.2 Sim Dynasty Terms 9.2.1 Hold 10 Miscellaneous 10.1 PayPal and Payments 10.2 Reporting Problems & Suggesting Enhancements 10.3 Using this Wiki 11 Related Pages

[edit] Introduction

[edit] Objective of the Game

In Sim Dynasty Football, your objective is to draft a football team drawn from a pool of fictional players, build a playing strategy that will guide your team through four preseason games, 16 regular season games, and the postseason, culminating in the Sim Bowl championship. Although you do not have direct control of your team during a game, your decisions in how to utilize and train your players and your strategies will determine their on-field success. For additional challenge, multi-league seasons are available in which you have the additional objective of building your team over time through drafts from the college system.

[edit] How Sim Dynasty Football Differs From The NFL

Sim Dynasty Football is a simulation of professional football but not specifically NFL Football. As professional football has gone through a number of different sets of rules and rule changes over the years, there are some differences between the rules Sim Dynasty plays by and the current NFL rules. Some of these differences may be modified at a future date to match current practice and some have adjustable options available to Premium leagues.

Current major differences include:

• League sizes and organization may vary from the NFL; the default league size is 16 teams.
• Depending on the exact makeup of a league, some cities that appear in a particular conference in the NFL may appear in the other conference in a given league.
• Kickoffs are from the 35 yard line; current NFL rules specify kickoffs from the 30. (Adjustable for Premium leagues)
• On the first onside kick attempt that goes out of bounds, the kicking team moves back 5 yards and re-kicks.
• Tiebreakers are not exactly identical to the NFL, but they are close enough that any differences should be rare.
• In 32-team leagues, the Conference Playoff home teams are not yet based on the teams' win/loss records.
• The next snap after a touchback is at the 20 yard line. Current NFL rules put the next snap at the 25.
• Extra point attempts are from the 2 yard line for both 1 and 2 point conversions. Current NFL rules spot the ball at the 15 for 1 point conversions. (Adjustable for Premium leagues)

[edit] How the Game is Played

• When you first sign up, you will select a city and a team nickname (such as the Cincinnati Cats). The city you select will affect your team via the weather patterns associated with that city.
• 24-48 hours after your league is full (has 16 owners, or game players like you), the Initial Draft will be held. While you are waiting for your Initial Draft, you can preview the players available and rank them in the order you want to draft them, and bid for the right to draft first at positions you consider more important.
• Once your draft is complete, you can organize your team via the Roster to move players between Active and Inactive (or cut them), use Depth Charts to decide which players start, propose Trades with other owners, or the Waiver Wire to add players to your team.
• Starting the morning after your Initial Draft, games will start playing. Each quarter is simulated individually, three hours apart; this allows you to adjust your strategies or depth charts between quarters. You can view the results of each quarter by accessing the game's Box Score from the Scoreboard or the Schedule pages; you can choose to view the game a play at a time or simply view the entire box score at once.
• After each game, you can adjust your Strategies or Depth Charts and adjust the Training Plan for your players to control how they develop. It's also a good idea to view your next opponent's last game to see how they play and adjust your strategies to beat them.
• The next morning, the next simulated "week" will occur and the next game will start. The season will progress through a four-week preseason, a 17-week regular season, a Wild Card playoff round, a Conference Championship round, an "off week", and then the Sim Bowl. So one full season will take 25 real-life days to play.
• At the end of the season, if enough players opt to remain in the league, all teams will be cleared, the league will pause for a day or two to fill the slots of any teams that are departing, and the process will start again with a new Initial Draft. Paid Subscription leagues will not have their teams wiped; they will instead participate in a College Draft to replace their retiring players.

[edit] League Information

[edit] League Names and Structure

Each league type is named according to a different scheme. The Single Season leagues are named after some of the top players of all time. The Premium leagues are named after running backs that are in the Hall of Fame. The names are also selected such that the league names form unique four-letter abbreviations, so some players with names that have the same initials as players on the list or names that would have more than two initials are not represented.

Single Season leagues consist of 16 teams arranged into two conferences, with each conference divided into two divisions of four teams each. Dynasty Leagues start with the same structure but may grow or shrink over the years. Teams will be arranged into conferences and divisions after the league fills.

[edit] League Types

[edit] Single Season Leagues

Single Season Leagues are 16-team leagues that draft a completely new team each season. A Single Season League plays a full single season schedule, including preseason and postseason. After the season is complete, links will appear on your My Teams page to view the league results.

Players, statistics, standings, schedules, and box scores are available for the most recent season of a single season league; for prior years only the schedule, results, and standings are available, as all players, statistics and box scores are deleted. Box score detail for non-postseason games is reduced; formation and fatigue information as well as the intermediate steps of each play will be unavailable.

[edit] Renewing a Single Season League

At the end of a Single Season league, you may opt to stay in the league for another season; if you stay, you will retain your city and team name and strategy settings but all of your players will retire. The league will re-open for signups to fill the slots of any owners who have left, and a new draft with all new players will take place. At the scheduled offseason processing time after the Sim Bowl (usually 11PM Eastern time), any owners with a restart status of "Unknown", "Undecided", or "Leaving" will leave the league.

If fewer than 10 owners stay in a league, the league will come to an end; that league's most recent season will be visible for two weeks, after which the entire league will be deleted and the league name and message board will be recycled for use by a new league.

You can set your restart status on the Owner Profile page. After week 10, if you have not selected whether you are staying, leaving or undecided, a reminder will appear at the top of each page. If you have not yet decided and no longer want to see the reminder, set your status to "Undecided".

[edit] Premium Leagues

Premium leagues are multi-season leagues; you keep your team from season to season, during which players grow older and may retire, and each season you participate in a 7-round college draft to add new players to your team.

New Premium leagues require a paid subscription, plus an initial fee to purchase a slot in the league. The initial fee includes the initial draft plus a purchase of the first 6, 8, or 10 months worth of play, after which the ongoing subscription is month-to-month. All subscriptions must be paid via PayPal.

Premium leagues may have custom rules different from the standard single-season game; in general, they have somewhat higher injury rates and do not have a day off before the Sim Bowl, but other customizations are possible. See Customizable Rules for Football Premium Leagues for some of the possibilities.

[edit] Leaving a League

[edit] Single Season Leagues

To leave a single season league, simply stop logging in to your team. After the end of the season, your team's slot in the league will be made available to another team.

[edit] Premium Leagues

Premium Leagues have a Commish that handles departing owners. You can find out who your Commish is on the League Information page. Send your Commish a U2U asking him or her to post your team for sale. You will remain in control of your team until it is sold. IMPORTANT: You MUST cancel your PayPal subscription to prevent unwanted payments. If you do not cancel your subscription and the team is sold, and additional payments arriving from PayPal will be added to your Sim Dynasty account balance.

[edit] Game Information

[edit] Gameplay Schedule

Most leagues will play one football game per day, with quarters simulated about three hours apart. The League Information page includes a tab showing the gameplay schedule for that league.

Currently, there are four different schedule groups, with games starting at 7AM, 8AM, 8:30AM, or 10:30AM Eastern time. As multiple leagues are scheduled for each time, the quarter won't run exactly at the scheduled time but it should run within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

[edit] Season Schedule

All leagues start in the year 1960. After the league's initial draft, the calendar is advanced to the first preseason game. Games are always played on Sundays, so individual games are usually referred to by the week number in the season rather than the calendar date

[edit] Preseason

The preseason consists of four games in which preseason statistics are kept but standings are not. Although these games do not officially "count", they are important in that they give you an opportunity to experiment with different players and strategies. During preseason games, the starters from your Depth Charts play in the first half, and your backups (if any) generally play in the second half. This is both to reduce the risk of injury to your starters and to give you an opportunity to see more players in action.

You are allowed to carry up to 80 players on your roster in preseason weeks 1 and 2, and up to 65 players in weeks 3 and 4.

[edit] Regular Season

The regular season begins the weekend after Labor Day and runs for 17 weeks, during which your team will play 16 games. Sometime between week 4 and week 10, your team will have a "bye" week in which it doesn't play, but your players still receive improvements. This off week gives you time to take a look at your opposing teams, get a feel for their strategies, and plan your own strategies for the remainder of the season.

[edit] Postseason

Immediately after the regular season, the top six teams will participate in the postseason: the winner of each division, plus the team with the top record in each conference that did not win a division. These additional two teams are known as "wild cards". Teams that are tied for the division winner or wild card slots will have a series of tiebreakers applied to determine the winner.

The two wild card teams and the division winner with the worst record in each conference will play a Wild Card Round playoff game. The winner of this game will face the division winner with the best record in the Conference Playoffs to determine the champion of each conference. Finally, after a final off week, the two conference champions face off in the Sim Bowl to determine the league champion.

In the Wild Card round, the division winner will be the home team. In the Conference Playoffs, the team that had a bye in the Wild Card round will be the home team. In the Sim Bowl, the city most likely to have better weather will host the game.

[edit] Gameplay Rules

This section includes the actual rules of football used during a game. This section should be considered a "summary" of football rules, to help highlight which rules are simulated and give a general overview of the game. For detailed football game rules, see the Official NFL Rulebook; however, note that some rules are adjustable for Premium leagues and some rules are simply different in Sim Dynasty. If there is a difference between the Sim Dynasty Football rulebook and the NFL rulebook, the Sim Dynasty Rulebook takes precedence.

[edit] The Field

The game is played upon a rectangular field. The Field includes the Field of Play, 100 yards (300 feet) in length and 160 feet wide, and a 10 yard end zone at each end. The Field is oriented with one End Zone at the north end of the field and one End Zone at the south end of the field. (Note: North is to the right on the DynastyVision display.)

At the far end (End Line) of each end zone is a Goal Post, with a centrally placed horizontal crossbar 18 feet, 6 inches in length, the top face of which is 10 feet above the ground. The goal is the vertical plane extending indefinitely above the crossbar and between the lines indicated by the outer edges of the goal posts.

All measurements on the Field are measured to the nearest 3.6 inches (1/10th of a yard); each 1/10th of a yard is referred to here as a "field unit" (or "unit" for short). The play area is 999 of these units wide, with unit 0 and unit 1000 representing the goal lines.

Because the ball moves in increments smaller than a yard, this may cause apparent mismatches due to rounding, i.e a ball may be reported as moving from the 33 yard line to the 36 yard line, yet be reported as gaining only 2 yards. Likewise, a play that is reported as a 2-yard gain may only change the "To Go" yardage by 1.

Units .5 of a yard or more are rounded up, units less than .5 of a yard are rounded down. Yardlines likewise are rounded at their midpoint. The exception is the area between the goal line and halfway to the 1 yard line, which is reported as the 1 yard line rather than the goal line. "To Go" distances shorter than half a yard are reported as "inches".

[edit] The Ball

The ball is a prolate spheroid 11 inches long and 6.5 inches wide. Within the simulation, the ball is 3 units long, and all measurements are taken from the point of the ball nearest the goal the offense is advancing towards, or from the center of the ball for determining the position between the goal posts. However, in Dynasty Vision, the ball is 9 pixels wide (to make it visible), and each pixel covers 2 units of space, so the ball appears on screen at six times its normal size. The end of the visible ball closest to the goal line the offense is attacking is aligned with the end of the ball in the simulation.

[edit] Game Timing

Each play listed in the play-by-play and Dynasty Vision has a time listed; this time represents the amount of time remaining in the quarter at the time the previous play ended. If the clock is stopped, there will be a period after the time; otherwise, the clock is running. Time runs off the clock in one second increments.

When the clock is running, time will run off the clock as follows:

• Reset time (4-8 seconds): This is the time it takes for players to get up off the ground and return to their own side of the line of scrimmage.

• Huddle and Set: This time varies based on the time management strategy currently in effect; it can take from the entire remaining portion of the 40 seconds available, or it can be as few as a couple of seconds for spiking the ball.

• Snap and Play Time: If the clock was not previously running, it starts with the snap. The length of the actual play will vary based on the action on the field.

[edit] Regulation play

Each game consists of four regulation 15-minute quarters. If the game is tied at the end the fourth quarter, an overtime period will be played. There will be a two minute timeout after the first and third quarter, and a twelve minute halftime after the second quarter

[edit] Overtime play

In preseason and regular season games, an overtime period of up to 15 minutes will be played in the event of a tie. Premium leagues may opt to not play overtime for preseason games. If the game is still tied at the end of that 15 minute period, the game will end in a tie. Teams will get 3 timeouts in overtime.

Postseason games cannot end in a tie so they will play as many overtime "quarters" as needed to resolve the game. There will be a two minute timeout between overtime quarters but no halftime. Each team will get 3 timeouts for every 2 overtime quarters.

[edit] Players

The game is played by two teams of 11 players each.

All players must wear unique numerals by playing position, as follows:

• Quarterbacks, Punters, and Kickers: 1–19;
• Running backs and Defensive backs: 20–49;
• Centers: 50–79;
• Offensive Guards and Tackles: 60–79;
• Wide Receivers: 10–19 and 80–89;
• Tight Ends: 40–49 and 80–89;
• Defensive Linemen: 50–79 and 90–99;
• Linebackers: 50–59 and 90–99.

Player numbers are validated before a game starts and any players with numbers that aren't unique within the team or are in an incorrect range will get a new number assigned. During the preseason period when playing rosters are larger, temporary deviations from the numbering scheme specified above may occur.

A minimum of 40 and a maximum of 45 players must be on the Active roster when a game starts. If less than 40 players are Active, players will be moved from the Inactive roster to the Active roster, and if the minimum has still not been reached, players will be picked up from the Waiver Wire. These players will have low Conditioning, as they have not been practicing with the team during the week.

[edit] Scoring

The team that scores the greater number of points during the entire game is the winner.

Points are scored as follows:

• Touchdown: 6 points
• Field Goal: 3 points
• Safety: 2 points
• Try after touchdown: 1 point (Field Goal or Safety) or 2 points (Touchdown)

Premium leagues have the option of allowing or disallowing 2 point Trys.

[edit] Penalty Enforcement

Fouls are a fact of life in football; even the best players will make mistakes in such a physical environment. The main two factors influencing penalties are Aggressiveness and Execution, with the exception of Illegal touch, Delay of game and Illegal formation which are solely a factor of Execution, and Personal Foul which is a function of Attitude and Aggressiveness.

The penalty for any foul may be declined by the offended team. The simulation looks at the Down and Distance situation with and without foul enforcement and uses historical data for the chance of making a first down from both situations as its basis to make the decision. In addition, there are controls on the Strategy page for certain penalty situations.

[edit] List of penalties

The penalties currently included in the simulation are:

Penalty	Description	Yardage	Avg per game
Delay of game (offense)	The offense fails to snap the ball before the play clock reaches zero. This happens when the offense is taking long huddles trying to eat up the clock; it is an Execution error of the quarterback.	5 yards	0.5
Encroachment (defense)	Before the snap, a defensive player illegally crosses the line of scrimmage and makes contact with an opponent or has a clear path to the quarterback. The play is whistled dead.	5 yards	0.3
False start (offense)	An offensive player illegally moves after lining up prior to the snap. The play is whistled dead.	5 yards	2.7
Holding (offense or defense)	Illegally grasping or pulling an opponent other than the ball carrier while attempting to ward off a block or cover a receiver.	Offense, 10 yards; defense, 5 yards and automatic first down	2.8
Illegal contact (defense)	Making significant contact with a receiver after the receiver has advanced five yards beyond the line of scrimmage. The illegal contact is called only if the quarterback is still in pocket and the ball is still in his hands.	5 yards and an automatic first down	0.3
Illegal hands to the face (defense)	Pushing or hitting a player on offense in the head or helmet.	5 yards and an automatic first down	0.03
Illegal formation (offense)	A receiver or offensive lineman lines up improperly such that there are not at least seven players on the line of scrimmage, with the two end players being eligible receivers. This is purely an Execution error. Note that the Dynasty Vision display will not physically show the player being in the wrong position.	5 yards	0.2
Illegal touching of a free kick (special teams)	The ball, after an onside kick, is first touched by a member of the kicking team prior to traveling 10 yards. If a member of the receiving team first touches the ball, any player may touch it.	Re-kick 5 yards back	Varies
Illegal use of hands (defense)	Illegal use of the hands against a player on offense while attempting to ward off a block, cover a receiver, or tackle a ball carrier.	5 yards and an automatic first down	0.15
Offside (defense)	A player is on the wrong side of the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. This foul occurs at the snap, so play continues. Although technically an offensive player can be caught offside, offensive players moving into the neutral zone are charged with a False Start.	5 yards	1.2
Pass interference (offense or defense)	Making intentional physical contact with an intended receiver after the ball has been thrown and before it has been touched by another player, to prevent him from catching a forward pass. Offensive players can commit pass interference when a defender has a clean shot at an interception.	Offense, 10 yards; defense, spot of foul (or placement on the 1 if the foul occurs in the end zone) and automatic first down	1.1
Personal Foul (offense or defense)	A conduct- or safety-related infraction. Includes unnecessary roughness, such as hitting a ball carrier after he is already out of bounds, "piling on" a ball carrier who is already down, violent contact with an opponent who is away from and out of the play, and other Attitude-related violations. Note: Players with Attitudes above C+ (52 or higher) will rarely commit Personal Fouls.	15 yards; automatic first down if committed by defense	0.2
Roughing the Passer (defense)	A defender continues to tackle a passer (after taking more than one step) after the pass is thrown.	15 yards and automatic first down	0.3

[edit] Weather

Weather is an important part of football. Weather components directly used in the simulation are:

• Precipitation (rain/snow)
• Wind direction
• Wind speed
• Temperature
• Wind chill

Weather conditions are tied to the home city; weather data including monthly average temperatures, precipitation and prevailing winds by city have been compiled from real-world sources and used to build the weather model used in the game. Short, medium, and long term trends are generated by the weather model and applied against the real world data to generate varying yet realistic weather patterns. Weather conditions do not change over the course of a game.

[edit] Precipitation

There are five levels of precipitation modeled in Sim Dynasty Football:

• Clear
• Rain
• Heavy rain
• Snow
• Heavy snow

Precipitation occurs when there are sudden temperature changes due to crossing trend lines; if the temperature is at or below 32 degrees the precipitation will be snow instead of rain.

[edit] Wind Direction and Speed

Wind direction is locked to the eight main compass points. Note that the direction indicated is the direction in which the wind is blowing toward, rather than the traditional weather reporting standard of the direction the wind is coming from. All football fields in Sim Dynasty are oriented north-south; note that on the Dynasty Vision display, North is to the right side of the screen, not the top.

[edit] Temperature and Wind Chill

Temperature effects that primarily affect the ball use the actual game temperature; temperature effects that primarily affect the players include wind chill. Wind chill has no effect if the temperature is 50 degrees or higher or the wind is 3 mph or less, and on clear days the wind chill effects are halved.

[edit] Weather effects

Weather effects modeled in the game include:

• Passes in cold temperatures and wet conditions are harder to catch.
• Wet balls are dropped more often. If a drop is due to a wet ball, the play by play will specifically say so.
• The ball does not travel as well in colder temperatures, reducing field goal range.
• Wet or snowy conditions reduce field goal accuracy.
• Winds will either extend or reduce the length of all types of kicks. Crosswinds especially can reduce the range of a kick.

[edit] Domes

Team owners have the option of having their team play in a domed stadium. This decision must be made during the preseason. When playing in a dome, the temperature is always 65 degrees Fahrenheit with no wind and no precipitation. The Weather Map will still show the actual weather conditions in the area, but the dome conditions will be used for the game. Premium leagues have the option of not allowing domes, or allowing retractable roof stadiums where the "roof open" or "roof closed" setting can be changed before each game.

Your team's dome or roof setting is available under Owner - Edit Profile. The Weather Map's Table mode will show which upcoming games will be played in domes.

[edit] Viewing Game Results

Game results are displayed in our Dynasty Vision game viewer. Dynasty Vision allows you to watch the game as it unfolds. You can toggle between Dynasty Vision and the full game summary and box score.

When viewing either Dynasty Vision or the game summary, there are a few helpful options available:

• If there is a period after the the time listed for a play, the clock is stopped. If there is no period, the clock is running.

• Hovering over the time will also give you this information, and clicking on the time will jump to that play in Dynasty Vision with playback paused.

• Hovering over the Down and To Go indicator in the play by play or Dynasty Vision will show exactly how far to go to a tenth of a yard.

• Hovering over the field position indicator in the play by play or Dynasty Vision will show the field position to a tenth of a yard.

• Hovering over the icon on a field goal or PAT will show exactly where the ball was when it crossed the plane of the goal post.

• Clicking on the timeline at the bottom of Dynasty Vision will jump directly to that point in the game.

• Hovering over a player's square in the on-field formation display will show the role, player name, and natural position for that player.

[edit] Injuries

Football is a very physical game; over the course of the season, players will get injured. Although the number and severity of injuries has been reduced in Sim Dynasty compared to reality, you may still see key players unavailable for long periods of time.

Injuries come in three forms:

Shaken Up - Players who are listed as "shaken up" have taken (or delivered) a hard hit or have a potential injury and are being checked out on the sideline by the trainer. Most of the time they are back on the field within 2-5 plays.

Minor injuries - The player has an unspecified injury that will require some time off the field; they may be out from a few plays to the rest of the quarter, half or game, but will not have a lasting injury beyond the current game. Their energy bar in Dynasty Vision will serve as a recovery bar; when their energy shows as recovered, they will be able to play again.

Loss-time injuries - These injuries will make a player unavailable for days, weeks or even months.

Injuries happen based on a player's role on the field; the ball carrier/receiver and the defender that tackles him are at a higher risk of injury, but anyone on the field can be injured. Injuries are roughly distributed as follows:

9.9% Offensive Line
17.5% Quarterback
19.6% Running Backs
14.4% Wide receivers
11.4% Defensive linemen
15.5% Linebackers
11.7% Defensive backs

Other factors in determining an injury are Health and Aggressiveness. Aggressive defenders increase the chance of injury to the offensive players they hit. Although to some extent high Health players will get slightly fewer injuries than low-Health players, the main benefit to high Health players is that they don't stay injured as long; injury times can be up to 20% lower for high-Health players.

About half of all major injuries are for 10 days or less, although some particularly severe injuries may last two to three months. The length of time a player is out is both a function of the type of injury and the Health of the injured player.

The number of days a player is listed to be out is only an estimate; players may occasionally heal faster or slower based on their Health rating. The Injury Report page will show each player's estimated status for the next two games.

During the preseason, injuries appear at about half the normal rate.

[edit] Team Information

[edit] Roster Size and Salary Cap

During the regular season, your team is limited to 53 players. Of those 53, only 45 may be designated as active players that will participate in games. The active roster is fixed when the game starts; if you move a player to or from the active roster during a game, you will see that change on your roster page and depth charts but not in the game in progress.

You are not required to keep a full roster; however, a team must have at least 40 active players and 45 total players at the beginning of each game. Players will automatically be moved from inactive to active and/or picked up from waivers if necessary to comply with the minimums.

During the first two weeks of the preseason, teams may carry up to 80 total players on their roster, and the salary cap is not enforced. Teams must cut down to 65 players before the start of the third preseason game and must cut down to 53 players and be under the salary cap before the start of the first regular season game.

Player salaries and the salary cap are expressed in numbers that are roughly equivalent to thousands of 2009 dollars. The default salary cap is 128000, equivalent to 128 million dollars in 2009. Salaries are based on both overall skill level and position, with quarterbacks, defensive ends and cornerbacks earning the highest and tight ends, safeties and kickers earning the lowest. Salaries are relative to the overall skill level within a particular position, so a player at a particular position in one league may earn less than a player with a lower rating score in another league. Players with lower Attitude scores may demand slightly more money than they are actually worth, and there is a slight randomness to the salaries as well; this prevents a salary from exactly corresponding to any given numerical ranking.

[edit] Enforcement

If a team has more than 45 players on the active roster at the beginning of the game, only 45 of the active players will be selected to participate in the game and some players will automatically be moved to the Inactive roster. If a team has more players than the current roster limit, or the team is over the salary cap, players will automatically be waived to get down to the limit. Players with a Waive Priority set will be waived first, in order from lower to higher waiver priority. If no players have a waiver priority set (or multiple players have the same waiver priority), players from the Inactive roster will be waived next, starting with the lowest overall grade and working toward the highest, and if the cap and/or roster limits are still exceeded players will be waived from the Active roster, again from lowest overall grade to highest.

If a player is under the minimums, players will be claimed from the Waiver Wire to reach the minimums. If this would place a player over the salary cap, the system will calculate how much salary needs to be reduced by and select one or more players that add up to that salary amount to waive (from either roster), then claim enough players to reach the minimums. This process can occasionally result in large changes to the makeup of a team, so it is recommended to stay within the roster limits at all times.

[edit] Controlling who gets auto-waived with Waive Priority

Of course, it is best to manage your roster yourself to control exactly who gets waived when. However, if a trade is accepted when you are offline, you may find yourself without time to make the appropriate moves yourself. You can manage this using Waive Priority.

On your roster, at the end of each player's information line is his Waive Priority (WP) setting. By default, players will not have a WP setting, and will use the normal auto-waiver rules. Players with a Waive Priority set will be selected for waivers first, with lower numbers being waived before higher numbers. So set the Waive Priority to for the player you want to waive first, 2 for the player you want to waive second, etc.

[edit] Drafts

When you first sign up for your team, you will have no players; a draft process is used to select players for your team. Single Season leagues will only have an Initial Draft; owners in multi-season leagues will refresh their teams each year with drafts from the college system.

[edit] The Initial Draft

There are two steps to the initial draft process: bidding for draft position and ranking players in order of draft preference.

Each team will draft 70 players from a pool of over a thousand. In order to make this process manageable, each of the first 50 rounds of the draft is limited to a specific position, or pairs of positions in later rounds. These 50 rounds are divided into 5 "superrounds" of 10 rounds each. In order to determine the draft order for each round, an auction is held for each superround. Within each superround you have 1000 points to bid for draft position at each round. Each superround has a slightly different mix of positions.

Round 1 QB	Round 2 RB	Round 3 WR	Round 4 LB	Round 5 S	Round 6 T	Round 7 DT	Round 8 DE	Round 9 CB	Round 10 C
Round 11 QB	Round 12 FB	Round 13 WR	Round 14 LB	Round 15 G	Round 16 T	Round 17 DT	Round 18 DE	Round 19 CB	Round 20 K
Round 21 S	Round 22 RB	Round 23 WR	Round 24 LB	Round 25 G	Round 26 T	Round 27 DT	Round 28 DE	Round 29 TE	Round 30 P
Round 31 QB	Round 32 RB	Round 33 WR	Round 34 LB	Round 35 G	Round 36 S	Round 37 KR	Round 38 CB	Round 39 TE	Round 40 C
Round 41 QB/RB	Round 42 CB/S	Round 43 DT/DE	Round 44 LB	Round 45 G/T	Round 46 K/P	Round 47 WR/TE	Round 48 KR	Round 49 RB/WR	Round 50 LB/CB

You start with 100 points assigned to each round. If you were to bid, say 400 points on Quarterback, you would have to remove points on one or more other positions, making it more likely that you will draft later at those positions. Ties are broken randomly.

If you attempt to save your bids with more or less than 1000 points in each row, the system will evenly (as much as possible) add or remove points to each column until it evens out at 1000.

Three hours before the draft, your bids will lock, and returning to the draft page will reveal which draft slot you won in each round. You may continue to order players at each position until the draft runs at 6PM Eastern time.

Clicking on the position abbreviation in the bidding grid will take you to a page displaying all of the players available at that position. Most of these are players who actually play that position, although a few may be players at other positions that qualify for the position being ranked. The two special teams positions on the draft grid, Kick Returner (KR) and Holder (H) may be a variety of positions as there is no native positions for these roles. Kick Returners are most often wide receivers, although running backs, safeties and cornerbacks round out that list. Your Holder is usually your third-string quarterback with good Hands, although punters and occasionally offensive linemen will show up on this list as well.

To rank your players for the draft, simply drag and drop them into your preferred order or enter the position numbers in the fields to the right.

[edit] The College Draft

Each year after the offseason, there will be a 7-round college draft. Coming in game time in April, in real time it occurs at 10:30PM the day after the offseason runs. Ranking players for the college draft is similar to ranking positions for the initial draft, except rounds are not drafted by position.

To help control your draft selections, you can set which types of players you are willing to consider in reach round of the draft, and you can set the overall number of players to accept at each position. For example, you may choose to never use a first or second round pick on a punter no matter how good that punter is.

[edit] Player Information

[edit] Player Abilities and Numerical Values

Because of the wide variety of roles played in football, it takes a number of abilities to describe a football player. Fortunately, only a subset of these abilities is really important to a particular position; however, because responsibilities can rapidly shift on the field of play during, say, an interception, a player may find all of his abilities being put to use at some point.

Abilities are divided into six groups: Offense, Defense, Special Teams, Physical, Mental, and Dexterity.

All players are created with skills assigned randomly. Skills are stored internally from 0.0 to 100.0, but for most leagues they are displayed as "grades" between a value of A+ through F. Ratings are presented only with the letter value of each skill because it is easier to evaluate and read online, and it more accurately represents the reality that a player's precise abilities are usually not known. Ratings are color coded to make them easier to quickly interpret: A's are red, B's are blue, C's are green, D's are yellow, and F's are black. The higher the letter grade, the better that player is in that skill area.

Each letter is assigned a numerical range of eight points (see chart below).

Grade Range A+ 92-100 A 84 - 91 A- 76 - 83 B+ 68 - 75 B 60 - 67 B- 52 - 59 C+ 44 - 51 C 36 - 43 C- 28 - 35 D+ 20 - 27 D 12 - 19 D- 4 - 11 F 1 - 3

Skill Commentary Execution Execution describes how good a player is at playing his position. For a quarterback, this includes the ability to read the defense; for a kicker, it represents the ability to compensate for wind, etc. When a player plays out of position, in most cases he suffers a decrease of 75% on his Execution score. Execution also can be thought of as "consistency" and "playmaking ability", as higher Execution players may occasionally get short-term bonuses that allow them to briefly play beyond their abilities. Finally, Execution is a major factor (along with Aggressiveness) in determining how prone a player is to penalties. Aggressiveness Aggressiveness describes both physical aggressiveness and a willingness to take risks. This can be a double-edged sword; an aggressive defender makes harder hits but also causes more penalties; an aggressive quarterback is more willing to throw in traffic and may make bigger plays but may also get intercepted more. Attitude Attitude covers a lot of ground: work ethic, maturity, leadership, etc. It is a factor in improvements, salary, and conditioning after injury. Players with better Attitudes work harder and get more improvement chances; players with low Attitudes may draw personal fouls on the field. The biggest impact of a player with low Attitude is that their Conditioning levels vary more from week to week, making them somewhat unreliable. Health Health describes how injury-prone a player is; it is also a factor in recovery from injury. Throw Power Throw Power simpy describes how far a player can throw. Quarterbacks with higher power also have a quicker release. Throw Accuracy Throw Accuracy is used primarily by quarterbacks to keep passes on target; centers also use this ability on long snaps as a long snap is essentially a 15 yard backward pass. Catching The primary skill (other than speed) for a receiver, measures how good a player is at reeling in balls that are thrown. Carrying The primary skill (other than speed) for a running back, simply measures how good a player is at running with the ball and protecting it. Tackling Tackling represents how well and how hard the player can apply the hit. Tackling and Strength together help determine how good a defensive lineman is at penetrating the offensive line. Break Tackle Break Tackle this measures how well a player can squirm out of a tackle situation, either to break free or power forward for a last yard or two. It is also used by receivers to slough off defenders to avoid being jammed at the line of scrimmage, and by defenders to shed blockers. Pass Blocking Pass blocking describes "passive blocking", the ability to simply prevent a defender from moving forward. In general, the weakest pass blocker on the offensive line determines the strength of the line as a whole. Run Blocking Run blocking describes "active blocking", the ability to push defenders back and out of the way to make a hole for the ball carrier. Pass Cover Measures how effective a player is at covering his receiver. Defenders running zone patterns lose a bit on their pass cover rating but can apply it from farther away. Run Cover Run cover determines how good a defender is at stopping the run, and at reading blocking patterns. A defender with high Run Cover skills is less likely to be fooled by play action. Jumping Jumping is primarily used by receivers and their defenders to leap for balls; it is also used by linemen defending kicking plays who are trying to block the kick. Speed Speed indicates top running speed, as opposed to acceleration which is controlled by Agility. Kick Power Kick Power determines how hard a ball can be kicked and thus how far it can travel. Kick Accuracy Kick Accuracy determines how well a player can get the ball to go where he wants it to; in addition, it also determines how closely a kicker can get a kick to the desired angle. Punters with high Accuracy can increase hang time. Strength This is a combination of muscular strength and physical mass/inertia. Agility This is a combination of acceleration and ability to change direction quickly, including how deft a player is at avoiding tackles. Stamina Stamina controls how quickly a player tires during a game, and how quickly a player bounces back from fatigue. A player with low Stamina may underperform compared to his skills, as a player's skills deteriorate as he tires. Pursuit Supplements Speed when chasing the ball carrier, helps a player determine the best angle to take on the chase. Hands In general terms, Hands indicates how fumble-prone a player is. In addition, this is the primary skill of a center (along with blocking) and for the holder during a place kick.

[edit] Salaries

Each player is assigned a salary based on his overall skill level, plus a slight modifier based on Attitude (as lower Attitude players tend to hold out for more money)and Health (healthy players get more play and are worth more), plus a slight random factor to represent the vagaries of contract negotiations. Salaries are not linear; the top few players at each position often make quite a bit more than their colleagues even though there may not be a huge skill difference between them.

Of course, in the real world salaries go up from year to year due to inflation, and a player's Player Card will show his salary in actual dollar figures for that year, but for simplicity's sake salary is shown on most pages as a number of "salary units" that is effectively equal to thousands of dollars in 2009 dollars. For example, a given player's card might read "4825 ($156K/1960 $)" for his salary, which translates as 4825 salary units, or 4.825 million dollars in 2009 dollars, which is about $156,000 in 1960 dollars.

The league enforces a "minimum wage" based on a player's Service Years:

0 years:	310
1 year:	385
2 years:	460
3 years:	535
4-6 years:	620
7-9 years:	745
10+ years:	845

When a player is cut or traded, you are immediately off the hook for his salary.

If a trade takes you over the salary cap, you must get below the cap before the first quarter of the next regular season game or players will be automatically cut to bring you under the cap.

Players who have been on the waiver wire for more than 1 week will drop their salary demands by 10% every week to make themselves more attractive, until they are picked up or reach their minimum wage.

[edit] Salaries in multi-season leagues

In multi-season leagues, all players salaries are recalculated during each offseason. They may go up or down, but there are some limits to how much they can increase in case there is some radical shift in the talent pool. The salaries are all normalized so the top player in the league usually makes around the same amount.

College players who are ready for the draft will ask for salaries about 80% of what an equivalent pro would ask for. However, due to SCAA regulations, they cannot make any salary demands until their college career is over (i.e. after the offseason.)

[edit] Overall Rating

A player's overall rating is a quick way to get a general sense of how good a player is, but should not be relied on too heavily to evaluate players.

[edit] Player Cards

Player skills, Improvement Chance history, career statistics, and transactions of each player are just a few examples of what is listed on each player card. You can see a player's card by clicking on his name. These links appear everywhere you can see the player's name, including your Depth Chart, the Waiver Wire and Box Scores.

[edit] Improvement Chances (ICs)

Improvement Chances are the means by which players improve (i.e., increase their numerical value) in each individual skill area. The higher the value, the better that player is in that skill area. An IC is an opportunity for that player to improve. A player who receives an IC must also convert that IC to receive an improvement in that skill. As each player accumulates and converts ICs, his skill levels increase. Each player will improve at a different rate, based on age, current skill, and other factors.

[edit] Overview

During the course of the football season, your players will improve and decline based on that player's playing time, training plan, and individual factors such as Age, Potential, and Attitude. These improvements are noted in your players' records as your coaching staff records them.

Improvements are accumulated from a set of Improvement Chances, or IC's, accumulated over the course of each game. During the week between games, your players will practice and train based on the training plan you outline for them, including which role to Train As and what kind of Drills to run between scrimmages, and just prior to the next game your coaches will prepare their reports and add records of each player's Improvements in their Player Cards.

[edit] Improvement Mechanism

Player improvements occur during the week before a game, based on each player's individual training plan. Improvements are tracked internally to a tenth of a point, and a successful improve may encompass a range from a fraction of a full point to over a full point. Thus, in leagues using letter grade systems, counting improvements will not give an exact value of a player's grade, but should provide a good estimation. Average improvement sizes are larger for low grades and smaller for high grades. The maximum value for any ability is 100.0.

It is very easy to improve in an area you know nothing about; conversely, it takes a lot of work to reach the top in an area you are skilled in. It is the same in Sim Dynasty Football; a single converted improvement in a skill that a player has a D- or F in may be worth 2 to 3 points; an improvement for a player who is already an A or A+ in a skill may only net half a point or less. There is a random factor involved in each improvement, but this factor is on a bell curve so most improvements will be near the average.

Here are the minimum, average, and maximum improvements at the bottom of each grade level, and the average number of converted improves it takes to go from the bottom of one grade to the bottom of the next grade:

Grade	Min	Avg	Max	Avg imps to next level
F (0)	0.7	1.9	3.1	4.2
D- (4)	0.7	1.9	3.0	4.2
D (12)	0.6	1.7	2.8	4.7
D+ (20)	0.6	1.6	2.6	5.0
C- (28)	0.6	1.5	2.4	5.3
C (36)	0.5	1.3	2.2	6.2
C+ (44)	0.5	1.2	2.0	6.7
B- (52)	0.4	1.1	1.8	7.3
B (60)	0.4	1.0	1.6	8.0
B+ (68)	0.3	0.8	1.4	10.0
A- (76)	0.3	0.7	1.1	11.4
A (84)	0.2	0.6	0.9	13.3
A+ (92)	0.2	0.4	0.7	20.0

[edit] Training Plan

There are two types of improvements available in your Training Plan: Position Training and Drills. These are set on the Roster page, in the far right columns.

[edit] Position Training

Position Training trains a player in areas that are important to a particular position or role. Improvements will be earned in the skills that make up that role's overall score, in roughly similar proportions to that skill's importance to the overall score. Any player may train in any position or role; however, if you are training a player in a role or position that is not connected to that player's natural position, Execution improvements cannot be earned.

[edit] Drills

Drills are meant to help you target improvements for abilities that are not part of your position's basic skill set. About 60% of your improvements go to the skill set of the position you are training for and 40% go to your drills.

The default drill is A, which means "All-Around". This drill does not concentrate on any area, and can result in improvements in Speed, Health, Agility, Execution, Stamina, Jumping, Hands, Tackle, and Strength. The conversion rate is a little lower than the more targeted drills; Improvement Chances will convert to improvements only 75% as often as other drills.

Targeted drills are different from the All Around drill in that they have a higher conversion rate for the abilities that they target, but they also may reduce one ability that is opposite to the targeted goals of the drill. For example, Weight Training drills build strength, but they add bulk to a player reducing his overall speed. Conversely, running Sprints may improve a player's Speed and Agility, but they tend to make a player lose weight and thus Strength. The targeted drill groups are:

C - Conditioning - This is an exception to the others because it only improves two skills and has no "downside". This improves Health and Stamina, and as a bonus any player training in Conditioning will have his Conditioning score for the next game increased by 10%. It is recommended to have players coming off an injury late in the week prior to a game to have Conditioning drills in his training plan; this is also useful for players with Attitude problems who do not put in enough effort on the training field to be at their top Conditioning. Like "All-Around", Conditioning drills have a lower conversion rate (75% of normal).

D - Discipline - Discipline training improves Attitude, Execution, and Hands; it reduces Aggressiveness.

F - Footwork - Footwork drills increase Agility, Jumping, and Break Tackle; they reduce Strength (on the theory that as you become more agile you may lose weight)

K - Kicking - Kicking drills increase Kick Accuracy, Kick Power, and Execution; they reduce Endurance (as kickers don't really need it). This helps make up for the fact that kickers tend to earn fewer IC's overall.

S - Sprints - Sprint drills improve Speed, Agility and Pursuit; they reduce Strength.

W - Weight Training - Weight Training increases Strength, Stamina, and Tackling, and reduces Speed.

[edit] Accumulating Improvement Chances

Improvement Chances (ICs) are accumulated separately for Position Training and Drills. Only full IC's are attempted to convert to Improvements at the end of the week; fractional ICs will roll over to the next week.

ICs are allocated as follows:

Position Improvement Chances (improvements applied to those attributes most important to the position selected for training):

• All players on roster: .5
• All players on the active roster: +.25
• All players who appeared in that week's game: +.25
• Time played in game: seconds of play/450 (maximum +2.0)
• Young inactive players: +.5 for each year under 25
• Bye week: +1.0

Drill Improvement Chances (improvements applied to the set of attributes in the selected drill set):

• All players on the roster: .5
• Attitude (work ethic) bonus: Attitude/400 (i.e. 0.0-0.25)+random(Attitude/200) (i.e. 0.0-0.50)

Thus, Attitude is, on average, worth just over 1 IC per 10 points of Attitude over the course of a 21-week season (16 games + bye + preseason).

[edit] Converting Improvement Chances to Improvements

At the end of the week, immediately prior to playing the first quarter of the next game, Improvement Chances are processed based on your selected Training Plans for each player and may be converted to Improvements. The chance of converting an Improvement is based on a player's age and Potential, so players with a higher Potential will convert more improvements over time.

Most abilities improve best just after college and fall off until age 26. Execution improves well into the early 30's. Throwing Accuracy improves best in the mid-20's and can improve into the early 30's. Speed, Agility and Strength show the least improvement, with improves falling off by age 25.

Age	Most Abilities	Throw Acc	Execution	Spd/Agil/Str
20	42.5%	35.0%	60.0%	37.5%
21	52.0%	37.5%	70.0%	42.0%
22	57.5%	40.0%	65.0%	30.0%
23	45.0%	45.0%	50.0%	22.0%
24	32.0%	52.5%	45.0%	11.0%
25	11.0%	57.5%	40.0%	5.0%
26	7.5%	60.0%	37.5%	2.0%
27	5.0%	58.0%	33.0%	1.5%
28	5.0%	50.0%	30.0%	1.2%
29	5.0%	47.5%	26.0%	1.0%
30	5.0%	35.0%	20.0%	1.0%
31	5.0%	11.0%	13.0%	1.0%
32	5.0%	7.5%	10.0%	1.0%
33	5.0%	5.0%	7.5%	1.0%
Older	5.0%	5.0%	3.5%	1.0%

This chart is correct for most players; some players may improve at a slightly faster or slower rate, as if they were a year or two older or younger than their actual age.

[edit] Name Changes

Prior to regular season week 4, you are permitted to change the first and last name of the player by clicking on the player's name and going to his card. Players may also have a nickname, which can be changed at any time. Offensive player names WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! If you find another team's player names offensive, please report that team so the issue can be resolved. Duplicate names in a league are not permitted.

[edit] Conditioning and Fatigue

Football players spend the week prior to a game training and getting in proper condition, both mentally and physically, to play. Some players work harder at this than others, and players coming off an injury mid-week do not get the benefit of a full week's workouts. This is all represented by a player's Conditioning level, which is visible on his player card. A player's Conditioning for a game is set immediately after his previous game ends, giving you time to make substitutions if necessary. Most players will start each game at 95% of their top physical condition, although a few hard workers with good Attitudes may be higher than that. Players with low Attitude ratings do not always put in the work required to be in top form and may start games at anywhere from 75% to 95% of their top Conditioning. In addition, running backs who have had an above-average number of carries in the last few games or receivers who have had an above-average number of targets will be fatigued and may have lower Conditioning than normal. These effects are cumulative; if a player has a 10% Conditioning penalty for Attitude and a 10% Conditioning reduction due to Fatigue he will be at 20% below normal, or 75%.

The Conditioning rating represents the top energy level a player can reach during a game; this energy level is represented on the Dynasty Vision display as a small bar graph to the right of each player. The terms "Fatigue" and "Energy" both refer to the same concept but in reverse of each other, so a player with 80% Energy has 20% Fatigue.

As players play, they expend energy and start to fatigue, causing their abilities to drop. The rating penalty is a percentage drop in all ratings based on their current energy level, as follows:

Energy level	Skill level
95%	99.8%
90%	99.0%
85%	97.8%
80%	95.2%
75%	92.4%
70%	89.0%
65%	85.2%
60%	81.1%
55%	76.7%
50%	72.2%
45%	67.7%
40%	63.4%
35%	59.2%
30%	55.4%
25%	52.1%
20%	52.0%

As players fatigue, they will be substituted out based on the "substitute out" rating on the Depth Chart at that position. If no substitution level has been set, they will be substituted at 50%. Players with lower Stamina ratings will fatigue faster and recover energy slower. Players need to be off the field for 30-90 seconds (depending on Stamina) before they start to recover energy. These are "time-of-day" seconds rather than game clock seconds, so in practice this means most players will start recovering after 1 or 2 plays off the field.

Once a player has been substituted out due to fatigue, he starts resting. A resting player has a yellow fatigue bar; while resting, the player will not return to the game until his Energy level reaches the "substitute in" setting for his Depth Chart.

[edit] Positions

Each player has a native position that does not change; this position represents his skill sets and training. The positions are:

Offense
Abbrev	Name	Recommended minimum
QB	Quarterback	2
RB	Running Back	4
WR	Wide Receiver	4
TE	Tight End	2
C	Center	1
G	Guard	3
T	Tackle	3
Defense
Abbrev	Name	Recommended minimum
DT	Defensive Tackle	2
DE	Defensive End	3
LB	Linebacker	5
CB	Cornerback	3
S	Safety	3
Special Teams
Abbrev	Name	Recommended minimum
K	Kicker	1
P	Punter	1

[edit] Roles

While on the field, a player fills a particular role. In some cases, the role is the same as the position, i.e. a player with the Quarterback position plays the Quarterback role. For some positions, the role simply determines the exact position a player occupies in a formation, for example a player at the Guard position may fill the role of either Left Guard or Right Guard. In other cases, a role determines a particular specialization within a role, such as Fullback vs. Halfback. Finally, special teams units may have specialized roles such as the Holder that holds the ball for placekicks, or a Kick Returner which is normally filled by a wide receiver, running back or cornerback. The roles used in each formation are displayed in the formation preview on the Depth Chart page. A player's Player Card shows the player's skill level at the most common roles, and whichever grade is highest (with certain exceptions) is shown as his Best Role on the roster page.

Offense
Abbr	Name	Description	Pos	Skills
C	Center	The Center snaps the ball to the Quarterback and then performs blocking duties with the offensive line.	C	Hands, Execution, Strength, Pass Blocking, Run Blocking
QB	Quarterback	The Quarterback runs the offense and lines up behind the Center. Typically the quarterback will hand off or pitch the ball to a running back or pass the ball to a wide receiver, although he may occasionally keep the ball and run it himself, either by design or by being forced to scramble by the defense.	QB	Throw Accuracy, Throw Power, Execution, Carrying, Hands, Agility, Speed, Break Tackle
HB	Halfback	The Halfback is the running back that most often actually runs the ball, although he may occasionally be called upon to catch a screen pass or run a passing route. He may often be referred to as just a Running Back, or as a Halfback or Tailback depending on where he lines up.	RB	Carrying, Speed, Agility, Break Tackle, Execution, Catching, Hands
FB	Fullback	Although he is a running back, the Fullback more often performs blocking duties or runs ahead of the ball cariier to clear a path.	RB	Run Blocking, Strength, Carrying, Pass Blocking, Speed, Break Tackle, Agility, Catching, Execution
LT	Left Offensive Tackle	The Tackles line up outside of the Guards and are responsible for both run and pass blocking. The Left Tackle in particular is responsible for protecting the Quarterback's blind side, and is thus weighted more toward Pass Blocking than Run Blocking, whereas the Right Tackle is usually the best Run Blocker.	T	Agility, Strength, Pass Blocking, Execution, Run Blocking
RT	Right Offensive Tackle			Strength, Agility, Run Blocking, Execution, Pass Blocking
LG	Left Offensive Guard	The Guards line up next to the center and are responsible for both run and pass blocking. Guaards may either block straight ahead to protech the pocket or pull to one side or the other to open a hole and trap a defensive lineman to support the run.	G	Strength, Pass Blocking, Agility, Run Blocking, Execution
RG	Right Offensive Guard
SE	Split End End	The Split End is a wide receiver who usually lines up on the far left, several yards away from the Left Tackle. He is often referred to as the "X Receiver".	WR	Catching, Agility, Speed, Execution, Carrying, Break Tackle, Jumping
TE	Tight End	The Tight End usually lines up to the right of the Right Tackle, and may perform either as a blocker or as a pass receiver. Because he often acts as an extra blocker along with the offensive line, the side the Tight End lines up on is referred to as the "Strong Side". When used as a receiver, he is often referred to as the "Y Receiver".	TE	Catching, Pass Blocking, Run Blocking, Carrying, Execution, Speed, Agility
FL	Flanker	The Flanker is a wide receiver who usually lines up on the far right, several yards away from the Tight End and a step behind the line. He is often referred to as the "Z Receiver".	WR	Catching, Agility, Speed, Execution, Carrying, Break Tackle, Jumping
Defense
Abbr	Name	Description	Pos	Skills
LDE	Left Defensive End	The Defensive Ends line up on either end of the defensive line. Their function is to rush the Quarterback and contain outside runs. The stronger and more agile usually lines up at RDE, opposite the Left Tackle, to attack the Quarterback's blind side.	DE	Tackling, Run Cover, Agility, Strength, Execution
RDE	Right Defensive End
LDT	Left Defensive Tackle	The Defensive Tackles line up between the Defensive Ends on either end of the defensive line. Their function is to rush the Quarterback and stop runs up the middle.	DT	Strength, Tackling, Run Cover, Agility, Execution
RDT	Right Defensive Tackle
SOLB	Strong-Side Outer Linebacker	The Linebackers play behind the defensive line and perform a variety of duties depending on the situation, including rushing the passer, covering receivers, and defending against the run. The Strong-Side Outer Linebacker, nicknamed "Sam", lines up just outside of the Tight End; the Weak-Side Outer Linebacker, nicknamed "Will", lines up just ouside the tackle at the opposite end. The Outer Linebackers (OLB) may be called upon to drop back into shallow zone pass coverage, stop the outside run, or blitz the Quarterback. The Middle Linebacker, nicknamed "Mike", is responsible for stopping the inside run; in a four-linebacker set such as the 3-4, he plays on the strong side inside the SOLB. On player cards, the two Linebacker specializtions are shown as OLB (Outer Linebacker) and ILB (Inner Linebacker).	LB	Strength, Tackling, Run Cover, Agility, Execution
WOLB	Weak-Side Outer Linebacker
MLB	Middle Linebacker			Tackling, Strength, Run Cover, Execution, Agility, Pass Cover
LCB	Left Cornerback	The Cornerbacks primarily cover the receivers, although they may occasionally be called upon to blitz the quarterback. In a rushing play, the Corners are used to contain the rusher.	CB	Pass Cover, Speed, Tackling, Agility, Run Cover, Jumping, Catching, Execution
RCB	Right Cornerback
FS	Free Safety	The Safeties line up farthest from the Line of Scrimmage and are responsible for deep-pass coverage and pursuit of any ball carrier that passes the earlier lines of defense. The Free Safety is usually the smaller and faster of the Safeties, providing extra coverage against the pass.	S	Pass Cover, Speed, Tackling, Pursuit, Agility, Catching, Execution, Jumping
SS	Strong Safety	The Safeties line up farthest from the Line of Scrimmage and are responsible for deep-pass coverage and pursuit of any ball carrier that passes the earlier lines of defense. The Strong Safety is usually the larger and stronger of the two, providing extra coverage against the run; however, the name of the role does not come from his strength, it comes from the fact that he lines up on the strong side.	S	Tackling, Speed, Run Cover, Strength, Execution, Agility, Pass Cover, Pursuit
Special Teams
Abbr	Name	Description	Pos	Skills
K	Placekicker	The Placekicker, usually simply referred to as the Kicker, handles field goals and PAT (Point After Touchdown, or "try") kicks	K	Kick Accuracy, Kick Power, Execution
P	Punter	The Punter kicks punts and the free kick after a safety. A Punter must have a stronger variety of skills than a Kicker, as he may be called upon to act as Quarterback in the case of a bad snap or a fake punt.	P	Kick Power, Kick Accuracy, Execution, Hands, Throw Accuracy, Throw Power
KOS	Kickoff Specialist	The Kickoff Specialist is responsible for handling kickoffs. Usually this role is filled by a Placekicker, but teams who have an accurate Placekicker with a weak leg may choose tyo use a stronger-legged Punter or backup Kicker just for kickoffs, where distance is more important than accuracy.	K	Kick Power, Kick Accuracy, Execution
KR	Kick Returner	The Kick Returner is positioned at the far end of the field during kickoffs to return the kick.	WR, RB, CB	Kick Return, Speed, Break Tackle, Agility, Catching, Carrying, Execution
LKR	Left Kick Returner
RKR	Right Kick Returner
PR	Punt Returner	The Punt Returner is positioned about 40 yards past the Line of Scrimmage during punt attempts to return the punt.	WR, RB, CB, S	Kick Return, Speed, Break Tackle, Agility, Catching, Carrying, Execution
KRB	Kick Return Back	The Kick Return Back, or Kick Return Blocker, is an upback positioned in front of the Kick Returner. His primary responsibility is to block for the Kick Returner, but he should have some Kick Return skills in case of a shorter kick.	WR, RB, CB, S	Run Blocking, Kick Return, Speed, Break Tackle, Agility, Carrying, Catching, Strength, Execution
LKRB	Left Kick Return Back
RKRB	Right Kick Return Back
LS	Long Snapper	The Long Snapper lines up as a Center and snaps the ball to the Holder or Punter on kicking plays. As the "long snap" is effectively a 15-yard backward pass, the Long Snapper must have an accurate throwing arm.	C	Pass Blocking, Throw Accuracy, Hands, Execution, Strength
H	Holder	The Holder takes the snap from the Long Snapper, sets the ball in position, and holds it for field goal and PAT kicks. The skill of the Holder has an effect on the accuracy of kicks, as a poor hold can result in a ball tumbling on a kick causing it to hook away from its intended trajectory. The Holder is usually a backup Quarterback or occasionally a Punter, as he may be called upon to act as a Quarterback in the event of a poor snap or a fake field goal attempt.	QB, P	Hands, Execution, Throw Accuracy, Throw Power
GUN	Gunner	The Gunner lines up in the Wide Receiver position on a punt attempt. As eligible receivers, the Gunners can sprint downfield before the ball is kicked to tackle the Punt Returner or down the ball. Gunners may actually perform as Wide Receivers in the event of a failed or fake punt.	WR, RB, CB, S	Speed, Tackling, Catching, Strength, Agility, Break Tackle, Execution
LGUN	Left Gunner
RGUN	Right Gunner
HT	Hands Team	"Hands Team" players are present on both sides during an onside kick attempt. These players have the strongest Catching and Hands skills to quickly get control of onside kicks or recover loose balls for their team.	WR, RB, TE, CB, S	Hands, Catching, Exeecution
HT1	Hands Team 1
HT2	Hands Team 2
HT3	Hands Team 3
HT4	Hands Team 4
HT5	Hands Team 5
HT6	Hands Team 6
Specialist Offense
Abbr	Name	Description	Pos	Skills
SB	Slot Back	The Slot Back is a Running Back that lines up off the line in the "slot" between a Tackle or Tight End and the Split End. A player lining up in this position that is intended to act as a receiver is known as a Slot Receiver.	RB	Carrying, Speed, Agility, Break Tackle, Execution, Catching, Hands
SR	Slot Receiver	The Slot Receiver is a Wide Receiver that lines up off the line in the "slot" between a Tackle or Tight End and the Split End. This role is usually seen as the fourth receiver in a Shotgun or Single Back formation.	WR	Catching, Agility, Speed, Execution, Carrying, Break Tackle, Jumping
SR2	Slot Receiver 2
TE2	Tight End 2	A second Tight End; in two Tight End sets, the second Tight End lines up to the left of the Left Tackle.	TE	Catching, Pass Blocking, Run Blocking, Carrying, Execution, Speed, Agility
LWB	Left Wingback	The Wingbacks act as Fullbacks in sets that require extra protection for a Quarterback or Kicker. They usually line up off the line in the gap between the Tackle and Guard or jut outside the Tackles.	RB	Run Blocking, Strength, Carrying, Pass Blocking, Speed, Break Tackle, Agility, Catching, Execution
RWB	Right Wingback
Specialist Defense
Abbr	Name	Description	Pos	Skills
WILB	Weak-Side Inner Linebacker	In four-linebacker sets, the Weak-Side Inner Linebacker lines up on the weak side (usually the right side) and the Middle Linebacker lines up on the strong side.	LB	Tackling, Strength, Run Cover, Execution, Agility, Pass Cover
WS	Weak Safety	A Safety who acts in the same capacity as a Strong Safety but on the weak side.	S	Tackling, Speed, Pass Cover, Strength, Execution, Agility, Catching, Pursuit
FS2	Free Safety 2	An extra Free Safety, usually seen at one end of the line on kickoffs.	S	Pass Cover, Speed, Tackling, Pursuit, Agility, Catching, Execution, Jumping
NB	Nickelback	An extra Cornerback used in the 4-2-5 Nickel formation, lining up across from the Slot Receiver.	CB	Pass Cover, Speed, Tackling, Agility, Run Cover, Jumping, Catching, Execution
DB	Dimeback	An extra Cornerback used in the 4-1-6 Dime formation.	CB	Pass Cover, Speed, Tackling, Agility, Run Cover, Jumping, Catching, Execution
NT	Nose Tackle	The centermost Defensive Tackle lining up directly across from the Center. In a 3-4 formation, the role of Nose Tackle is actually filled by the player normally at Left Tackle, so in Sim Dynasty the Nose Tackle is only seen in sets requiring five Defensive Tackles such as Kick Block formations.	DT	Strength, Tackling, Run Cover, Agility, Execution

[edit] Playing Players out of Position

Although each player has an assigned position, any player can play in any position. However, this comes at a penalty, both in a player's abilities not likely being suited to the alternate position and in the form of severely reduced Execution (75% lower) while playing at the alternate position. Offensive linemen can play other positions on the offensive line with a reduced execution penalty (50% lower). and wide receivers can play at tight end and vice versa at only a 25% Execution penalty. The Player Card for each player shows the player's rating at each position; this rating takes into account the Execution penalty.

In addition to the Execution penalty, non-Quarterbacks playing at Quarterback will start to have additional Execution and Throwing Accuracy penalties after more than a few passes each quarter. This allows a non-Quarterback to act as a Quarterback in an emergency, but they cannot handle anything more than a light passing scheme. If you are in the middle of a game and all of your Quarterbacks are injured, it is recommended to temporarily shift to a running offense if your team is using a heavy or balanced passing offense.

In order to appear on the depth chart at a given role, the player must either play the "master" position for that role natively or hold at least a C+ rating in a position appropriate to that role. The Depth Chart Qualification Chart under the Help menu shows exactly who can be placed on a depth chart for a given position. Premium leagues may adjust the positions and minimum ratings for each role on the depth chart. If no players are available for a role, however, any player can be put into any role by the simulation if necessary to field a full formation.

[edit] Managing your Team

Sim Dynasty offers you a large assortment of ways to manage your team.

[edit] Roster

Your Roster gives you a one-page view of everyone on your team. From the Roster, you can perform transactions on players (moving them between the Active and Inactive rosters, moving them to Injured Reserve, placing them on the Trade Block, or waiving them) and you can set a player's training plan for his Position Training and assign Drills. You may have no more than 45 players on the active roster, with the rest (up to a total of 53 during the regular season) on the inactive roster. From other teams' Roster pages you can propose trades.

[edit] Depth Chart

Depth charts are the mechanism by which players are assigned to roles. There are two kinds of Depth Charts: "Parent" Depth Charts that are generic in nature, such as Guard and Safety, and specific charts such as Left Guard or Strong Safety. If there are no players on a specific Depth Chart, the corresponding parent chart is used instead. The Formation Preview will show exactly which players will be assigned to a given formation and how they got there.

In addition to specifying players, each depth chart has substitution settings determining when players are removed from the game or returned to the game due to fatigue.

[edit] Depth Chart Qualification

In order to qualify for a particular depth chart, a player must be in the position "native" to that chart or have (by default) a minimum numeric rating of 44 (C+ or better) in that position. In addition, his natural position must be similar to the native position for that depth chart role. For example, to play at LG (Left Guard), a player must either be a Guard, or be a Center or Tackle with a minimum 44 rating at Guard. The minimum rating at each position and the list of positions that qualify for each role can be adjusted in Premium leagues. The default Depth Chart Qualification Chart is visible here and the chart for the league you are currently logged into is visible here.

[edit] Coach Preferences

The Coach Preferences page allows you to establish all of your tendencies in different situations. You don't have complete control over exactly which plays will be run, only the general proportion of each of several types of plays. (Note: The distance of the passing game is set by the toggles at the bottom of each page). You will have to set these preferences, including the values for short and long distances for each tab, listed below:

Zone	Description
Green Zone	Your typical set in the middle of the field.
2-Min	The 2 minute set, near the end of the game or 1st half; you can set the time left in a half when this set becomes active
Yellow Zone	Used when the offense is deep in its own end. The default is within 15 yards of the offense's goal line, but you can set the distance at which this strategy takes effect.
Red Zone	Used when the offense is closing in on the end zone. The default is within 20 yards of the defense's goal line, but you can set the distance at which this strategy takes effect.
2-Min Red Zone	Used when the offense is closing in on the end zone near the end of a half, you set both the distance to the end zone and the time left.
Goal Line	Used when the offense is very close to the end zone, you can set the distance to the end zone. This zone is sometimes referred to as the Gold Zone.
2-Min Goal Line	Used when the offense is very close to the end zone near the end of a half, you set both the distance to the end zone and the time left.
Advanced	Advanced strategy rules can bet set up to cover any situation in the game. For details on how to use these rules, see Using Advanced Strategies.

Each of these sets have a default set of offensive and defensive preferences, so you don't have to change anything to play with the defaults. If you do choose to make changes, you can do so by typing a name for the custom set near the top of the preferences, where you see "enter a new strategy name". You can also update a previously saved custom set by selecting it from the drop down menu -Select a strategy to overwrite-. You will not be able to automatically copy the set for one situation to another (ex: from Base to 2 Min). You must manually set the preferences in each tab if you want your team to be run significantly differently than the defaults.

[edit] Offense

The plays available in each set are the same for all of the offensive sets are as follows (remember the yardage settings are: Short, which is a distance up to the number you set, Long, which is a distance greater than or equal to the number you set, and Medium is in between) You will run either a Pro Set or I Formation, at random, unless you use a Shotgun set, in which case the formation is set to Shotgun. In Shotgun passes, you generally have more time to pass which increases the chance of completing a pass, but you are at risk of losing more yadage if sacked.

Play type	Description	Yardage (You set these)
Short Pass	A short, quick, high completion percentage pass	"Short"
Med Pass	A medium length pass	Somewhere between "Short" and "Long" settings
Long Pass	A long pass, Going Deep!	"Long"
Middle Run	A run up the middle, between the tackles	N/A
End Run	A run outside the tackles	N/A
Short Sideline Pass	A pass towards the sideline	"Short"
Med Sideline Pass	A pass towards the sideline	Somewhere between "Short" and "Long" settings
Long Sideline Pass	A pass towards the sideline	"Long"
Short Shotgun Pass	Set your formation to shotgun and throw a short pass	"Short"
Med Shotgun Pass	Set your formation to shotgun and throw a medium distance pass	Somewhere between "Short" and "Long" settings
Long Shotgun Pass	Set your formation to shotgun and throw a long pass	"Long"
Screen Pass	Deep dropback pass, where the Offensive line lets the defense through, then lead blocks for a RB on a short dump.	Short pass, hoping for an overly aggressive pass rush.
Play Action Pass	Pass that follows a fake handoff, generally medium to long pass, hoping to catch the defense in a run set.	varies

[edit] Defense

The possible defensive sets are shown below ("Short" and "Long" can be set here also, but are probably irrelevant on defense at this point). Generally, you will be running a 4-3, although there is a Nickel set in which the Middle linebacker is removed to allow for an extra defensive back (Nickel Back), which you can set in the depth chart page:

Defensive Play	Description
Balanced Run Cover	Key on both Outside and Middle Runs with equal emphasis
Inside Run Cover	Crash in to stop the Middle Run
Outside Run Cover	Key on the outside-the-tackle running attack
Man to Man	Pass defensive set where each defensive back matches up with a potential receiver. Best to counter screens and medium passes.
Shallow Zone	Defensive Backs each protect a region within a prescribed area, to stop any completions in that area, keying on shorter passes; sometimes set in a Nickel formation. Best to counter short passes.
Deep Zone/Prevent	Defensive Backs still protect a zone, although the zones are deeper downfield, keying on long passes; usually set in a Nickel formation. Best to counter long passes, but leaves you vulnerable to shorter passes and running plays.
Sam-Will Blitz	The Sam and Will linebackers blitz, rest of the D plays Man to Man "They're your outside linebackers. S for Sam comes from S from Strongside OLB. W for Will comes from Weakside OLB. MLB is sometimes called Mike"(credit: spyboy1306 on the SimDynasty message board)"
Corners Blitz	Both corners abandon pass coverage and attack the quarterback, usually unblocked. Safeties and Linebackers pick up man to man defense on receivers.
Maximum Blitz	Corners and Sam-Will Blitz combined, for a total of an 8 man blitz, leaving only 3 defensive backs to stop the offense if the blitz fails.

[edit] Kicking

The kicking game preferences including punting and field goals are shown below.

[edit] Punting

There are 4 punting situations, each of which has a setting for position on the field (called "Zones"). In each, you can establish the punter's Distance vs Hangtime, and punt formation. The punt formations are Punt Tight Protect, Punt Tight Wing, and Punt Spread Wing, which range from a very safe punt formation with limited downfield punt coverage against a return (Tight Protect) to a spread formation in which the risk for a punt block is a little higher, but the downfield coverage is better. "Distance vs Hangtime" is a percentage of effort the punter will put into kicking it as far as he can. A high value will mean the punter will kick it higher (but shorter), allowing for good punt coverage and also shorter punts that are better when there is a risk of punting it into the end zone. A low value emphasizes distance, which is better for getting out of poor field position; however, long-distance, low hangtime punts carry a greater risk of long punt returns.

If close to the end zone and the punting strategy would carry the ball too close to the end zone, the punter will angle the punt toward the sideline, hoping to put the ball out of bounds close to the goal line or pinning the returner into the corner to make a return difficult.

A punt returner may allow the ball to bounce if it is close to the goal line in hopes it will bounce into the end zone for a touchback. The longer and lower a punt is kicked, the more chance it has of bouncing into the end zone, but some punts may bounce backwards toward the line of scrimmage or off at an angle and go out of bounds, so allowing the punt to drop does carry some risk.

[edit] Fourth Down Situations

A variety of situations governing when to go for it, or kick a field goal on 4th down, when punting would not be appropriate.

[edit] Onside Kicks

There are two situations here, each depending on the number of points you are behind and time left in the game. If either condition is met, your kicker will try on onside kick if you are kicking off.

[edit] Last Second Field Goals

These settings will overrule the Fourth Down Situations rules above, given there is a limited amount of time left in a half or in the 4th quarter, or anytime in overtime and you are tied or behind by 3 points or less (in the case of 4th quarter situations). You can set the time left in the game or half and the distance where you would be comfortable trying the field goal. Also, you can set a confidence level for the kick (estimated chance of making the kick). Setting it lower makes it more likely that you will try the field goal as long as the time and yardage rules are also met.

[edit] Two Point Conversions

After a touchdown, your team has the option of kicking the ball for one point (an almost certain proposition with an average success rate of 99% or higher) or going for a two-point conversion by running or passing the ball from the two yard line (with an average success rate around 40%). Using the "2 point conversion aggressiveness" slider, you can control when your team will go for the two point conversion or take the safe route and kick the extra point. Examples by time and score differential are shown and updated instantly (if JavaScript is enabled in your browser). Note that these are just examples; the internal tables in the game are broken down into 30 second increments, not the 3 minute increments displayed here.

As the clock does not run during a two-point conversion attempt, time and timeouts are not taken into account when deciding the strategy. The simulation, for purposes of deciding strategy, treats it as fourth down with 2 yards to go as if there were 15 minutes left in the quarter with a tied score, the clock stopped, ball on the 2 yard line, and both teams having all three timeouts. Under the default settings, this will pull from the Goal Line 4th and Short strategy, but if your definition of "short" is less than 2 yards for the Goal Line zone, it will pull from 4th and Medium. In addition, if an Advanced strategy matches the situation listed above it will be used. This applies to both Offense and Defense.

[edit] Returns

This tab determines what your kick and punt returners will do based on the position of the kick or punt. You can set the number of yards seep into the endzone the kick has to be to force the kickoff return man to kneel and down the ball for a touchback. You can also set the distance to the goal line the punt will land before the punt returner lets it bounce in hopes of it crossing into the end zone for a touchback. As described on the page, Execution affects this ability, and there are some other variables that underlie the results of punts and kickoffs.

[edit] Time Management

This tab allows you to tell the team when to start using time outs to stop the clock on offense or defense, in order to save time to get another score when you are trailing, when and how to protect a lead, and when to run out the clock or hurry up.

[edit] Strategy Tester

The Strategy Tester allows you to plug in a specific game situation and determine exactly what your team might do in that situation. It returns both which strategy zone and line are being used and the probabilities for which play type may be selected based on the slider and probability settings for that line. There is also a button to specifically test two-point conversion situations.

[edit] General Manager Information

[edit] Trades

Through the GM menu, you can propose a trade to any other team in your league. If the other team accepts, the trade will be executed immediately, and the players will change teams. However, if a trade is made while a game is still in progress, that change does not take effect until the game is over; you will see the player on your roster and be able to put him on your depth chart but he will not appear in the game in progress.

Each league has a trade deadline, usually week 6 of the regular season. Players received in a trade after the trade deadline are not eligible for postseason play.

[edit] Injured Reserve

Any player who has been injured and is expected to be out longer than 5 days may be placed on the Injured Reserve list. Players on Injured Reserve do not count for or against the team's roster limits; however, once a player has been moved to the Injured Reserve list, that player is ineligible to play, practice or train with the team for the remainder of the season, including the postseason. Thus, players on Injured Reserve cannot collect Improvement Chances even after their injury has healed.

NOTE: Injured Reserve is not available in Single Season leagues.

[edit] Watch List

The Watch List allows you a way to easily keep track of players you are interested in. You can add a player to the Watch List from his player card, and add private notes to that player as well. You can add any players to the Watch List, whether they are on your team or not, including college players and players in other leagues.

[edit] Waiver Wire

You may claim players by visiting the Waiver Wire. On the waiver wire, you will see two different types of players -- Free Agents (Claim) and Waived Players (Waivers).

[edit] Waived Players

Waived Players (denoted with the word "Waivers" next to their name). Players that have been waived by a general manager will show up on the Waiver Wire with a "Waivers" designation. Depending on the league, but usually for about 24 real life hours, a player will be listed as such on the Waiver Wire. During this time, any team can put in a Waiver Claim on the player. If more than one team has claimed the player, he will go to the team with the highest waiver claim priority, and then move to the back of the waiver claim list. Waiver claims are processed in order from oldest to newest. If a player's waiver period expires, he becomes a Free Agent and may be claimed by any team immediately.

Every other game week (even numbered weeks), the waiver priority list is reset. Prior to week 4 in the season, the priority is the same as the draft order; in week 4 and later, it is the reverse of the standings (so teams lower in the standings get higher waiver priority).

[edit] Free Agents

Free Agents (denoted with the word "Claim" next to their name). Players who have been on the Waiver Wire at least a week become free agents. Free agents can be claimed immediately by any team without a waiting period. Free agents reduce their salary demands by 10% every week (until they reach the league minimum for their service time) hoping to become more attractive to teams.

[edit] League Information

[edit] League News

Sim Dynasty has a news page that will show you what has been going on in your league in the way of player transactions, such as trades, status changes, injuries, and retiring players.

[edit] Standings

To see how your team is doing in the league overall, you should go to the Standings page. This will show you the standings for all of the teams in your league. (Under the "Games" tab)

[edit] Schedule

To view the schedule for the regular season, without seeing who won or lost go to this page. This is the best place to go if you don't want to know the results of the game until you watch it in Dynasty Vision. (Under the "Games" tab)

[edit] Schedule with Results

To view the schedule for the regular season including the results of any previously played games. (Under the "Games" tab)

[edit] Scoreboard

The scores for all games in the league during the current week, at a glance. (Under the "Games" tab)

[edit] League Info

Sim Dynasty also has a League Info page that allows you to see who is in your league. It also displays their e-mail address, if they have chosen to let it be shown in their Profile. You can also U2U them from here by clicking their name. When you do this, the u2u screen will pop up, and you can U2U them right from there. You can also see when your opponents last checked into the site. This way you can know who has been actively managing their teams, and which teams belong to "dead" owners.

[edit] Team Statistics

You can view your team statistics from the Team Stats page. These are actual cumulative stats from the current season. If you traded for a player during the season, only his accrued stats from when he was on your team will show up. If you traded a player away, only the stats he accrued while on your team will show up here.

[edit] Individual Statistics

You can view your players individual statistics from the Individual Stats page. You can only see players here that are currently on your roster.

[edit] League Leaders

To see who leads the league in various statistical categories, check out the League Leaders page. It will show you the top 20 players in each category. You can view Single Season leaders and All Time leaders of various categories.

[edit] Player Rankings

The Rankings page serves two purposes. The first is to show all players ranked according to their statistics, and the other is to show all players ranked according to their abilities.

[edit] Player Statistics

The benefit of using this page as opposed to the Leaders page is that this page will show all of the players in your league, which is more comprehensive. On this page you can choose to sort by every category that is kept on the player cards.

[edit] Player Abilities

This part of the Rankings page will show all of the players in your league according to their abilities. As with the other page, this page can be sorted by all player abilities displayed on the player cards. This page is especially useful for scouting around your league to find the players on other teams that you would like to trade for.

[edit] Glossary

[edit] Football Terms

[edit] CHAIN

The Chain represents the 10 yards between the spot where a series of downs begins and the Line to Gain. The Chain may be brought onto the field to measure whether the ball has crossed the Line to Gain. The chain is represented along the top sideline on the DynastyVision display.

[edit] DEAD BALL

A Dead Ball is one that is not in play. The time period during which the ball is dead is Between Downs. This includes the interval during all timeouts, including intermission, and from the time the ball becomes dead until it is legally put in play.

[edit] LIVE BALL

A Live Ball is a ball that is in play. A Dead Ball becomes a live ball when it is:

• legally kicked on a Free Kick Down
• legally snapped on a Scrimmage Down
• legally kicked on a Fair Catch Kick Down

It continues in play until the down ends.

[edit] LOOSE BALL

A Loose Ball is a live ball that is not in player possession, i.e., any ball that has been kicked, passed, or fumbled. A Loose Ball is considered to be in possession of the team (offense) whose player kicked, passed, or fumbled it. It is a Loose Ball until a player secures possession or until the ball becomes dead. If it has not yet struck the ground, a Loose Ball is In Flight.

[edit] FUMBLE

A Fumble is any act, other than passing, handing, or legally kicking the ball, which results in a loss of player possession. The use of the term Fumble always means that the ball was in possession of a player when the act occurred.

[edit] MUFF

A Muff is the touching of a loose ball by a player in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain possession of it.

[edit] DOWN

A Down is a period of action that starts when the ball is put in play and ends when the ball is declared dead.

• A down that starts with a snap is a Scrimmage Down.
• A down that starts with a free kick is a Free Kick Down.
• A down that starts with a fair catch kick is a Fair Catch Kick Down.

[edit] SERIES OF DOWNS

A Series of Downs is the four consecutive charged scrimmage downs allotted to the offensive team during which it must advance the ball to a yard line called “the line to gain” in order to retain possession.

[edit] LINE TO GAIN

The Line to Gain is the spot 10 yards in advance of the spot of the snap that starts a series, except when a goal line is less than 10 yards from this spot. In that case, the Line to Gain is the goal line.

[edit] FIELD GOAL

A Field Goal is made by kicking the ball from the field of play through the plane of the opponents’ Goal, which is an area either between the goal posts and above the cross bar, or, if above the goal posts, between the outside edges of the goal posts. A Field Goal is made by a place kick from 7 yards behind the Line of Scrimmage. If the ball hits the crossbar or upright, it may be deflected either into the goal or away from the goal.

[edit] YARD LINE

The Yard Lines in the field of play are named by number in yards from a team’s goal line to the center of the field.

Note: The yard line 19 yards from Team A’s goal line is called A’s 19-yard line. The yard line 51 yards from A’s goal line is called B’s 49-yard line. These may be referred to as "own" in relation to the offensive team; for example, the yard line 52 yards from the goal the offense is attempting to reach may be referred to the "own 48 yard line".

[edit] FORWARD PROGRESS

The Forward Progress of a runner or airborne receiver is the point at which his advance toward his opponent’s goal ends and is the spot at which the ball is declared dead by rule, irrespective of the runner or receiver being pushed or carried backward by an opponent.

[edit] FOUL

A Foul is any infraction of a playing rule for which a penalty is prescribed. These may be referred to as "Penalties", although technically "Penalty" refers to the resulting action against the team committing the foul and not the foul itself. See #List of penalties for more details.

Multiple Fouls and Double Fouls will not occur in Sim Dynasty.

[edit] SPOTS OF ENFORCEMENT

The Spot of Enforcement is the spot at which a penalty is enforced. Sim Dynasty uses five spots of enforcement:

• The Previous Spot: The spot at which the ball was last put in play.
• The Spot of the Foul: The spot at which a foul was committed or, by rule, is considered to have been committed.
• The Spot of a Backward Pass or a Fumble: The spot at which the backward pass or fumble occurred during the down in which there was a foul.
• The Dead Ball Spot: The spot at which the ball became dead.
• The Succeeding Spot: The spot at which the ball will next be put in play (i.e., the spot of the ball after enforcement for a foul, or, if there has been no foul, the spot at which the ball became dead.)

[edit] HUDDLE

A Huddle is time period in which the team is selecting its strategy. A team may Fast Huddle, Long Huddle, or skip the huddle entirely for time management purposes.

[edit] Punt

A Punt is a kick made by a player who drops the ball and kicks it before it strikes the ground. Punters are skilled in Punts and their Hands, Execution and Kick Power skills will determine the success of the punt. The goal of a Punt is both distance and hangtime.

[edit] Angle Punt

Near an End Zone, a punter may opt for an Angle Punt. The goal is to make the ball bounce as close as possible to both the sideline and end zone to cause the ball to go out of bounds before it crosses into the end zone. In addition to regular Punting skills, Kick Accuracy is also needed here.

[edit] Drop Kick

A Drop Kick is a kick by a player who drops the ball and kicks it as, or immediately after, it touches the ground. Drop kicks are used for Safety Kicks. The skills involved are similar to those for a Punt.

[edit] Placekick

A Placekick is a kick made by a player while the ball is in a fixed position on the ground. It will be held by a Holder for a kick from scrimmage or by at tee for a kickoff. Kickers are skilled in placekicks. A kicker's Execution will help him counter weather conditions. Teams may opt to carry an extra kicker (or use a Punter) as a Kickoff Specialist if they have a kicker with high Kick Power but low Kick Accuracy.

[edit] Line of Scrimmage

The Line of Scrimmage (LOS) is the vertical plane of the yard line that passes through the forward point of the ball after it has been made ready for play. The term scrimmage line, or line, implies a play from scrimmage.

[edit] OUT OF BOUNDS

A ball is Out of Bounds when it crosses a sideline either in possession of a player or as a loose ball, or is caught by a player who is Out Of Bounds beyond a sideline or end line.

[edit] PENALTY

A Penalty is imposed upon a team that has committed a foul and may result in loss of down, loss of yardage, an automatic first down, or a combination of these. See #List of penalties for more information.

[edit] PLAYER

A Player is a participant of either team who is in the game. This is distinguished from the Owner, who is a user of the site controlling a team of Players.

[edit] SAFETY

It is a Safety if the spot of enforcement for a foul by the offense is behind its own goal line, or if the ball is dead in possession of a team on or behind its own goal line when the impetus comes from the team defending that goal line. A Safety scores two points for the defense and results in a Safety Kick to the opposing team.

[edit] TIMEOUT

A Timeout usually refers to a Team Timeout (see below) but may be applied to any period in which the Game Clock is stopped: moving the chains, the period between quarters, etc. Players recover energy and reduce fatigue during timeouts.

[edit] TEAM TIMEOUT

A Charged Team Timeout is an interval during which the Game Clock is stopped and play is suspended at the request of one of the teams. Team Timeouts last two minutes, during which players recover energy.

[edit] TIME IN

Time In is any interval during which the Game Clock is running. Players on the field expend energy during Time In, players off the field recover energy.

[edit] TOUCHBACK

It is a Touchback if the ball is dead on or behind the goal line a team is defending, provided that the impetus comes from an opponent, and that it is not a touchdown or an incomplete pass.

[edit] TOUCHDOWN

It is a Touchdown if any part of the ball is on, above, or behind the opponent’s goal line ("breaking the plane" represented by the goal line) while legally in possession of an inbounds player, provided it is not a touchback. A touchdown scores 6 points and also allows for a Try unless the touchdown ends an overtime period.

[edit] TRY

A Try is the attempt by a team that has scored a touchdown to add one point (by a field goal) or two points (by a touchdown) during one untimed scrimmage down.

[edit] TWO-MINUTE WARNING

The two-minute warning is an automatic timeout that occurs after the last play prior to two minutes remaining on the game clock in the second and fourth periods. The Game Clock will automatically stop at the 2-minute mark.

[edit] Sim Dynasty Terms

[edit] Hold

The Hold of the ball (the angle at which it is held by the Holder during a kick) may be Excellent, Good, Poor, or Bad, which will affect the results of the kick. Balls on a tee will always have an Excellent hold.

[edit] Miscellaneous

[edit] PayPal and Payments

For our pay leagues, we use PayPal as the method to receive payments. If you have a credit card, checking account, or any other type of banking account, you can use PayPal to send in a payment.

If you only have a checking account, the payment will be sent to us by a PayPal e-check. E-checks can take up to 4 business days to clear, and you will not see the credits hit your Sim Dynasty account until then. If you are signing up for a new team and send in an e-check, please post a message in the Support Message Board letting Admin know, and we can hold the team for you until it clears. (You can post a message in Support privately if you prefer.) If you are renewing a team using an e-check, you will have to wait the four days to get credit. We have considered removing e-checks as a payment option, because of the confusion they cause, but many of our players only have checking accounts, and we don't want to prevent them from playing.

Finally, if you don't have any kind of bank account or credit card, you can mail in a personal check or money order to us. Please write your screen name and/or league name on the check or money order, and add $2 for handling. (For example, if a league costs $20, the payment would be for $22.) Please make your payment out to the site owner, Tyson Lowery. Allow up to three weeks for the credits to be posted to your account. You can get our address by posting a private message in Support.

[edit] Reporting Problems & Suggesting Enhancements

Have you noticed something about the game that isn't quite right? Are you having problems accessing your team or logging in? Or is there something about the game that you would like to see improved? We encourage you to sound off on the Message Boards.

[edit] Related Pages

Site Rules

Using Advanced Strategies in Sim Dynasty Football

Customizable Rules for Football Premium Leagues