Get yourself the best ever franchise guide

[Theov]

This guide is made considering you play the games yourself and you want to maximise the talent on your roster without using the editor (or minimal).
Yes you will assemble a superior team, but you can increase the difficulty level using the sliders.
Use the editor to limit your cap space if you want, do this in the offseason - after the pro bowl but before the retirements.

Contracts:
Sign your players to max-bonus contracts for 7 years, max the bonus and minimise the overall value of the contract

Trade away players when they have 1 year left on the contract
If you wish to keep the player for longer than the original contract (these are guys like Barry Sanders, Deion Sanders or guys you built up in minicamp), sign him to a 7-year max-bonus contract.

Sign them to a maximum bonus, minimum overall contract when they are x years in the league.
HB: 2 years
LB/CB/SS/FS: 3 years
QB/FB/WR/TE/Dline: 4 years
OL: 5 years.
K/P: 8 years. But in my opinion, you should never give a kicker/punter a new contract.

This means they are traded away before their decline:
HB: 8 years in the league.
LB/CB/SS/FS: 9 years
QB/FB/WR/TE/Dline: 10 years
OL: 11 years.
K/P: 14 years - again, kickers/punters can't be traded and should never receive a second contract, as you will build a new kick-off guy in camp.

This means they play for you when they are at their peak when they play for you and you will trade them for maximum ROI before they start to decline.
If you wait too long, they will be on the roster when they are declining. If you trade them too early, there's more than one season left on their contracts, an you will eat a bigger cap penalty.

This strategy gets you draft picks in return and minimizes the impact of the contract during the years. You will get a bonus penalty, but that's compensated by the fact that you signed them to a cheap contract anyway.

If you have cap space, sign free agents to minimal bonus contract and trade them for draft picks.

If you have roster spots and your franchize has this +35 AWR thing going on in the offseason, sign low-AWR but high-OVR free agents/players to maximise their trade value.

Roster management:
The most important stat for a player other than specialists or linemen is SPD, for linemen it's STR. For linebackers STR is nice also especially if you play 3-4.

Move (fast) cornerbacks to safety.
Which means: you never have enough fast (96+ speed) corners/safeties.

Move strong linebackers to D-line and increase their strength in minicamp.

Move tall (and fast) wide receivers to TE. Megatron is a good example.

Use a fast but weak handed WR as your backup runningback. They don't see the field much anyway, and just don't do stupid things when he happens to be in there.

You need 7 offensive linemen (2 for sub packages). The rest is filler- don't overpay them.

If you have a franchise QB signed up, get a young low AWR QB with good THA (accuracy). Work him up in minicamp and trade him for draft picks.

Old backups are a waste of roster space.

Sign your draft pick in free agency. Not after you have drafted them. Yes, this is a risk. But you will be offering 7 year, max bonus but minimum overall money.

Game strategy:
Never punt.
Play 3rd downs as if you would 2nd downs.
Never kick field goals.
Always go for 2. (check your profile success rate)
Pass on first down. Run on first down in the second half and you are leading the score.
Because we don't ever punt and never kick field goals, we have a punter and a kicker who just do kickoffs. Therefore: never give kickers or punters a new contract. Always have a kicker who's good and a punter that is being worked up in minicamp. When the latter is good enough, simply release the first and sign a new guy to a 7 year max-bonus minimal contract. Rinse repeat.

[Theov]

Player attributes (assuming you play yourself, and not let the ai play or sim) in order of importance:<br>

OFFENSE

QB:
THP and SPD. THA is overrated and can be increased.
AWR is nice when you play with the cone ON but this increases over time too.

HB. SPD, AGI and BTK.
CTH and CAR are important too. AWR is not important.

FB. Either STR and RBK (for a blocking FB) or SPD and CTH for a receiving FB. A converted HB with speed is a matchup nightmare.

TE. See WR. Sub your TE out for linemen when running.

WR. SPD and CTH.
AGI is a nice to have. Jumping and ACC are nice but not needed if they are fast enough.

OLine. STR, AGI. PBK is secondary. RBK and ACC after that. SPD is nice for pulling guards. I never saw AWR have much effect in linemen.

[Theov]

DEFENSE:

CBs (and FS and SS for that matter): SPD, ACC, AGI -> then CTH and TAK. AWR is nice if you play a lot of zone, but AWR grows over time, so other attributes are more important.

Off Ball Linebackers: SPD, ACC, TAK. STR is nice against blocks. AGI is nice to have but not the biggest thing to look for.

DLINE: STR, ACC. Then TAK and AGI. I always look for 3 or 4 high-STR guys, 90+ and plug the middle. The rest of the team has to swarm around behind it.

Kickers and punters are not important. You should have one guy with a lot of KPW for kickoffs. Other than that you should never kick or punt a ball.