


	Intro Playing the Game Installation Team Names Object of the Game Strategy Teams The Team Menu Offense Dialog Defense Dialog Special Teams Dialog Players The Players Menu Free Agents Trades Find Players College Draft Hall Of Fame Scouting Reports News Pages The News Menu Standings Finances Leaders Games Calendar Playoffs Draft Finances The Budget Menu Tickets Dialog Concessions Dialog Expenses Dialog Tools The Tools Menu City Editor League Editor Stadium Editor Advanced Tools Fantasy Draft Options Game Files The Game Menu New Game Dialog Editing Players Creating New Players Miscellaneous Did You Know?

Football Mogul 26

ROSTER MANAGEMENT

A Football Mogul roster is limited to 100 players. This allows for a full roster of 53 players, plus extra room for injured players, a practice squad, and other players under contract.

Design Note

By giving each team room for 100 players, Football Mogul eliminates the need to follow arcane rules about injured reserve lists, 'PUP' lists, practice squads, and the literally hundreds of pages of rules that govern the rights that teams can have over players and draft picks.

Instead, Football Mogul is built around finding the best talent and (if desired) calling the best plays to build your team into a dynasty.

Roster Spots

Football Mogul requires that you keep at least 53 players, and no more than 100 players, on your roster during the season. During the college draft, you are allowed to have as few as 46 players on your roster, to account for the fact that you can draft players to bring you up to 53 players before the first game of the season.

Salary Cap Calculation

For the purpose of determining if a team is exceeding the league salary cap, only the team's most expensive 53 players are used in calculating total "Salary Cap Impact". This gives you flexibility to find and retain backup (or injured) players without going over the salary cap.

When a team is over the salary cap, it cannot sign players. It also may not conduct trades that push the team over the salary cap.

Roster Distribution

The most crucial players to your on-field success are your starting offense, starting defense, and kicking team specialists. However, it is also important to have a number of 2nd and 3rd string players at key positions. This provides depth for different formations, special teams, and in case of injury.

We recommend you keep more than 53 players signed to your team, to reflect a practice squad and account for injured players.

Optimal Players at Each Position
Position	Players	Position	Players
Quarterback	3	Defensive End	6
Running Back	4	Defensive Tackle	4
Fullback	2	Linebacker	9
Tight End	4	Cornerback	6
Wide Receiver	9	Safety	5
Tackle	4	Kicker	2
Guard	4	Punter	2
Center	2	Total	66

Also, Football Mogul requires a minimum number of players at each position in order to build all the formations (including special teams) used during play (and to adjust for in-gme injuries). If the number of players at any position falls below the following values, Football Mogul will automatically sign inexpensive players from the free agent list before each game, in order to ensure that each team has a complete roster.

Minimum Players at Each Position
Position	Players	Position	Players
Quarterback	2	Defensive End	4
Running Back	2	Defensive Tackle	4
Fullback	2	Linebacker	6
Tight End	4	Cornerback	4
Wide Receiver	6	Safety	4
Tackle	4	Kicker	1
Guard	4	Punter	1
Center	2	Total	50

Expiring Contracts

After the final playoff game, you should scan through your roster and find players with expiring contracts. In the Offense, Defense and Special Teams dialogs, all players at the end of their contract will be shown in parentheses. Release those players you don't wish to renew, and click 'Negotiate' to discuss a contract extension with those players you wish to keep. If your team is over the salary cap, you can get below the cap by releasing players, or by trading more expensive players for cheaper ones.

Any player with an expiring contract who does not sign a contract extension will be automatically released when you choose 'Start Next Season' from the Play Menu.

Cash Management

It is important to maintain several million dollars in cash, to use for paying bonuses and signing draft picks. You can lower the salary cap impact of players you sign by offering a significant amount of their compensation as a signing bonus instead of as salary. This signing bonus is still counted against your salary cap, but it is spread over the length of the contract.

Signing Draft Picks

It is especially important that you end the season with sufficient cash to sign college draft picks in the off-season. If your team finished with a bad record, you will be rewarded with a high draft pick. But you will also need cash to sign this pick -- as much as $10,000,000 or more for the #1 pick.

If you find youself during the yearly college draft without enough money to sign a draft pick, you can use the Trading Block during the draft to trade away your current draft pick -- hopefully for enough cash to bring you out of debt and allow you to sign your next pick.

The "Rosters File" (for advanced users)

If you wish to customize the rosters included with Football Mogul, you can edit the "Rosters" text file. This file is stored in "comma-delimited" format in the folder labelled 'Lahman', and includes the current season in the filename. For example, the file specifying rosters for Opening Day 2008 is called "2008_rosters.csv".

This file contains several columns. The first 7 columns are used when performing the "Import Stats" feature in Advanced Tools.

Column Header	Description
Player_ID	An ID field matching that used in [year]_playerbios.csv. If this field is empty, Football Mogul will use the name listed under 'Lastname' and 'Firstname'.
10_team	The 3-letter abbreviation for the team this player starts the season with.
Unif	The player's uniform number. If this is blank, the player may be deleted from the database to make room for roster players with uniform numbers..
Lastname	The player's last name. The spelling must match the player's name in [year]_playerbios.csv. If more than one player matches the name given, Football Mogul will ignore the line and write the name to a file called "doubles.txt".
Firstname	The player's first name. The spelling must match the player's name in [year]_playerbios.csv.
Pos	Specifies the player's current position. This can be used to override the position provided in the 'playerbios' file.
Injured Weeks	The number of weeks that the player is injured (from the start of the season)

Example: If you wish to have Randy Moss start the 2010 season on the Colts, you should delete 'NE' in the row with his name and replace it with 'IND'. After editing the roster file, click "Import Stats" in the Advanced Tools to create a database with your adjustments.