When I first started, I posted in a thread in MFN-2 regarding a suggestion on the implementation of scouting mechanic, and thought I'd re-post it now to the suggestion sub-forum for discussion.

Introducing Your Scouting Department!

What I propose is first to include either one of two systems.

1) A new staff position (Head Scout). Hired from a separate pool (to avoid coaches and scouts bouncing between roles, which would just be silly), they could either share the same attributes as the standard coaching staff or have ratings by position group (ie QB, WR, TE, HB, OL, etc). Players would also be able to specify how their scouting department allocated its time via a 1-10 metric for each position group (also, as a wild card suggestion: a slider for how much focus to spend on "Major Prospects" versus "Lesser Prospects"? That is, do you want your scouts focusing on vetting the top tier players projected to go early, or instead trying to scour the small schools for hidden gems).

2) Your scouting department gains experience over time based off of how you have them weighted. If you consistently have CBs weighted at 10, and HBs at 0, over time your scouting department will become naturally superior at quickly and accurately evaluating new CB talent, while simultaneously getting worse with HBs. At any time during the pre-Training Camp stage of the season you can fire your scouting department for a clean slate.

The two ideas could also potentially be implemented in tandem, with your Head Scout's initial talents molding over time to reflect their actual duties and expectations.

How it Works

New draft classes would now be generated at the start of the regular season, and as they are initially created the estimated attribute ratings of these players would have a moderately to significantly high margin of error (this includes static attributes such as speed, strength, etc). As the year progresses, the range drift on the draftees would begin to tighten to a more realistic representation (as your scouts work, the players play, combine/pro days happen, etc), the degree to which would reflect your scout's abilities in that area as well as how highly that position was weighted for their evaluation. By end of season spin, this shift would be completed, and however you view the players would be thereafter set until you get them into training camp.

In this system, you should have a very accurate view of those positions that you weighted highly and for whom your scouting department was best at scouting. On the flip side, you may very well end up sitting at the end of the second round looking at a seemingly highly rated DE, but since you had set your scout to 0 for DEs it may very well end up that the reason he fell so far is other teams DID scout him and found out he didn't live up to his hype.

Overall Impact

The result should be subtle, because no one likes too much gambling, but thanks to the variability it would be a very nuanced way of differentiating each player's perception of the draft class, which most definitely reflects the reality of the real league (just ask Jerry Jones about Manziel, compared to all the other QB hungry teams that ended up passing on him). It also introduces second guessing as a player slides: did I misevaluate this player? Did everyone else see something I didn't? Perhaps most importantly, it also allows for more 'late round steals' as potentially gifted players slide out of focus.

This is a very intriguing Idea.

I really like it as long as all teams have the same level of scouting available, otherwise you can have the top teams getting the best scouting and then this would again defeat the purpose of balanced and fair play.

So what would work is as soon as the new season started teams could set those scouting skills whether its early round picks or later or as you said CB over HB. Then as the FA period goes they will get a better view of the players in the draft. In this way they can get a better reading on the talent if he might be a bust or a gem but still not with exact certainty of course. You could have it start when draft classes are first generated but in all fairness that would be a disadvantage to new owners and another thing that would discourage a new owner from joining.

But it all is still a very good Idea Ares. I give a thumbs up on it either way

Yes, my idea for having a Head Scout or overall scouting department rating wouldn't so much be for some teams to have objectively 'better' or 'worse' departments (ie one Head Scout having 60 total points allocated versus another having only 40), but rather that each would possess different starting skill sets that would evolve over time. If I was taking over a team, for instance, and wanted to implement a 'build out from the lines' philosophy, I might try to find a scouting director who had high ratings for scouting OL and DL. That said, the bulk of the scouting idea could easily be implemented without an individualized Head Scout or scouting department.



The AI for CPU controlled teams should do a fairly decent job of evaluating its roster and adjusting its scouting settings accordingly, so I only think this could potentially be an issue if a bad prior owner made terrible decisions, but that's a risk with any aspect of the game. It's also a reality of the NFL. Any new coaching staff is going to come into an organization with the existing scouting department in place that operated under the previous administration's guidelines. New GMs and coaches almost always are forced to wait until after their first draft to implement any changes to their scouting department.

I think the biggest pratfall of having scouting occur in the five days immediately preceding the draft is that it's too short a time for users to reasonably be able to evaluate their draft boards and make informed decisions. I personally really wouldn't want to have to wait until the night before the draft to have final evaluations in on my prospective draftees. I'd also really love to see the draft class evolve over time during the season, especially so if I were taking over a bad team that wasn't yet competitive (it's probably no secret that my favorite part of the game is the draft, haha).

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

I understand now, so the draft class for the upcoming season could actually be released even earlier then the playoffs and then this would work very well. I think it should be anyways because in the NFL teams know at the start of the season who is available for the most part for the next seasons draft, they may not know the exact talent but they know who is pretty much available and scouts are already out there as soon as the college season opens.

Would also help teams with deciding if trading those draft pics away the season prior to draft is worth it as well.

I am really liking this idea

I wouldnt be opposed to have scouting days during the FA period as well, maybe like each team is allowed to bring in 5 players a day

As far as the weighted scale for drafting positions I would include with that, if a player at that position i'm targeting in the first round doesn't have say a 90 potential rating (because it was a popular position of need for a lot of teams) when my pick comes up, to go after another position, say my second position of choice if the rating meets my requirements.

I could see next years draft class list be available at pre season.This would allow us too review the draft class and plan trades before the trade deadline.If we started too use scouts.