Weekly Preparation, Part One: Preparing to Prepare

By Alex McLain

So it turns out that the coaches and players for professional football games aren’t actually partying and lazing about Monday through Saturday. They actually have work to do when they’re not suiting up and playing in Sunday’s game. If ESPN NFL 2K5 is to be believed, they actually watch film, attend meetings, do any number of weight lifting or aerobic workouts, have scrimmages and skill drills, and even partake in what the game dubs as “alternative methodology”. Alternative methodology includes such things as meditation, yoga, and even ballet, which I naturally assign every week to all my defensive linemen. You just can’t go wrong with three-hundred-pound linemen in tutus.

Sack or no sack may depend on Weekly Preparation.

Knowing that such preparation is going on in the background is all well and good, but participating in and molding that preparation from week to week is what ESPN NFL 2K5 offers you. Be forewarned, though; using Weekly Preparation in Franchise mode is an extensive procedure. It gets down into the nitty-gritty minutia and is both awesome in its detail and time consuming. Make sure you’re willing to put in the time before you use this feature. If not, no worries, you can turn the option off. What’s more, if you want to give it a go after a while, you can turn the option back on at any time.

For those whose love of all things football knows no bounds, and for those that have an inexorable need to control every nut and bolt of their franchise, read on.

Week One
If you’re like me, finishing the first week of preparation might leave a bad taste in your mouth. My first crack at preparing for the week’s game took me over an hour and a half and I nearly made my entire team worse than it already was. However, that first time you sit down to map out your team’s practice schedule will become the foundation for all successive weeks. It’s worth taking your time and thinking things out.

Scouting is key.

One initial reservation is the sheer scope of options. You have five days (Monday through Friday) to organize and each day can contain 40 hours of activity for your players. Beyond the sheer amount of time to fill, there are dozens if not hundreds of options to choose from. It’s daunting, but it can be done, and done much easier than you would have initially guessed.

Know Your Players
The purpose of weekly preparation is to improve your team, and more specifically to ready them for the next week’s game. You can’t hope to do either effectively if you don’t understand the strengths and weaknesses of your players. Spend some time with your depth chart. Note your best and worst members, and note what they are best and worst at. Let’s say you have Peyton Manning as your quarterback. His passing rating, power, and accuracy are off the charts, but he’s not the greatest scrambler. Maybe that’s an area you’ll want him to focus on. Look for things like that. You’ve got to know your players to improve them. Don’t worry about memorizing everything, just get the broad strokes down initially.

Know Your Opponent
Understand this: Weekly preparation means just that. You’re not preparing your team for the rest of the season. You’re getting them ready for their next game, and that’s it. Yes, you may want to have some overriding themes for your weekly practices, but much of it should be dedicated to preparing specifically for your next opponent. Before you begin assigning tasks for the week, take a long look at the Scouting option. There are four different categories to look at when scouting your opponent. Here’s what they are and what they’re good for.

Getting ready to juke, thanks to the Tire Drill.

• Opponent Match-Up: This is a broad look at how you stack up against the opposing team. You’ll see season stats for points, total yards, rushing yards, and passing yards, as well as how many points and yards your defense has given up. You’ll also see a Head-to-Head chart showing which overall aspects of your team are better, worse, or tied (a push) with the other team.
  Opponent Analysis: This breaks down different match-ups between you and your opponent. You can check out how your DBs match up against their Wide Receivers, how your Offensive Line stacks up against their Defensive Line, and so on and so forth. The detail gets deep here, so make sure you comb through it and understand where the holes in the match-ups are. That’s what you’ll want to focus on during the week’s practice.
• Primetime Players: This shows you the opposing team’s four best players. Star players carry and control games, so make sure you’re prepared to deal with their best.
• Injury Report: This simply details who is injured on both teams. It’s good stuff to know, but don’t let an injury on their side lull you into complacency.

That about covers what you’ll need to know to prepare for Weekly Preparation. In Part Two, we’ll look at specific strategies when picking out the week’s activities.

Comments about this article?