First Class Coach Management

Welcome to the latest installment of the MyFootballNow.com tutorials!  Today we're going to discuss your coaching staff.  What do coaches do in MyFootballNow?  What should you look for?  And how do you best pursue them?

On your team's home page, you will see your coaching staff listed in the right column.  Notice that you have a head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and 9 position coaches.  Each coach will display his rating for his given position.  The higher the rating, the more desirable the coach will be for his position.

Let's discuss the coach ratings.  Each coach has a value for each attribute that your players have.  Unlike players, your coach's attributes have a single number - no current/future split exists.  Like players, those numbers will move throughout a coach's career.  When coaches are introduced into the system, they will tend to average near 50 at all the attributes; as a coach ages, he will diverge from those values.  In the same way that players boom and bust, some coaches will increase, others will decrease and most will hover around their original values.

When you open a coach's card and look at his ratings, you will see some ratings in blue and some in red.  The red ratings are the ratings that are applicable to his current position; a head coach will have all red ratings, while your kickers coach will only have ratings relative to kicking.

During training camp and each game stage, your players will improve in their attributes.  This is tied directly to their coaching staff hierarchy above them.  The influence of his position coach is 20%, his coordinator's influence is 30%, and his head coach's influence is 50%. Kickers have a 50/50 split between head coach and kicker's coach. The more influence a player has from his coaching staff, the faster his current value will approach his future value.

Your head coach has one other very important part to play - he brings your playbook to your team.  Each coach has an offensive style and defensive style.  When searching for a replacement head coach, you will want to consider his coaching style and whether you want to bring that playbook into your team. By hiring a new coach with the same coaching style as your existing one, you will retain the advantage of your players knowing the playbook.  On the other hand, if you don't like your head coach's style, you can replace him and let your team learn the new playbook.

So, that's what coaches do in a nutshell; not terribly complicated. How do you go about managing your coach's contracts?  Since there is no salary cap for coaches, your funds for your coaches will come from your team's available cash flow, which is influenced by your previous season's attendance.  To further aid you in managing your coaching staff, you will always be able to extend your existing coach's contracts at the salary they currently receive.  But you may not want to keep the coaching staff you have, which means you will need to search for and hire coaches.

The coach search screen gives you the ability to search for coaches with several filters.  If you choose an attribute or position score, you will see that value in the search results.  If you choose a coaching style or team, you will only see coaches that match those options.

Coaches can be hired at any time that you can sign a player.  If you hire a coach in place of an existing coach, the existing coach will be fired. You cannot enter a game stage without a full coaching staff - if you don't have a full coaching staff, the game engine will hire a coaching staff for you.  There is no penalty for firing a coach like there is if you cut a player.  And, you can promote your own coaches within your ranks at any time.

During early free agency, you can also hire coaches that are employed by other teams as long as you offer that coach a promotion.  So, you can hire a position coach into a coordinator or head coach, or your can hire a coordinator from another team as your head coach.  As long as you keep your head coach under contract, no one can hire him from you, but your other coaches are all fair game during this time.  Once the draft starts, you can only hire coaches who are unemployed.

When you offer a coach a contract, you will open up the contract calculator screen.  You can choose the coach's first year salary, the position you are signing him for, and the number of years his contract will be.  At the top you will see your cash flow.  The green bar indicates how much of your cash flow is used, the blue bar indicates how much is pending, including the contract you are currently working on. Unlike players, you cannot make offers that will exceed your cash flow.  At the very bottom you can see each coach position and what the average salary for those positions are.  If you're not in a potential bidding war with other teams, there is no reason to pay more for your coach than the minimum salary.  Note, however, that while players may take a few stages to decide who they will sign with, a coach will always sign for the best offer at his first opportunity.

If a coach is currently employed, he will not sign for less than he is currently making.  This includes coaches on your staff.  To extend or promote a coach, you must at least offer him his current salary.

Lastly, I want to point out a few things on the coach's page.  First, if you want to see a coach's trending, like the players you can view his progress chart.  Another neat feature is the history of the coach - in the right column (and in the coach's card, for that matter) you can see the entire career of the coach - where he coached in what years and his record while he was there.

Thanks for reading this installment of MyFootballNow.com tutorials!  As always, let me know if this has been helpful, if you have any questions, or if there is a topic you'd like to see discussed.  If you haven't yet joined a team, come on over!  We'll see you at MyFootballNow!