Guides

Where: Create your player, Home, Player FAQ

You are one football player on a team in a league that plays real games on a schedule. You do not control him play by play: you shape him, and the game engine plays him.

1. Create your player. Pick a position, an archetype (your style of play) and a body. Every rookie starts as a backup; the team with the most room at your position signs you.

2. Train every day. Your training plan (one to three ratings and an intensity) trains on its own every day, and checking in once a day, one tap on home, adds a full session on top. A short visit each day beats a long one once a week.

3. Earn your spot. Your coach puts players on the depth chart by how good they are and how much he trusts them. Home shows where you stand, such as "#4 at RB": number 1 starts, the rest wait their turn.

4. Watch your team play. A few minutes after you create your player, he starts a short preseason debut that never counts. After that, Watch shows your team's live game, or its next one when that starts within 24 hours, and otherwise its most recent finished game, play by play. Snaps you play add game experience, which counts toward your ratings as you train.

5. Look around when you want to. For your first seven days, home starts with a short first-week list that ticks itself as you go. My player has your ratings, contract and game-day instructions; the league menu has standings, stats and news. Each page has its own "How it works" panel, and every guide is on the Guides page, including a Player FAQ for the questions new players ask most.

Where: Home, Your player page, Player FAQ

For your first seven days, counting the day you create your player, home starts with Your first week: six steps that set you up: make your first check-in, choose your training plan, read Start here, find your spot on the depth chart, set game-day instructions and watch a game of your team. Each one links to its place.

Each step ticks itself when you do it: a check-in, saving your plan on the Train page, opening Start here from the list, opening your team page, saving instructions for a game, and opening the Watch tab of one of your team's games once it has kicked off (your preseason debut counts). Nothing is lost if you skip a step, and there is no streak.

When every step is done the list puts itself away and you earn a badge, First week done, shown with your other badges on your player page. It is a small thank-you: it changes no rating, and it is never money.

Under the steps sits one extra line, See your first pay on Thursday. It is not one of the steps: it ticks when your first pay lands, which can be after the first week, and it never changes the count or the badge. Your inbox also tells you the day your first pay will arrive when you join, and what it earned and bought when it lands.

Tap Hide this list to put it away for good. It also goes once the first week is over. The Player FAQ, under this panel and on the Guides page, answers the questions new players ask most.

During that week, Training sits at the top of home, and My player shows your name, ratings, plan and what to train next first, with everything else under More.

Where: Guides, Home

What is Depth Chart, and what do I do first? It is a fictional football career game: you are one player on a team in a league that plays real games on a schedule, and the game engine plays him while you shape him. First create your player (a position, an archetype for your style of play, and a body), then save a training plan and check in. Start here and Your first week, both in the Guides, walk you through the rest.

What do my player's numbers mean? Each rating is one skill, such as Speed or contested catch, and higher is better. Your overall is one number built from the ratings your position uses, and it is mostly what your coach ranks players by. Fatigue is how tired you are: above 40 you play a little worse and get hurt a little more often.

How do I train, and how often should I check in? Your training plan (one to three ratings and an intensity, on the Train page) trains on its own every day. Checking in once a day adds a full session on top, so a day you check in trains 5 times a day you do not. A short visit every day beats a long one once a week, and the check-in opens again at midnight Denver time.

What happens if I miss a few days? Nothing is lost: your plan keeps training every day you are away, and there is no streak to break. After 14 days without signing in the plan pauses until you come back, and you keep every rating. Come back after two or more days and home starts with a short catch-up of what you missed.

When are games played? Main league games are on Sundays at 1:00 PM and 4:25 PM Eastern, and development league games, where backups get snaps, are on Saturdays. Your very first game is a preseason debut that kicks off eight minutes after you create your player and never counts. The Schedule page lists every game, and Add to calendar puts your team's games in your own calendar.

How do I watch, and will anything spoil it? Watch opens your team's live game, its next one if that starts within 24 hours, or its latest finished game. A game plays out over about 68 minutes, halftime included, and its score, stats and news stay hidden everywhere until it has finished playing out. Above the field you can pick the top-down view, a 3D sideline camera or a camera behind the quarterback.

How do I become a starter? Your head coach orders the depth chart by how good each player is at the position and, as a small tie-breaker, how much he trusts you; number 1 starts. Train every day, play clean to build his trust, and open "Why am I #N at your position?" under your spot on home to see what would change it. Each offseason rosters grow to 90 for training camp and are cut to 53, so keep training through camp.

Can I change teams or move up? Ask for a trade on your player page, once a season before the trade deadline (the front office decides), or wait for your contract to run out and pick from the free agency offers. You can also ask your coach to move you to a related position; he can approve one move a season. Lower leagues with promotion and relegation are not open yet.

What is the Money page? Your player is paid his salary once a week, on Thursdays at midnight Denver time, and the services on your plan (such as a trainer and a physio) are paid at the same time. A rookie's pay covers the standard plan with money left over, and if money runs short your services step down instead of going into debt. Every dollar is in-game only: it is never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

What else can I spend money on? Beyond your plan you can buy a car, a house or custom gear (for show only), a foundation, a local business that pays a small return, a publicist, an offseason training retreat, a youth camp and honors such as a stadium plaque once your record has earned them; every effect is small and capped, and every return is shown before you buy. Insurance pays part of your pay while you are hurt; nobody has it until they pick it, and it pays back only after more than four weeks hurt in a season. Until you have earned four weeks of pay, the Money page shows these and your plan first. There is no income tax.

How do contracts and free agency work? You start on a rookie contract. When it runs out you get up to three offers, your own team's among them if it bids, and three days to pick; if you do not pick, you sign the first one listed, and if nobody bids your team re-signs you. On the offers card you can tell your agent what matters most (loyalty, a ring or money) and counter an offer before its deadline.

What is a manager or an owner? A manager sets a team's depth chart and game plan, and an owner runs its money: ticket prices, facilities and the coaches' budget. Neither is open to players yet, so the teams are run by their computer coaching staffs and front offices.

What is the draft, and the draft day room? Once a year, right after the championship game, the teams pick new prospects over seven rounds, worst record first. The draft day room shows it live as it airs over about 30 minutes, and no pick shows anywhere before it airs. A player you create skips the draft and signs straight onto a team.

How do injuries work? Every snap carries a small chance of injury, a little higher with age and when you are very tired. About 77 of every 100 injuries cost two games or fewer, and the offseason heals everyone. While hurt you cannot play but still train lightly, and your inbox says how many games you will miss; better equipment lowers the risk and recovery staff shorten the time out.

What are the inbox, the league paper, records and clips? Your inbox on home lists the newest 20 things that happened to you and your team. The league paper comes out each week once every game has finished, and the Records book keeps the league's and each team's records. Share clip, on a play in a finished game, makes a public link that replays that one play and shows nothing about your account.

What can other people see, and what is private? Your player, team, ratings, training choices, game results, messages and history are part of the league, and the privacy policy says: "Most of this is visible to other players in the league. Your email address is not." Only you see your coach's trust meter and your agent's read on an offer, and the community pages are for signed-in league members only. For fair play Depth Chart keeps a scrambled code, never your network address: "A signal is deleted 90 days after it was last seen."

Do I need to pay? No. The Terms say: "The Game is free." Contracts, salaries and money inside the game "have no cash value", and sign-up is by invitation: "While the Game is in testing, only invited email addresses can sign up."

How do I change my name or email, or delete my account? There is no settings page for changing your player's name or your email: your player keeps the name you gave him when you created him. On deleting, the privacy policy says: "There is no delete button yet, so deletion is a manual request. Ask through the Feedback button where you see it, or email support@nectarlyyours.com, and we will delete your account, sign-in details and player. Games already played are part of the league's history and stay."

How do I report a problem or another player? Every post someone else wrote has a Report button; reports go to the admin only, and nobody else sees who reported. The Terms ask for "One account per person." and ask you to report a bug instead of using it; the Contact section at the end of the Terms page has the address to write to. The fair-play check only lists possible shared accounts for a person to read: "nothing is banned automatically."

What happens when I retire? There is no retire button: your player retires at 40, or earlier if his overall falls more than 12 points below his best. Then he can take a job as a position coach or a scout, your next player can be his son (a family story with no head start), and one full season later he is voted on once for the Hall of Fame, which takes 40 points.

Where: The menus at the top of every page

The top bar has a Menu for the view you are in, a League menu with everything league-wide (Standings, Schedule, Playoffs, Red zone channel, Stats, Leaders, News, League paper, History, Trophies, Owners, Legends, Record book, Awards night, What's new and Community), Guides, and your Account with Sign out. In the Player view the Menu has Home, Train, My player, Money, Team and Watch. Watch opens your team's game: one being played first, then your next game if it starts within 24 hours, and otherwise your latest finished game.

Manager mode is still being built and is open only to the admin for now. Someone who manages a team and also has a player gets a Player | Manager switch at the top left. The site remembers the view you picked last on this device and opens it next time. Someone with only one of the two sees just that view, with no switch. Signed out, you still get the League menu.

In the Manager view the Menu has Dashboard, Roster and depth chart, Game plan, Finances and Scouting and draft. Coaching staff joins it in a later phase.

The Dashboard puts what needs the manager this week in one place: picks on the depth chart that cannot play (injured, not eligible, or already starting) and how many starting spots you set, the next game's plan with how many levers you set, which you can change until kickoff, and your team's injury report. Anything you leave unset is the AI coach's call.

Where: Your debut, Home

Eight minutes after you create your player, your team plays a preseason exhibition against another team in the league, and your coach gives you the start at your position. You watch it like any game, play by play, over about 24 minutes.

It never counts. The result is not in the standings, your stats, the records, your badges or the Hall of Fame, nobody can get hurt, and it changes nothing about your ratings, form, fatigue, trust or contract. The same game engine plays it as every league game.

As in every game, nothing shows before it happens: the score and box score fill in play by play, and your grade, the film room and one suggested training focus open when the game ends. Only you can open your debut.

Where: Train

Your training plan runs every day, whether you sign in or not. Pick one to three ratings and an intensity, and change them whenever you like. Each day the plan trains 25 percent of a full session, split across your ratings, so one focus grows fastest and three spread it out.

Checking in adds a full session on top: open Train and tap Check in, once a day (it opens again at midnight Denver time). A day you check in trains 5 times a day you do not, so a player who checks in every day pulls clearly ahead within a season. Nothing is saved up for later: a day you miss is simply a plan day.

Intensity: light trains 70 percent of normal and adds no load, so fatigue falls every day (a light week is a rest week); normal keeps a starter around 30; hard trains 20 percent more and pushes a starter toward 76. A full game adds about 8, and every day 12 percent of your fatigue wears off. Above 40, every rating plays a little lower in games (up to 2 points at 100) and the injury risk per snap rises (up to 30 percent more). Your fatigue is on this page and on the game preview.

If you do not sign in for 14 days, your plan pauses. You keep every rating, nothing else is lost, and it starts again the day you are back. While it is paused your personal trainer is not paid, since there is nothing for him to work on.

Gains are bigger while you are young and below your ceiling, and get smaller as a rating gets high. Snaps you play in games add game experience, which your plan and your check-ins work into your ratings.

Under your ratings on the Train page, Your progress draws every rating over the last four weeks, one small line each, with its change written under it, and a coach's note for the last seven days. The note says which ratings rose or slipped and how much. It gives a reason only when your training record shows one: the rating was in your focus, or a check-in worked game experience into it. Otherwise it says it does not know. It reads your training record only, and leaves out the day of any game still playing out and every day after, so it never shows a game's effect early.

Saved sessions are gone. Any you had waiting when the plan arrived were worked in once, at their old value of 50 percent of a session each.

While your own game is playing out, the check-in waits until it ends. If you are injured you still train, lightly: half of each gain sticks. A rookie can be paired with a veteran mentor (29 or older, at his position on his team), worth 6 percent more from every session and plan day that season, a retired player coaching your position group on your team adds 3 percent, and a personal trainer on your Money page adds a little. Effort matters far more than money.

Where: Your player page

Before each game you can set two instructions for your position, such as taking shots downfield or staying disciplined. Each has two options plus your natural game, which is how your ratings already play it and changes nothing.

Every option trades one thing for another; none is free. On average across opponents no option beats your natural game. The right one against a given opponent gives a small edge, and the game preview has a one-line hint about which way this week's matchup leans.

Instructions apply only to the game you set them for. They lock at kickoff: after that you cannot change them, and the next game starts again from your natural game. The recap says when one paid off or backfired.

Setting the option the preview's hint leaned toward also earns 1 point of coach's trust after the game. If you are a backup, you can also set them for your team's development league game; a starter cannot. If your position changes, instructions saved for games not yet played are cleared, so set them again.

Where: Your player page

Your head coach keeps a trust meter for you from 0 to 100. It starts at 50 when you join a team, and starts again at 50 if you move to a new one.

After each main league game you play, it moves. Your grade against the usual for your position moves it up to 2.5 points either way. A clean game of 10 or more snaps with no turnover or flag adds 0.75, and setting the instruction the preview hinted at adds 1. Each turnover costs 3 (1 for a fumble your team recovers), each accepted flag 1.5, and each badly missed assignment (a beaten block, a missed tackle, a catch allowed, a dropped pass) 0.4, at most 2.4 a game. Development league games do not count.

After each game it also drifts part of the way back toward 50, so recent games count most and one bad game fades.

The coach uses it as a small tie-breaker on the depth chart: a full meter is worth 1 overall point and an empty one costs as much. It can win a close position battle but never outweighs a real ratings gap. To build it, play clean: protect the ball, avoid flags and do your job on every snap. Only you can see your meter.

On home, open "Why am I #N at your position?" under your depth chart spot (it reads "What keeps me the starter?" when you start). It uses the same ranking the coach does and tells you, in plain words, how you compare with the player next to you and what would most likely change it. It never shows the other player's form or trust.

Where: Your player page

Captains. Before the first game of a season every team votes two captains for offense, two captains for defense and one captain for special teams. They wear a C patch for the season and a captain adds a little discipline, so a team with captains draws slightly fewer flags. If you play for a team, your player page has a ballot until the vote closes: pick a teammate you would follow for each unit, change your picks until kickoff, and leave a unit blank to give your vote to the teammate you respect most. Rookies cannot be captains and nobody votes for himself. Computer players vote for the teammate with the most respect, which comes from his overall, his seasons with the team, his age and his coach's trust.

Chemistry. Your player page lists the teammates you have built familiarity with, counted in main league snaps played together: a quarterback with the backs, receivers and tight ends he throws to, and linemen with the men beside them. More familiarity means a few more completions and fewer sacks. It is small, and it is not the same as the locker room mood your postgame interviews nudge, which is for show. If you change teams you keep 30 percent of it, and every offseason it fades to 80 percent.

Mentors. Before a season's first game a rookie at a position where his team has a veteran of 29 or older is paired with the best one, one rookie each. The rookie gets 6 percent more from every plan day and check-in that season. Both players see the pairing on their pages.

Position changes. On your player page you can ask your coach to move you to a related position. The page shows your overall at each one, from the ratings you have now. The coach says yes or no at once: he approves a move when you would still be useful there and the team can spare you. He takes one request a season, and you cannot ask while your team's game is playing out. Your career stats stay split by position, and game-day instructions saved for games not yet played are cleared when you move.

Where: Your player page

When one of your main league games stands out, because of a big stat line, a top grade for your position or a takeaway-sized play, the press wants a word. You get an inbox note once the game has finished playing out, and a link on your player page. Development league games never bring one.

An interview is two or three questions, each with four answers in different tones: humble, confident, team first and fiery. You can answer whenever you like, and it is the same questions every time you open it. There is no wrong answer, only a tone you prefer.

Each answer nudges your popularity and your team's chemistry a little, by amounts the interview page lists. Popularity helps you get endorsement offers. Team chemistry is the locker room mood, shown on your player page and for show only: it never changes a game, and neither does popularity.

Skip any interview you like. Nothing is lost and there is no streak.

Where: Your team page

On the Monday after the championship game the draft airs and every team fills a 90-man camp roster. Camp lasts the whole offseason, about 33 training days, and on the new season's first Saturday each team cuts down to 53.

Who stays is decided by camp score: your overall, plus a little for recent form and for potential (youth, and for this year's draft picks, where they went in the draft). During camp your team page shows the positions where the cut line is close.

Humans can be cut like anyone else. Two exceptions: a player who signed up after camp opened, and a kicker, punter or long snapper in his first camp, who is kept as an extra player that season.

If you are cut, you go on waivers. A team that would keep you over its weakest player at your position claims you. If nobody does, you are a free agent with no team or salary: keep training, because teams look at free agents every Sunday, and if none signs you, you enter the next draft. The best protection against a cut is training every day of camp.

Where: Tap a grade in your game log

The film room is a tab on the game page of any game your player was in. It opens when the game has finished playing out, so it never gives away a play before you see it.

It lists the snaps that moved your grade most first, each with the grade, the reason in plain words and a Watch link; every snap you were graded on is under All snaps. What the film shows picks out patterns from this game only, such as how you did under pressure, or how many one-on-ones you won next to everyone else in the game doing the same job.

The suggested focus comes from your graded mistakes: the skills behind them, counted only when two or more mistakes point at the same skill and they cost at least 1 grade point between them. Train this focus picks those ratings on the training page for you; it never trains by itself, and you can change the pick.

Your snaps, next to the film room, is the short version of the same grades: every play you were on the field for as good, okay or rough, with a filter and a Replay button on each play. It uses the film room's grades, so a position whose jobs earn little when done right, such as a lineman's, shows mostly okay.

Film for older games is not kept snap by snap, only their box scores, so study your games while they are recent.

Share clip, next to a play here and in the Play-by-play tab of a finished game, opens a public page that replays that one play with the score and clock. Anyone with the link can watch it, and it shows nothing about your account.

Where: The film room tab of a finished game you played in

What if sits at the bottom of the film room. Pick one of your runs or passes from scrimmage, pick one instruction to play it with instead, and the game runs that play 300 times as you played it and 300 times with the change: the same players on the field, the same down, distance, spot, clock and score, the same play call against the same defense.

You see how often each way gained 4 or more, the average gain, how often it picked up the first down, how often it was a big play and how often it ended in a turnover. On defense these are still the offense's numbers, so lower is better for you.

A single play is luck as much as skill, so it never shows one rerun. The real play was one draw from the same spread. Each rerun of one option uses the same draw as the matching rerun of the other, and a change smaller than the noise note says could be luck of the draw.

It is learning only. Nothing about the game, its stats, your grades or your coach's trust changes, and it opens only once the game has finished playing out. Players are rated as they are today, with the form they had at kickoff, so the same question gives the same answer until someone's ratings move.

Only instructions that act on the play are offered: throws and pressure for a quarterback on passes, running style for a back on runs, routes for a receiver, and so on. Kicks, tries, kneels and spikes cannot be rerun. To keep the game quick for everyone, each player can ask for 10 new answers a minute; answers you already asked for show at once.

Where: Watch a game: the call shows under the scoreboard

Every run and pass is a real play call: the offense picks a concept, such as Inside Zone or Mesh, and the defense picks a coverage, such as Cover 3 or a blitz, before the snap and without seeing the other's call. The Watch tab shows both under the scoreboard ("Shotgun Mesh vs Cover 3"), and the play-by-play and the film room name them too.

The coaches call plays the way NFL teams do: outside and inside zone are about half of all runs, play action about a quarter of passes, screens about one pass in ten. Defenses play Cover 0, Cover 1, 2-Man, Cover 2, Tampa 2, Cover 3, Cover 4 and Cover 6; a blitz sends extra rushers, and Cover 0 always does. A team's game plan tilts its defense toward man or zone and one or two deep safeties, and its run and pass lean, deep shots and heavy sets change the offense's mix.

No play is best against everything. Against the league's usual mix of coverages every play comes out about even; what changes is the matchup. Good and weaker here mean next to the other runs, or the other passes, against the same coverage. Runs: Inside Zone: the line steps together and the back reads the first down lineman for a hole between the tackles; good against 2-Man, Cover 4 and Cover 6, weaker against Cover 0, Cover 1 and the blitz. Outside Zone: the line reaches to the sideline and the back presses the edge, cutting back when the defense overflows; good against Cover 0 and Cover 2. Duo: double teams on both interior defenders, the back running downhill at the linebackers; good against Cover 4, weaker against Cover 0 and Cover 2. Power: a gap scheme: the backside guard pulls and leads through the hole the down blocks open; good against Cover 1 and Cover 3, weaker against Cover 0, 2-Man, Cover 2, Tampa 2, Cover 4 and Cover 6. Counter: a false step one way, then two pullers lead the back back against the flow; good against Cover 0, Cover 1, Cover 3 and the blitz, weaker against 2-Man, Cover 2, Tampa 2, Cover 4 and Cover 6. Draw: it looks like a pass: the line sets, the rush runs upfield, and the back takes a delayed handoff under it; good against Cover 4, Cover 6 and the blitz, weaker against Cover 0 and Cover 1. Toss: a pitch to the back to get him to the edge fast, with the line and receivers sealing inside; good against Cover 0, Cover 1, Tampa 2 and the blitz, weaker against Cover 4.

Passes: Slants: quick three-step slants: the ball is out before the rush gets home, into the window inside the corner; good against Cover 0, Cover 4 and the blitz, weaker against Cover 2 and Tampa 2. Mesh: two shallow crossers rub past each other underneath, with a sit route and a back in the flat; good against Cover 0, Cover 1, 2-Man and Cover 4, weaker against Cover 3. Screen: the rush is let through and the ball goes behind the line to a back or receiver with blockers in front; good against Cover 0, Cover 1, 2-Man, Cover 4 and the blitz, weaker against Cover 2 and Cover 3. Smash: a hitch outside and a corner route over it: the corner in Cover 2 cannot take both; good against Cover 2, Tampa 2, Cover 4 and Cover 6, weaker against Cover 0, Cover 1, Cover 3 and the blitz. Flood: three routes at three depths to one side, a clear-out, an out and a flat, overloading the zone there; good against Cover 2, Tampa 2 and Cover 3, weaker against Cover 0, Cover 1, 2-Man, Cover 4 and the blitz. Four Verts: four receivers go deep, stretching the deep zones; the back checks down underneath; good against Cover 2 and Cover 3, weaker against Cover 1, 2-Man, Tampa 2, Cover 4 and the blitz. Play Action: a run fake pulls the linebackers and the safety in the box forward, then the throw goes behind them; good against Cover 3, weaker against Cover 0, Cover 2, Cover 4 and the blitz. A quarterback sneak is for third or fourth and 1.

My route (on the Watch tab) draws your player's route or assignment as the play develops: solid where he has been, dashed for the rest of the play's design up to the throw or the handoff, so it never gives away how the play ends. It starts on when your player is in the game. Watching someone else's game, turn on Routes and tap any player to see his. Your own game-day instructions still matter on every call: a defender told to play the run bites hardest on play action, and one told to pin his ears back is what draws and counters punish.

Where: Create your player

Once your player has retired, your next player can be his son. Tick the box when you create him. Sons usually carry the family name, but any name works.

It is a story link only. Both players' pages say so ("Son of" and "Father of"), and that is all. The son starts exactly like any other rookie: the same ratings, the same contract and the same backup spot he would have had without the box ticked. If his father coaches his position group on his team, that coaching adds nothing for him.

Where: Your player page

A badge marks something a player did on the field: a first touchdown, a first sack, a 300-yard passing game, a 1,000-yard season. Each one shows the date and the game, with a link to its box score. Firsts and big games are earned once; season badges once a season, from the regular season.

They reward playing and training, never money: no badge can be bought, and none gives any boost. Development league games count for firsts, since that is where backups play. A badge shows only once the game it came from has finished playing out.

The badges by position. Every position: first start, game changer, led the way and return touchdown. QB: first touchdown pass, first 300-yard passing game, four touchdown passes and 4,000-yard passing season. RB: first touchdown, first 100-yard rushing game and 1,000-yard rushing season. WR and TE: first touchdown catch and first 100-yard receiving game. WR: 1,000-yard receiving season. TE: 750-yard receiving season. OT, OG and C: first win as a starter and ten starts in a season. DE, DT and LB: first sack. DE, DT and S: first forced fumble. DE: 10-sack season. DT: 6-sack season. LB: 100-tackle season. LB, CB and S: first interception. CB and S: first pick six and 5-interception season. K: first field goal, first 50-yard field goal and perfect day. P: first punt inside the 20, 60-yard punt and pinned them deep. LS: first long snap, 100 career long snaps and 250 career long snaps.

Where: Your player page, Watch

When one of his ratings reaches a milestone, a player unlocks a signature move. The Watch tab shows it when a play gives him the chance, with the move's name and his number in the corner of the field: a running back spinning away from a missed tackle, a receiver catching one-handed, a pass rusher swimming past his blocker on a sack.

A move is only a picture of what his ratings already do. The game engine decides every play first, and the move changes nothing about how it turns out. It uses his ratings now, so a replay of an old game shows the moves he has today.

The moves, with the rating that unlocks each. QB: pump fake (pocket presence 80) and back-shoulder throw (deep accuracy 85). RB: spin move (elusiveness 80) and hurdle (agility 85). WR and TE: one-handed catch (catching 85). WR: toe-tap catch (route running 80). TE and WR: stiff-arm (break tackle 80). OT, OG and C: pancake block (run blocking 80) and anchor (pass blocking 85). DE and DT: swim move (finesse moves 80) and bull rush (power moves 80). LB and S: big hit (hit power 80). LB: shoots the gap (pass rush 80). CB: jumps the route (ball skills 80) and press at the line (press 85). S: ball hawk (ball skills 80). K: big leg (kick power 85) and ice in his veins (composure 85). P: coffin corner (punt accuracy 80) and hang time (hang time 85). LS: laser snap (snapping 85).

Where: Your player page

The timeline charts your overall, or any one rating you pick, for each day of this season, from the snapshot taken each day you train.

Stars along the bottom mark your best games of the season, up to three: the games where you added the most to your team's chance of winning. Purple squares with dashed lines mark each day you changed your training plan. The lists under the chart say the same in words, with links.

A game shows only once it has finished playing out. Every season, under the chart, shows your whole career.

Where: Your player page

The career timeline writes your story for you, one plain sentence per moment, such as your first start, your first touchdown, an award, a record you set, a season mark like 1,000 rushing yards, a move to a new position or team, your draft pick and a championship. Nothing to fill in: it reads what the league already recorded.

Seasons are listed newest first, and so are the moments inside each one. The newest two seasons are open and older seasons are folded away, so tap a season to open it. A long season shows its latest moments and folds the earlier ones. Every line starts with a short word for its kind, such as First, Award or Record, so you never need to tell colors apart.

A moment that came from a game appears only after that game has finished playing out, so the timeline never gives away a result early. Your contract signings and trade requests show on your own page only. Anyone can open another player's page, and there it lists only what that page already makes public.

Where: Your player page, Watch

Gear is a small cosmetic touch on a player's figure in the game viewer, in both the top-down and sideline views, and it is listed under Gear earned on his player page. It is only ever earned from what he does on the field, it is never sold, and it is never random. It changes nothing about how a game plays out. The custom gear, celebration packs and locker setups on your Money page are something else: lifestyle items bought with in-game salary, shown on your player page under Off the field and never on your figure in a game.

The gear, and what earns each piece. Gold wristband (a gold band on each forearm): Score your first touchdown (any first touchdown badge, or the First touchdown or First touchdown pass milestone). Milestone sleeves (a teal stripe on each upper arm): Reach a season milestone, such as 1,000 rushing yards or 10 sacks in a season (a season badge or a season milestone). Rookie visor (an amber visor on the helmet): Win Rookie of the Year. Helmet star (a gold star on the helmet): Win Most Valuable Player, Offensive or Defensive Player of the Year, or make the All-League first or second team. Title patch (a gold star patch above the right shoulder): Win a championship as a starter (enough regular season starts that season to qualify for an award).

Gear follows the record as it stands now, so a replay of an old game shows the gear he has today, and nothing shows until the game that earned it has finished playing out.

After a touchdown he scores, a player celebrates for about 1.8 seconds, always friendly and never aimed at anyone. His position picks the group and a number made from his player id picks the celebration inside it, so he does the same one every time. Quarterbacks, running backs, receivers and tight ends: big hop, point to the sky and happy spin. Offensive and defensive linemen: flex and big hop. Linebackers and defensive backs: point to the sky, flex and happy spin. Kickers, punters and long snappers: big hop and point to the sky. A gold wristband adds a burst of gold sparkles. You do not pick yet.

With Reduced motion on, a celebration is one still frame. It is drawn on the scorer only and does not change how long a play takes.

Where: Your player page, League news

The writers notice a run, not one game. A player earns a nickname when 3 of his last 8 league games this season were big games of the same kind. Playoff games count; development games do not. For the rarest kinds (returns, ball hawk and touchdowns), 2 are enough.

What counts as a big game. Returns: a kick or punt returned for a touchdown. Touchdowns: 4 or more touchdowns of any kind (thrown, run, caught or returned). Ball hawk: 2 or more interceptions, or an interception returned for a touchdown. Kicking: 4 or more field goals. Pass rush: 2 or more sacks. Tackling: 12 or more tackles. Hands: 100 or more receiving yards, or 3 or more touchdown catches. Running: 100 or more rushing yards, or 3 or more rushing touchdowns. Arm: 300 or more passing yards, or 4 or more touchdown passes.

The nickname comes from a fixed list for what he did, picked the same way every time from his player id and the season, and no two players in a league hold the same one at once. Every one is checked against real team names, real athletes' known nicknames, brands and offensive words. A player holds one at a time.

Once he has one, game recaps, the weekly paper and news stories may call him by it, once in each, like Marcus "The Anvil" Hale. It shows on his player page and in his career timeline.

If your player earns one, you get an inbox note and a choice on your player page: Keep or Decline. You have 7 days, and no answer keeps it. You can decline once in your career. A declined nickname is never shown to anyone, and you get no other that season; a new run in a later season can earn a different one. Until you answer, only you see it. Players run by the computer simply get theirs.

Nothing shows until the game that completed the run has finished playing out. A nickname is words only: it never changes ratings, the coach's trust, the depth chart or any game.

Where: Home

Each day a beat reporter asks you one question about your team, your position or your next opponent. Pick one of three answers: team first, back yourself, or keep it simple. A new question comes each day at midnight Denver time.

Your answers are quoted on your player page, the latest three, so other players hear your voice. That is all an answer does: it changes no rating, no money, no popularity and nothing in any game, so there is no right answer.

Skip it any day you like. Nothing is lost and there is no streak to keep.

Where: Your player page

A rival is another player run by a person whom you have met on the field: at your position on the other team, quarterback against quarterback, or across the ball, you on offense and he on defense or the other way round. Kickers, punters and long snappers have rivals only at their own position.

Your record against him is your team's results in the games where you both played. Your page lists your top three, most meetings first, with a link to the latest. A game counts only once it has finished playing out.

Where: Your player page

Your legacy score is your Hall of Fame score worked out now, against the 40 points the Hall of Fame asks for. MVP is worth 12, player of the year on offense or defense 7, rookie of the year 2, comeback player 1, All-League first team 4 and second team 2, and each player of the week 0.5. Each league record you hold adds 3, every 100 points of career impact in the regular season 3, and each title 2 and playoff trip 0.3 in seasons you started at least 11 regular season games.

It counts only what has finished playing out. The real vote happens once, the season after you retire, on your whole record, so the score is a guide, not a promise. Money never adds to it.

Season goals are targets you set yourself on your player page, up to three a season, such as 1,000 rushing yards, eight starts or an All-League team. Each shows your progress from finished regular season games. They are only a tracker: no reward, and nothing lost if you miss one.

Where: Your season in review

When a season ends, home offers your season in review: games, stat line, points added, team record and finish, awards, best games and how training changed you, with a card sized for a phone.

The share page is a link anyone can open without signing in. It shows only your player's name, position and team and what he did on the field: nothing about your account, email, money, contract or training plan.

It opens only once the season is over and the champion crowned, so it never gives away a game still playing out.

Where: Home

Come back after two or more days without signing in and home starts with a short catch-up: how many days your plan trained, your team's results from games that finished while you were gone, your overall then and now, and any new badges. It stays for the rest of the day.

Missing days only means missing check-ins. Your plan keeps training every day you are away, for up to 14 days; after that it pauses until you are back, and you keep every rating. There is no streak and no penalty for being away. Other players keep training, though, so a long break can let someone pass you on the depth chart.

Where: Your player page, Endorsements

Popularity is a number from 0 to 100 on your player page: how well known you are. It is worked out from what fans have seen, in six parts: this season's play (25 points), your last four games (15), big moments such as touchdowns, sacks, takeaways and long plays (15), awards (15), your team's success (15) and the market your team plays in (15). Your postgame interview answers add or take away a little.

Moments in a close win (by eight points or fewer) and in the playoffs count 1.5 times as much. A winning team and a big market help more the better known you already are. Linemen have few counting stats, so being a starter on the depth chart stands in for them.

Popularity moves only when a game has finished playing out, so a game still on can never change it. A game you missed because you were out injured is left out, not counted as a game with no stats, so a long injury does not drag it down. It never changes a game: it only decides how much brands want you.

From popularity 40 up, brands can make you an offer. Once a league week there is a chance of one: 8 percent at 40, rising to 40 percent at 100. Local brands start at 40, regional at 55 and national at 70, and a deal runs 8 to 16 weeks for a local brand, 13 to 26 weeks for a regional brand, 26 to 52 weeks for a national brand. The pay ranges are on your Finances page.

An offer says the brand, the weekly pay and the length. Accept it, decline it, or negotiate. Negotiating is one try: the brand raises its pay by 10 to 25 percent, or walks away and the offer is gone. Your chance of a raise is 40 percent at popularity 40 and 70 percent at 100, and a negotiated offer is the brand's final one.

You can have three deals running at once, one per kind of brand, and two offers waiting. An offer you do not answer within two weekly settlings lapses; nothing is lost and there is no streak. Deals pay each week with your salary, in in-game dollars only: never real money.

Where: Home

Your inbox is on Home and lists the newest 20 items, newest first. Each is labeled by what it is: depth chart, your game, training, around the league, legends, injury, contract, training camp, your team and money. Tap a title to go to the page it is about.

Items about a game are written when it is played but appear only once its reveal ends, so the inbox never gives a result away early. Around the league and Legends items are shared by everyone in your league; the rest are about you.

Your list starts the day you join. League results from before you joined are kept under Earlier league news, a fold under the list, and never crowd the top.

If you are hurt in a game, an Injury item says what it is, how many games you miss and that light training still counts. A game you missed injured says so in your game item and in the film room ("You were out injured"), instead of "not on the field", and so does your weekly email.

Your inbox only informs. There are no streaks, no counters and nothing you have to clear.

Where: Injury report, Your plan

Every snap a player takes carries a small chance of an injury, a little higher with age (3 percent more risk for each year of age in the later part of a career). Hard training raises it too: at the top of the tired scale the risk is 30 percent higher. Better equipment lowers it: custom fitted 4 percent lower, premium 7 percent lower, best available 9 percent lower. A hurt player leaves the game.

Most injuries are short. Of every 100 that happen, about 45 cost no games (a stinger, cramping), 32 cost one or two, 17 cost three to six, 4 cost seven or more, and 2 end the season. The offseason heals everyone.

Recovery staff shorten an injury: none 15 percent longer, physio the normal length, recovery team 10 percent shorter, full recovery staff 15 percent shorter. A physio is part of the standard plan.

While you are hurt you cannot play, but you still train, lightly (see the training guide). The game page and your inbox say you were out injured, and you come back for the first game after your injury runs out.

Insurance pays part of your weekly pay on top of your salary while you are hurt, and costs a share of your salary a season: Covered 50 percent for 4 percent, Plus 70 percent for 6 percent, Full 90 percent for 8 percent. Nobody has cover until they pick it (the choice starts at None), and each pays back its premium only after more than four weeks hurt in a season, so it is cover and not a way to make money. The money guides explain it fully.

The injury report lists every team's players who are out, your own team first, with the injury, the week he was hurt, and a line such as "Out 2 more games, back for Week 9" or "Out for the season". A player hurt in the latest week gets a New tag. An injury appears only once the game it happened in has finished playing out, so the report never gives away a result.

Where: Schedule, Your team page, Watch

If you have a team, the schedule opens on My team: your team's season, one line a week, with byes and its development league games on Saturdays. Whole league shows every game, week by week, with a link to jump to this week. Any team's page links to that team's own schedule.

A score shows only once its game has finished playing out, about an hour after kickoff, so nothing is spoiled. A game being played shows Live; playoff games appear once their matchups are set.

Every team page has a Games card: its next few games and its last few results, main league and development league.

Watch, in the Player menu, opens your team's game when one is on. If none is, it opens the next one when it kicks off within 24 hours (its countdown and preview), and otherwise your team's most recent finished game, so there is always one to watch.

You do not need an account to watch. Without one, Watch shows the games being played now (or the next kickoff) and the latest finished games, each in the same viewer. It is read-only: no chat, no player view.

Where: Schedule (My team), Your team page

On a team's schedule and on its team page, the Add to calendar card has a subscribe link, the feed link and a Copy link button. Subscribe opens your calendar app (phone or desktop) and adds the team's games as one calendar. If you would rather paste it in, copy the feed link and use your calendar's add by URL option.

Nothing is added until you do this yourself. The feed lists each game with the opponent, home or away, the kickoff time (your calendar shows it in your own time zone), a three hour block and a link to the game. Your calendar app refreshes it about once a day, so new weeks and playoff games appear on their own.

The feed holds game times only: never a score, a result or a stat, and a finished game looks the same as it did before kickoff. A playoff game appears only once its matchup is set, the same as on the schedule page. The feed is the same for everyone and needs no sign-in, because a team's schedule is public.

Where: Any game preview, from the schedule

Every game is played in the home team's city with weather drawn from that city's normal climate for the month: temperature, rain or snow, and wind. Domes are always indoors. A retractable roof closes for rain or snow, below 50 degrees, above 85, or in wind of 20 mph or more.

The game preview shows the forecast and what it means, and the forecast is exactly what the game gets. The field shows rain, snow and a badge with the temperature and wind, and the recap mentions weather when it mattered.

What it changes: rain and snow make passes, catches and kicks harder and add fumbles and muffed punts, heavy rain or snow more so. Wind above about 10 mph cuts into passes (deep ones most) and punts, and wind above about 8 mph into field goals (long ones most). Snow falls only at 34 degrees or colder, and real cold stiffens kicks and hands.

What it does not change: the wind's direction is shown but does not help either team, and coaches call the same plays in any weather. You cannot change the weather, but a wet or windy forecast is worth weighing when you set game-day instructions. Development league games have weather too; the All-Star game has none.

Where: A game's box score, Your player page

Every play changes each team's chance of winning. It is worked out from the score, the clock, the down, the distance and where the ball is, and nothing else: how good the teams are is not part of it, so a big play counts the same for an underdog.

Win chance added gives each player a share of every play he was on the field for. The swing is shared among his team's players by what each did, the same way points added is: the passer, the runner, the target and the kicker carry the most, and a player who won or lost his own matchup carries more than one who did neither. A flag before the snap, such as a false start, goes to the player who drew it.

A team's players add up to its result (a win counts 100, a tie 50) minus its chance at the opening kickoff: about plus 50 for the winner of an even game and minus 50 for the loser. What no player on a team earned, mostly the other team's flags before the snap, shows as Not credited.

It shows in the box score, in the recap and on your player page, for example "+14% win chance, team high", only once a game has finished playing out, so it never gives away an ending.

Where: Watch

A snap is your moment when your player is on the field and the game hangs on it: when three points either way, a field goal's worth, would move the win chance at least two times as much as on an average snap. Late in a close game most snaps are; early in a game or in a blowout, few are.

The Watch tab tags each one Your moment as it comes up: under the field while the play runs, on its card in the commentary, and in the play-by-play view. Your player's card counts them so far.

The tag comes from the situation at the snap, never from how the play turns out, so it gives nothing away. Moments are in the app only: there are no notifications.

Where: Watch

After the field shows one of the game's big moments (touchdowns, safetys, interceptions, lost fumbles, blocked kicks and replay reviews), it pauses and the play runs again at half speed from a second camera, a tight shot that rides with the ball. Field goals and extra points do not get one.

Skip replay takes you straight back to the game, and the Instant replay button under the field plays a big play again whenever you like.

With Reduced motion on, plays never replay on their own; the button still works. A replay only ever shows a play the field has already shown, so it gives nothing away.

Where: Watch

Officials sometimes get a close call wrong: a catch or no catch, a fumble or down by contact, the spot at the first down marker or the goal line, an interception. The game plays out what really happened, and the officials' ruling on the field is what counts unless a review changes it.

A head coach can challenge a ruling that hurt his team. He gets 2 challenges a game and a third if he wins both, he needs a timeout left to throw the flag, and a challenge he loses costs him that timeout. Coaches cannot challenge after the two-minute warning of either half or in overtime; then the replay official decides what to look at. Every close touchdown and turnover is reviewed by the replay official, never by a challenge.

On the field you see a red banner (Coach challenge and the team, or Booth review), then the referee's ruling: The ruling is overturned, or The ruling on the field stands. The play text, the play-by-play and the call then say what the final ruling is and what it leaves, such as "the ball was short of the line to gain, so it is 3rd and 1". The replay that follows shows the play again under review. The play-by-play, the stats and the box score always count the play as finally ruled, and a review never shows before the play it belongs to.

A replay does not settle every call: some are not clear enough, and the ruling on the field stands. And not every wrong call is challenged, so now and then one stands that the replay would have changed.

Each head coach has his own habit: an aggressive coach throws the flag on more close calls, a conservative one saves his challenges and timeouts. You can read a head coach's habit and his record on challenges on his coach page. Players and managers do not challenge in this version; the coach decides.

Where: Watch

The 3D view draws the same plays as the top-down field: a painted field with the home team's logo in the end zones, goal posts, a stadium, and simple board-game players in team colors with their numbers on their backs. The ball is drawn at its real size, so it is small from far away: it spirals on passes and turns end over end on kicks, and in a wide shot a faint trail follows it through the air so you can keep your eye on it.

It shows only what the field has already shown, so it never gets ahead of the game. Play, pause, speed and the play steps all work as before, because the 3D view follows the same clock.

Above the field, pick Top-down, 3D sideline or Behind the QB. The 3D sideline camera sits high on the sideline and slides with the ball. The camera behind the quarterback sits low behind the offense and looks down the field. Your pick is remembered on this device for a year, and it replaces the older Sideline camera button.

Until you pick, a large screen (a laptop or a tablet held sideways) starts in 3D sideline, and a phone or a slower device starts in the top-down field, which is lighter on the battery. The picker above the field is always there, so any device can switch to 3D at any time.

Between plays the offense huddles a few yards behind the ball, the quarterback in the middle calling the play, then breaks with a clap and jogs to the line. The defense lines up, and often shifts just before the snap. On some plays a receiver or tight end goes in motion and arrives at his spot right at the snap. Players far from the ball, like wide receivers after a long play, go straight to their spots. In the last two minutes of a half the offense skips the huddle.

The huddle fits in the short walk to the line the field already had, so the game clock and every play are exactly as before; it only looks quicker at a faster speed and slower in slow motion. Skip to snap, next to the camera buttons and under a 3D replay, jumps straight to the snap of the play on screen.

A seven-person officiating crew works the game, as on TV, in 3D and on the top-down field: the referee in the white cap behind the offense, the umpire, the down judge and line judge on the line at the sidelines, the side and field judges and the back judge deep. They signal what the play's result already shows, and only once it is on screen: both arms up for a touchdown, a point toward the goal for a first down, arms waved low for an incomplete pass, a time out, and the referee's signal for the foul after a flag, which lands where the foul was. On field goals and extra points the two officials under the posts raise both arms for good or wave it off low for no good; on a miss the one on the side it went by waves first. A bean bag marks a fumble or where a punt is caught, the chain crew moves the chains after a first down, and on a close one the chains come out for a moment. None of it changes a result or makes a play longer.

Every player is drawn from his real height and weight: linemen are big and wide, receivers and corners lean, and kickers and punters smaller, with lighter pads and a single-bar facemask. The home team wears dark jerseys and the visitors white, as in the NFL: the home jersey is the team's darkest color, the away jersey white with numbers and trim in team colors, and both teams' helmets carry their crest from the logo builder on each side. Up close, as in a replay or behind the quarterback, a player's last name shows on his back above his number. The uniforms are generic, made only from each team's colors and crest.

The stands fill to the game's real attendance, the same number Team Stats shows once the game kicks off, so a winning team at a fair ticket price plays to a full house and a struggling one sees empty seats in the upper rows and the corners. Home fans wear the home colors and the visitors have a small block of their own on the far side. The home crowd gets on its feet on third and fourth down when the home team is defending, and each team's fans stand for its big plays, but only once the play is over and the result is on screen. Late in a blowout, sections start to empty, and the fans who leave do not come back. Opened before kickoff, the stands show a typical crowd until you reload.

Each team has its own sideline, as in the NFL, and the bench across the field from the camera is drawn (the near one would block the view). The players not on the field stand, sit, pace, and look at tablets on the benches, in their team's colors and numbers, with the head coach and the coordinators in caps and headsets with their play sheets, a few staff, coolers, a kicking net, equipment trunks, and heaters on a cold day or fans on a hot one. More of the bench stands on third and fourth down, in the red zone and late in a close game, and the whole bench jumps up with arms raised on its team's touchdown, but only once the play has shown it. Players coming on or going off jog between the field and the bench before the snap. Above the field, Watch from picks the home or the away sideline: the camera moves across the field and the other team's bench is the one you see. If your player is in the game you start on the other team's side, so your own bench is the one you see, and your pick is remembered on this device. On a slow device the sideline is the first thing drawn more simply, and it goes before the crowd does.

With Sound on above the field, the 3D view adds a thump when the ball leaves the kicker's foot, a short chime after a touchdown with the words "Touchdown" and the team's name at the top of the picture, and a lift in the crowd that follows how big the play was, louder for the home crowd on its team's scores. All of it is made in your browser, plays only once the play is on screen, and stays off until you turn Sound on. With Reduced motion on, the crowd holds steady instead of swelling.

When your own player makes a big play (a touchdown, sack, interception, field goal, a catch of 25 or more yards in the air or a diving catch, or a gain of 20 or more yards), a name graphic appears at the bottom left for about four seconds with his name, number, position and his stat line through that play, like 12 YDS, 3 REC, 1 TD. It shows only after the play is on screen and works on the top-down field too.

Each home team plays in its own city's stadium: a dome, an open-air bowl with light towers, or a retractable roof that is closed for rain, snow, real cold or heat and strong wind, and open otherwise. The end zones are painted in the home team's colors with its nickname, with orange pylons at the corners and padding in the home color on the goal posts. Outdoors you see the game's own weather: rain or snow falling, flags behind the end zones and the streamers on top of the goal posts blowing the way the wind blows, and in the cold the players' breath on the close camera shots. In rain or snow the field gets muddier as the game goes on, counting only the plays already shown. A late kickoff gets darker through the second half and the stadium lights take over, at the same times as on the top-down field. Under a roof there is no weather and the light never changes.

The big moments get their own beats. Watched from the opening kickoff, a game starts with the coin toss: the captains meet the referee at midfield, he flips the coin and it lands between them; the play-by-play says who won. When the clock passes two minutes in the second or fourth quarter, a Two-minute warning banner goes up. After the half's last play the teams jog off to their sidelines and a halftime card shows the score and the first half's team stats, worked out the same way as Team Stats from the first half only, and the teams come back out for the second half kickoff. None of it changes a play, and none of it appears before the field has shown it.

After a touchdown the scorer's teammates mob him: the first few to get there close in for a hug, a pat on the helmet, a leap or a high five. A player run by a person does his own touchdown celebration, the same one the top-down field shows; everyone else celebrates with arms up. Nobody taunts.

If this device cannot draw 3D or the picture stops drawing, the top-down field comes back at once with a short note. If the device is only slow, the 3D view does not give up quickly. It ignores the first few seconds while the page settles, then, if it stays under 27 frames a second for about eight seconds of play, it lowers its own quality one step at a time (the sidelines' and the officials' detail first, then pixel ratio, weather particles, the huddle's small gestures, the crowd's detail and the names on the jerseys, the huddle itself and the helmet crests, shadows, then the crowd, until players simply walk to their spots; body types stay at every step) and watches again after each step. A screen held at 30 frames a second (a phone saving battery, for one) counts as keeping up. Only if it drops under 20 at the lowest step does the top-down field come back, with a note and a Show 3D anyway button, which keeps 3D on this device from then on. If you opened the page with ?view=3d it never switches away for being slow: it keeps drawing at the lowest quality and says so. A paused game or a hidden tab is never counted as slow, and nothing about the game changes.

Where: Watch

Every replay can be watched in 3D: the instant replay under the game, Replay on each snap in the film room and in Your snaps, and the play clips you share. Under the replay, pick a camera and a speed.

Sideline is the TV angle from high on the near sideline. End zone looks back up the field from the stands behind the end zone the offense is attacking. Behind the QB sits low behind the offense. Skycam hangs high over the play and follows the ball. Each camera pulls back or widens on its own so the ball stays in the picture, even at the top of a punt.

A play that ends in or near an end zone adds two more cameras: Pylon, low in the corner pylon at the goal line, and Goal line, on the goal line extended and looking straight along it, so you can see whether the ball broke the plane. Those replays open on the goal line camera unless your last pick on the page was Top-down or Pylon.

Pick 1x, 0.5x or 0.25x to slow the play down, and change camera or speed while it runs: the replay carries on from the same moment. Top-down shows the flat field instead. The replay opens on the camera you watch the game with, and keeps your last pick for the next replay on the same page.

A replay shows only plays you have already been shown: the same plays, with the same result, as the flat replay. It never shows a play before its moment in the game.

If this device cannot draw 3D, or 3D runs slowly, the replay shows the flat field with a short note, the same as the 3D game view, and Show 3D anyway works the same way.

Where: Watch

Sound is off until you tap Sound off above the field to turn it on, and this browser remembers your choice. It plays with the field view.

Each play ends on the official's whistle. The home crowd roars for its team's touchdowns, turnovers, sacks and gains of 20 yards or more, and groans when the visitors make them. Under it all the crowd builds through a close game, a game within 8 points, and is loudest late in the fourth quarter and in overtime.

The crowd reacts only once a play is over, never while it is running, so the sound never hints at how a play will end. Every sound is made in your browser, so there is nothing extra to download.

Where: Red zone channel

While the 1:00 PM and 4:25 PM (Eastern) windows are being played, the channel shows one game at a time in the normal game viewer, with a ticker of every game in the window above it. No account is needed.

It cuts to a game when a team has the ball inside the other team's 20, and again inside the 5; right after a score or a turnover; in the last 5 minutes of a one-score game; and on any snap with at least 2 times the average win chance at stake, the same measure as Your moment. The game on screen is held for at least 30 seconds, and the channel only leaves it for a game that is clearly hotter, so the picture does not flick about.

Tap a game in the ticker to stay on it. The channel then holds there until you tap Follow the action. Switching starts the new game at its newest play, as live.

The channel follows the same spoiler rules as the game viewer. It only ever knows plays that have already played out. While a game is live, the ticker shows its quarter, clock and where the ball is, but not its score, and a cut after a score, a turnover or a close finish is labelled only as a big moment. A final score appears only once the game has finished playing out, and no stats are shown until then.

Where: Watch, Red zone channel

The score bar above the field shows the score, the quarter and clock, the down and distance, and who has the ball. Under it, a row of small bars shows each team's timeouts left (each half starts with three, and overtime with two) and where the ball is.

Under the field, the drive chart lists every play of the current drive in a strip: the yards gained or lost, Inc for an incomplete pass, Flag, Sack, a punt or kick, and TD or FG when a drive ends in points. A line under a play marks a first down. The play on screen shows only its down and distance until it is over.

When your own player makes a play, a banner slides over the bottom of the field with a tag and his game line so far. It shows for a score, a made field goal, a sack, an interception, a forced fumble or recovery, a pass breakup, a gain of 20 yards or more, a third-down conversion, and when he passes 100 receiving yards or 100 rushing yards or 300 passing yards. Plays that hurt him, like a sack taken, are left to the commentary.

Every graphic is worked out from the plays the field has already shown, never from the ones still to come, so none of them gives anything away. They change nothing about how a game plays out.

Where: Watch, Red zone channel

Under the field, the second screen draws the home team's chance of winning after each play, from kickoff to the play on screen. Higher on the chart is better for the home team, lower is better for the visiting team, and the dashed line is 50 percent. Thin lines mark the quarters, and the top and bottom of the chart never move, so its frame says nothing about how the game ends.

The three plays that moved the win chance the most so far are marked with numbers, and listed under the chart in plain words with the quarter, the clock and how many points of win chance they were worth. A play has to move it by at least 5 points to be marked. In a finished game you are replaying, tap a marker or Go to this play to jump to it.

The momentum meter adds up how the win chance moved over the last six plays and names the team with the edge, for example "Momentum: Owls (clear)". It always says the team in words, never by color alone, and it reads "even" when neither team has one.

A text summary above the chart says the same for screen readers. Motion is off in the meter when you ask your device for reduced motion.

The second screen only knows what the field has already shown. It never runs ahead of the picture, and a win chance for the final result appears only when the field shows the end of the game. The win chance is the same model behind Win chance added and Your moments, and it changes nothing about how a game plays out.

Where: Watch, Red zone channel

Every game has the same two voices in the booth, both invented. Hal Brindle is the play-by-play voice: Quick and plain, in short sentences. He calls what is happening as it happens, gives the numbers, and saves his voice for the points. Dee Marchetti is the color analyst: Explains why, with a lineman's eye for the line of scrimmage and the situation. Dry, never loud.

In the commentary under the field, a small tag with Hal or Dee shows whenever the voice changes. Dee takes the battles at the line, pressure, blitz pickups, hang time and fakes; Hal takes the snap, the ball and the tackle.

Each has a few signature calls: Hal says "Here we go.", "Six points.", "They are going for it." and "And the ball changes hands."; Dee says "That one was won up front.", "Third down is where drives live.", "The field gets short inside the twenty." and "Ball security is the first thing a coach teaches." They come only when the play calls for it, and no call comes back within 6 plays.

The booth only says what the game shows: every kind of play, from a punt to a two-point try, and the moments around it, such as a sack, a third-down conversion, a turnover, a touchdown drive of 8 plays or more, the red zone and the goal line, a fourth-down try or the last two minutes of a half. It also knows the bigger picture: a close finish, overtime, a lopsided score, a rivalry game, a comeback, a goal-line stand, the longest play of the game, and a player going over 100 yards rushing or receiving or 300 passing.

The two have hundreds of lines between them, and a game hears the same remark twice only once a kind of play has used every way the booth has of saying it. Nothing it says changes how a game plays out, and the same game always gets the same commentary.

Where: Watch, Red zone channel

The 4:25 PM (Eastern) game starts in the last of the daylight. From 5:00 PM on in the game's own clock, about 42 minutes for each quarter played, the field slowly dims and the stadium lights come up in the corners, until it is as dark as it gets about 1.5 hours later. The 1:00 PM game is played in daylight all the way through. A game played indoors is lit the same all game long.

In rain the grass turns darker and, where the plays are run, churns to mud. In snow the white cover thickens as the game goes on and is scuffed through to the turf where the traffic is. A dry day shows no wear, and neither does a game played indoors.

Wear builds up from the line of scrimmage of every play so far and where the earlier plays ended, so you can see where a game has been played. It never shows how the play on screen turns out. The sideline camera shows the same wear and lights from its own angle.

Everything here is only how the field looks, drawn from the game's weather and the plays you have already seen. It changes nothing about how a game plays out.

Where: A game's preview

The game preview scouts the other team from its finished league games this season. On offense, how often it runs or passes in each situation: 1st down, 2nd and short, 2nd and medium, 2nd and long, 3rd and short, 3rd and medium, 3rd and long and 4th down. A sack or a scramble counts as a pass call, and a situation with fewer than 5 calls is too few to read.

On defense, how often it sends a blitz when the other team drops back to pass. Then its top three threats, the players who added the most to its chance of winning, with its go-to target and lead back.

It reads only games that have finished playing out. Development league games are left out, since backups play them. If you are in the game, the preview scouts your opponent; otherwise it scouts both teams.

If you are playing in the game, a Your scouting report card adds plain counts of how the other team runs and passes, blitzes, covers, goes for it on fourth down and plays inside the 20, plus the opposing starters across from your position with their overall and one line on what they tend to do against players like you. With fewer than three finished games it says so and shows what there is.

Where: Home, Watch

From 24 hours before your team's next game, home shows a matchup card with the countdown: both teams' records, which way the preview leans, the other team's key man across the ball from you, and whether your game-day instructions are set.

During a game the Watch tab shows how many people are watching it right now: signed-in viewers who have had it open in the last 75 seconds. Only the number is shown, never who.

Once a game you played in has finished playing out, home shows your grade for three days: a letter from A to F for your grade per snap against a usual game at your position. About the best 15 percent of games get an A, the middle of the pack a C, and the worst 10 percent an F. Fewer than five graded snaps get no letter.

With it comes one thing to work on, the film room's suggested focus from your mistakes in that game, and a button that opens your training plan with it picked. It is a suggestion: your plan only changes if you save it.

Where: Highlights

Pick a week, and the main or development league, to see the ten best plays across all of its games. Each links to its game and opens as a replay, and a play of your own player is marked.

A play's score blends how much it changed the expected points and how much it moved the win chance, counting more in a close game: a big play when the game is already decided scores low. A tying or go-ahead score in the last two minutes or in overtime gets a bonus of 5 points, so the plays people remember always make the list.

A week's highlights appear only once every game in that week has finished playing out, so the list cannot give away a game. A week still playing says so. Each game's own page lists its top eight plays the same way.

Where: Standings, Playoffs

The full league has 32 teams in two conferences, Summit and Harbor, each with four divisions of four teams grouped by geography. A league that has not yet moved up to the full format has 16 teams, with two divisions of four per conference; see the end of this guide.

Each team plays 17 games over 18 weeks with one bye: its three division rivals twice, home and away; every team of one other division in its conference and of one division in the other conference (both rotate every season, so you meet every team in your conference at least once in three seasons); and three more against teams that finished in the same place in their divisions last season.

Seven teams per conference make the playoffs: the four division winners, seeded 1 to 4 by record, and the next three records. Seed 1 has a bye, the wild card round is 2 against 7, 3 against 6 and 4 against 5, and the divisional round puts seed 1 against the lowest seed left. The higher seed is at home until the championship, where the conference champion with the better record is at home.

The playoffs take four weeks, then the offseason's four weeks bring the draft and training camp. A league from before the 32-team league keeps its old format until the launch reset: 16 teams, two divisions per conference, four playoff teams per conference and three playoff weeks.

Where: Playoff picture machine, Standings, Playoffs

Tap a team in any open regular season game to pick it to win, tap the other side to flip the pick and tap it again to clear it. Pick all home, Pick all away and Reset change every game at once, and Copy share link puts your picks in the address so a friend sees the same picture. Nothing is saved to the league or to an account.

It starts from the standings and results that have finished playing out, so it cannot spoil a game: a game still being played counts as open. The seed lines use the league's real rules, the same ones that set the real playoff field: the division winners first, then the best other records, with ties on record broken by point differential, then points scored.

Each team gets a plain label worked out over every way the open games could end: clinched the division, clinched a playoff spot, eliminated, or in the hunt. A tie on record counts both ways, because later games will still move the point tiebreakers. When more than 14 open games involve a conference the labels read too early to say, and they come back as you pick games. The seed lines always follow your picks, and a pick adds a win and a loss but no points.

Where: Any team's page, then Coaching staff

Every team has a head coach and offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators. Each coordinator has a style, and his style decides the range of the team's weekly game plan: how much it runs or passes, its personnel, tempo and play calls on offense, its front, blitzes, coverage and safety looks on defense, and its fourth down, onside, squib and punt return choices on special teams. The coaches set the style; nobody can call a plan outside it.

Offensive styles: Power run (downhill gap runs out of heavy sets, and play action off them); West Coast (a short, timed passing game that stretches the field sideways, and outside zone); Air Raid (spread the field and throw: Mesh, Four Verts and Smash, with draws to keep the rush honest); Spread option (zone reads and counters from the gun, with screens and play action off the run); Balanced (no strong lean: the whole playbook, called by the matchup). Each style calls its favorite plays more often, from 0.7 to 1.5 times its usual share. Defensive coordinators play a 3-4 or a 4-3 front, are blitz-heavy (blitz lean from -0.1 to 0.5) or coverage first (-0.5 to 0.1), and call man or zone and one or two deep safeties, never the other. Special teams styles: aggressive (goes for it more on fourth down near midfield, tries onside kicks earlier, squibs less and returns more punts); balanced (the usual fourth down, onside, squib and return choices); conservative (punts more on fourth down, waits longer for an onside kick, squibs more and fair catches more punts).

No style is better than the others: each one wins about as often as the rest when the rosters are equal. What changes is how the team plays and which matchups suit it.

Every coach also has hidden ratings for play calling, adjustments, development and discipline. Better play callers commit harder to what the matchup calls for, better adjusters react to smaller edges, and better disciplinarians draw fewer flags. They help a little; the players on the field matter far more. Development adds at most 3.2 percent to every training session for the best staff and takes as much for the worst, the same on a plan day and a check-in, so how often you train always matters far more than who coaches you.

A new head coach starts everyone on his team again at 50 on the trust meter, with the reason shown on your player page.

Every offseason the AI teams follow written rules: a head coach with at least two seasons in the job (for the coaches a league starts with, counted from its first season, so no head coach is fired before the second offseason) is fired after 5 wins or fewer, or when his last two seasons together are under .400; a coordinator with at least two seasons is fired when his unit ranks 14th or worse. Coordinators with three or more seasons whose unit ranks in the top 6 can be hired away as head coaches. Coaches retire at 70, and from 64 on some choose to. Every move is in the league news.

Coaches are paid salaries on contracts, shown on the staff page in in-game dollars. They are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out. The team's books pay them every season, and the buyout of a fired coach counts in the season he was fired (see the owner finances guide).

Where: All-Star game

After the regular season the two conferences, Summit and Harbor, play an exhibition on the Wednesday of the first playoff week at 8:00 PM Eastern. Each side has 41 players: 26 starters voted in by the fans, and coaches pick the rest by overall.

Fans of every team vote, and human players can vote too, from the season's first kickoff until the All-Star day begins. Each of your picks counts like 2,500 fans, so players can swing a close race but not a landslide. You cannot vote for yourself, and saving a new ballot replaces the old one.

Players who are hurt, retired or without a team when the rosters are picked cannot be chosen; the next in line takes the spot. Everyone gets an inbox note when the rosters are out.

The game plays out live like any other. It never touches the standings, the playoffs, career stats, records or awards, and nobody can get hurt in it.

Where: Community, Locker room, Forum

The community is for people in the league, the same invite-only group that can sign in and play. Sign in to read or post; nothing here is public.

The locker room is your team's own chat: only players on your team can read it or post in it, and if you move teams you move rooms. The league forum is open to every member, in threads anyone can start.

Posts carry your player's name and team, as they read when you post. A locker room or watch party message can be up to 500 characters and a forum post up to 2,000. Every post goes through the same word filter as player and team names, and a post it catches is not saved: you see why and can reword it. To keep things calm you can post six times a minute at most.

Every post someone else wrote has a Report button. Reports go to the admin only; nobody else sees who reported. The conduct rule says what is and is not fine.

For serious abuse the admin can ban an account from posting. A banned account cannot post in any locker room, the forum or any watch party, and sees a line saying so. It can still read, play the game and make pick'em picks.

Where: Forum, Locker room

Talk football and treat everyone the way you would at a real tailgate: no slurs, insults, threats, harassment, spam or personal details about anyone.

If you see a post that breaks it, tap Report under the post and pick a reason. Do not argue back; the admin reads every report.

What the admin can do: hide a post (it is gone for everyone), send a warning (you see it on the community pages until you tap I understand), or mute someone. A mute lasts 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days or 7 days, and ends on its own; while muted you can still read everything, but not post.

For serious abuse, such as threats, slurs or harassing someone, the admin can ban an account from posting. A ban has no end date: the account cannot post in the locker room, the forum or a watch party until the admin lifts it. A ban covers posting only. A banned account can still read, play the game, train and make pick'em picks, and nobody is banned from the game itself for a post.

A report is never automatic punishment: nothing is hidden until the admin has looked. If you think a warning, mute or ban was a mistake, tell the admin with the feedback button.

Where: Any game's Watch tab, from the schedule

Every league game, development league included, has a watch party: a chat under the field on its Watch tab. It opens 60 minutes before kickoff and stays open for posts until 24 hours after the game finishes playing out. After that you can still read it.

No spoilers, by design. Each post is stamped with the play it was written after, by the server, never by your phone. You only ever see posts written up to the play you are watching, so nobody can post or read anything from ahead of the game.

Watching live, you see posts as they come in. Replaying a finished game from kickoff, each post appears at the play it was written after, just as it did live. You can post while following the game or after the final whistle; during a replay, jump to final to post.

The same word filter, Report button and conduct rule apply as everywhere else in the community.

Where: Pick'em, Pick'em standings

Each week, pick who wins every main league game. There is no money and no prize, in-game or real: it is only for the standings and bragging rights.

You can change a pick as often as you like until that game kicks off. Each game locks at its own kickoff, so the late games stay open while the early ones play. Playoff games appear once their teams are decided.

A right pick scores 1 point. A pick is scored only once its game has finished playing out, so the standings never give a result away early. A tie scores nobody a point and does not count against you.

Once a game locks you can see how everyone picked it. The season standings rank people by points, then by fewest misses.

Where: Life after playing

When your player retires, his career does not have to end there. He can take one job: a position coach on a team, or a scout. It costs nothing and earns nothing, in-game or real.

A position coach coaches the group he played in (quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, offensive line, defensive line, linebackers, defensive backs and special teams) on one team you pick, his last team or any other whose slot is free. Every player in that group there, computer players included, gets 3 percent more from each training session while he holds the job. It is small on purpose: training every day matters far more. Each team has at most one coach per group, a coach never adds anything for your own current player, and game experience is not affected.

A scout gets the scouting desk: how the latest draft picks compare with their scouting grades, where each free agent would start today, and how your current player would fit each team that makes him an offer. The desk only gathers what the league already shows; it never shows a draft pick before it is announced or anything from a game still playing out.

You can choose or change the job once a season, stepping down included. The job belongs to your most recently retired player, and the team page lists its coaches.

Where: Scouting desk

The draft: each announced pick's scouting grade (what the scouts thought his overall was on draft day) beside his overall now. Picks at least 2 points better than their grade are beating it; those 2 or more below are behind it. Up to 8 of each are listed.

Free agents: every player on no team, with his position, age and overall, and the teams he would start for today, judged by overall at his position. Injuries are left out, so the list never gives away what happened in a game still playing out.

Your player's offers: when your current player is a free agent with offers, the desk shows where he would rank at his position on each offering team and the last starter ahead of him.

The desk uses only what the league already shows on its pages, gathered in one place. It does not show players' training habits, other players' contracts, or a pick before /draft announces it.

Where: Rivalry trophies

Every team has two rivals: one in its own division and one in the matching division of the other conference. Each of those rivalries has a trophy, so the 32-team league has thirty-two (a 16-team league has sixteen).

When two rivals meet in the league, regular season or playoffs, it is a trophy game, with the trophy across the top of the game page and the preview. The winner takes the trophy, or keeps it; a tie leaves it where it was. Before their first meeting nobody holds it.

A meeting counts once its game has finished playing out, so the trophy page and the game page never give a result away early. The Watch tab says who held the trophy going in, not who won. The names are working names for now; the league will choose the real ones by a vote once it has more players.

Where: Invite a friend

On Invite a friend, in the Account menu, make a link and send it. A friend who opens it, signs in and creates his player starts his career as a rookie on your team, at any position he picks, with the same ratings, contract and backup spot as any new player.

Roster rules. A team takes at most 6 players run by people through invites; if your team already has that many when your friend creates his player, he joins the team with the most room at his position instead, and is told so. You can have three unused links at a time; each works once and lasts 14 days, and you can cancel one. A link stops working if you leave the team or retire.

After that he is like any other player: training camp, trades and free agency treat him the same as everyone else.

Sign-up is invite-list only for now: a link works only for a friend whose email address is already on the list. The link itself never lets anyone in.

Where: League paper

Once every game of a week has finished playing out, the league paper for that week comes out. Nothing in it can get ahead of the game pages: a week with a game still being played has no paper yet. It covers the regular season, and older weeks stay on the page.

The front page and the game recaps are written from what happened. The recaps are the same ones on each game's own page, for up to four main games: the biggest upset, the meeting of the two best-ranked teams, the closest game and the biggest blowout.

The power rankings use the formula in the closed panel on the page: results, average margin, recent form and strength of schedule, with the club's strength rating filling in early in the season. The player of the week is the player on a winning team who added the most win chance in his game; a tie goes to the player whose team won by more.

Some weeks also have a few storylines: winning and losing streaks, the rookie race, players back from a long injury or a down season, rivalry trophy games, and from the middle of the season an awards watch, which shows who leads each race, not who has won. Weeks with nothing to report have none, and a story only comes back the next week if its numbers changed.

Where: Draft

The draft happens once a year, at the start of the offseason, right after the championship game. It has seven rounds. Teams pick in order of how their season went: the worst regular season record first, then the playoff teams by how far they got, and the champion last.

Every prospect runs a combine first, and the page lists it beside each pick: the 40-yard dash, bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 3-cone drill and shuttle, plus the scouts' grade. Scouts can misjudge a prospect by a few points, so a high grade is a good guess and not a promise. Steals and busts are part of the draft.

Each team has a draft style that stays the same from year to year, shown with its class grades: best player available, need first, athletes and youth. A team that fills needs first can pass on a better player at another position.

The draft airs like a game. It starts when the season rolls over, the picks appear one at a time over about 30 minutes, and the page refreshes itself while it runs. A pick that has not aired is shown nowhere, not even in the player list on the compare page, so nobody learns a team's pick early.

When the last pick is in, every team gets a class grade: A, B+, B, C+, C, D and F. It compares the scouting grades of the players a team took with what the same slots usually bring. An A means 2 grade points or more above that on average, and an F means more than 2 below. The number in brackets is that gap.

Drafted players join their team's training camp, where the cut to the season roster is made (see the training camp guide). A free agent that no team signs enters the next draft.

Where: Draft day room

The draft day room is the draft as it airs. The card at the top shows the team on the clock and when the next pick is due, and the ticker lists the latest eight picks, newest first. The page updates itself when each pick is due, and stops once the last pick is in. No account is needed.

Up next lists the next ten teams in the order, by name only. The order is set by last season's results, so it gives nothing away; who a team takes is never shown before its pick airs, anywhere on the site. A team with no open roster spot passes, and a pass shows only once the next pick is in.

Team needs are open spots on each team's 53-man shape: how many players it had at each position before the draft, plus the picks aired so far, against what a full roster carries. That is the same measure the teams use when they pick, so a team short at a position usually looks there first. The needs only change when a pick airs.

The picks list can be narrowed by round, team and position, and every pick links to his player page and his team. A pick who came up through a youth camp a player funds has a Camp alum tag that links to that camp's page. The full draft page has the combine numbers and, once the draft is over, every team's class grade.

Where: League news

League news collects the week's stories. Storylines are written from the results: streaks, playoff races, milestone chases and more, with the top few here and the rest on their own page. Coaching moves lists hires, firings, retirements and coaches hired away. Front office appears only when a team's finances make news, such as a league loan, a spending limit or a takeover.

Power rankings show the top three teams and open to all of them with a comment on each; the formula is in the closed panel on that page and in the league paper guide. Game previews list the next games, each linked to its preview with the weather. The injury report card counts who is out and links to every team.

Everything here waits for games to finish playing out, so nothing on the page gives away a result early.

Where: Any team's page

Every team in a league has the same salary cap: the most its 53 largest player salaries may add up to. Each league sets its own, once a season at the rollover, at 140 percent of what that league's average roster would cost at today's prices, so it moves with the league's talent (a league of weaker players has a smaller cap). In-game dollars only.

The front office re-signs a player and signs a free agent only when the deal fits under the cap; otherwise the player goes to free agency or to the next team in line. A team that wants to sign a player another team has cut, or to trade for one, needs room for his contract.

Your own team can always re-sign you, even over the cap, so the cap never forces a human player off the team he plays for. Other teams bid only with room under their cap, and an offer is cut to the room a team has, never below what you are worth.

Draft picks, undrafted rookies and call-ups sign rookie deals whatever the cap, because every roster must be filled. A team over the cap cuts nobody and changes no contract; it just cannot add anyone above a rookie deal until contracts run out. There is no salary floor: 53 players at the $400K minimum already cost $21.2M.

Where: Money

Your player is paid his salary once a week, plus any endorsement deals, and the services you pick on this page are paid for at the same time. The standard plan (a trainer, a physio and a shared apartment) is what the league is built around, and a rookie's pay covers it with money left over.

Pay arrives once a week, on Thursdays at midnight Denver time. A new player starts with $0 and gets his first pay on the first Thursday after he joins, so your inbox tells you that day when you join and what the pay earned and bought when it lands. On the Money page a new player sees Your first weeks at the top: what pay is, when it arrives, what the standard plan costs and what is left to save. Each choice in the plan says what it costs a week and what it does compared with the standard plan, and Skip it means you save the money and give up that effect.

If a week's pay and savings cannot cover your plan, services are lowered one step at a time until they can, housing first, and your inbox says which. Nothing ever goes into debt, and your plan comes back when your pay covers it.

While your training plan is paused (after 14 days without signing in), your personal trainer is not paid for those days, since there is nothing for him to work on (a trainer is $2K a week). He is paid again from the day the plan starts again. Your other services keep working while you are away, for games, injuries and age, so they are paid as usual. Being away costs you training, never money.

Every service helps only a little, and the higher tiers add less for their price. Personal staff also come part-time (part-time trainer 10 percent of your pay, at most $1K a week; part-time coach 5 percent of your pay, at most $750 a week; meal plan 5 percent of your pay, at most $500 a week; part-time physio 5 percent of your pay, at most $500 a week; film clips 5 percent of your pay, at most $500 a week): half of what the first full tier does, priced on your own pay, so a rookie on a small contract can afford some help. Effort matters far more than money. These are in-game dollars only; they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Where: Money

Your salary pays for more than your plan. Prices follow your league's level: a lower league's prices are its pay level's share of the top league's. Every effect is small and capped, and the higher tiers add less for their price. Nothing is random and every return is shown before you buy. These are in-game dollars only, earned by playing: they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Lifestyle (a car, a house, custom gear, celebration packs, a locker setup) changes nothing in a game; it shows on your profile. A foundation pledge, paid weekly, adds up to 3 popularity a season, up to 0.01 to your team's fan base and up to 10 legacy points; community events cost $40K each at top-league prices, at most 4 a season. Every 50 legacy points count one point toward the Hall of Fame, at most 2.

A publicist adds a little popularity and makes endorsement offers come more often, at most 1.25 times as often; a freelance publicist costs 3 percent of your own pay (at most $1,500 a week at top-league prices) for a smaller lift. Insurance cover pays part of your pay on top of your salary while you are hurt: Covered 50 percent for a premium of 4 percent of salary a season, Plus 70 percent for a premium of 6 percent of salary a season, Full 90 percent for a premium of 8 percent of salary a season. Nobody has cover until they pick it: the choice starts at None, picking a tier turns on the disability insurance in your plan (Covered is that insurance, the others top it up), and None turns it off. Each pays back its premium only after more than four weeks hurt in a season (Covered 4.2, Plus 4.5, Full 4.6 weeks), so it is cover, not a way to make money.

A local business in your team's city returns a yearly rate shown before you buy: a base, plus a little for your team's fan base and your popularity, never above 8 percent a year, paid weekly. You can sell it back at any time for 80 percent of what you paid.

An off-season retreat makes each session you train in its window count a little more (at most 5 percent), and everything that lifts training together stays under 10 percent: it multiplies your work, it never replaces it. Honors (a stadium plaque, the ring of honor, a statue) can be paid for only once your record has earned them.

Purchases are charged at the next weekly settling. If your balance cannot cover one then, nothing is charged and your inbox says so; nothing ever goes into debt.

Where: Your contract

In free agency you can take less from your own team's offer: up to 12 percent off its first number, in whole percent. The number you take is final, so it cannot be countered back up, and no deal ever goes below the league's pay scale for your rating and level.

You cannot take a discount from a team you manage yourself: nobody sets their own pay. Taking one from a team another account you are linked to manages is something the league's fair-play review looks at.

Taking less rarely helps your team much, since most teams have plenty of room under the cap, and the money you give up is money you could spend on everything else on your Money page.

Where: Money

Pick a hometown from the location list and a camp size on your Money page. At the season's rollover the camp is paid for, and 1, 2, 3 prospects of the next draft class (by size) come from it, each a little better developed. At most 10 percent of a class come from camps.

The draft never sees where a prospect went to camp, so an alumnus helps whichever team picks him, never one you choose. You earn legacy points for each alumnus drafted and each season one starts, and the camp's page follows their careers, showing a pick only once the draft has aired it.

A new player from that hometown can say he attended your camp: it gives him a badge and links you as his mentor, with no boost to his ratings.

Where: Money

Every contract carries incentives by one rule, from your position and salary. Stat targets for the regular season are worth 2.5 percent of salary each: two for most positions (a wide receiver's are 600 receiving yards and 4 receiving touchdowns), one for kickers and punters, and none for linemen and long snappers, since the game keeps no individual stats for them.

All-League First Team pays 5 percent of salary and Second Team 2.5 percent (a first-teamer gets the first-team amount only). Making the playoffs pays 2 percent if you played in 9 or more regular season games.

Each one is paid the day after the game that earns it, once that game has finished playing out, and your inbox says so. The Money page shows a progress bar for each target. A target not reached by the end of the regular season is missed for that season.

The way to earn them is the same as the way to start: train and play well. These are in-game dollars only; they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Where: Your player page

When your contract runs out you get up to three offers. On the offers card you can tell your agent what matters most, with one of four presets (loyalty, a ring and money in that order): Balanced (34, 33, 33), Loyalty (60, 20, 20), A ring (20, 60, 20) and Money (20, 20, 60). Or set your own three weights; they are always scaled to add up to 100.

Each offer gets three scores from 0 to 100. Money: its salary against your best-paid offer. A ring: the team's place in the league's strength order, 100 for the strongest and 0 for the weakest. Loyalty: only your own team scores, 50 plus half your trust there; every other team scores 0. If your team did not offer, the card says so.

Your weights sort the cards and pick the one you sign if the deadline passes. They never change an offer or what any team bids. A starting role still comes first: among the offers where you would likely start, the highest score is listed first, because playing time is what develops you. Save nothing and the order is the same as always: a starting role first, then the most money.

Under every offer that is not the best paid, one line shows the real tradeoff: how much less a season, how strong the team is, and whether you would start. Money changes your services and nothing else. A ring changes your team's results, often with fewer starts. Loyalty keeps your trust, rapport and captaincy history, which a move starts again (trust at 50). Staying earns no extra money and no discount.

Where: Your player page

Before an offer's deadline you can counter it: ask for a salary and a length. Any length your age allows is accepted at no cost. Salary works in rounds: two per offer, or three with any agent.

Every team has a private limit, worked out once when it makes the offer: its first offer plus a stretch of 3 percent, plus 3 percent for each point of need it has at your position (at most two points), plus 2 percent if you would start there. So a team stretches 3 percent to 11 percent. That stretch moves by up to 25 percent of itself either way, a number fixed for you and that team: asking again, reloading or signing out never changes it. A team never goes past its room under the salary cap, though your own team's first offer is always yours.

Ask at or below the limit and the team accepts at your number. Ask above it, but no more than 120 percent of it, and the team comes halfway; in its last round it goes to its limit and calls it a final offer. Ask for more than 120 percent of the limit and the team says it is not a serious number: its current offer becomes final at once. A counter never lowers an offer, and no offer is ever withdrawn, so the worst a counter can do is leave you where you started.

Agent: says whether the team has a little room or is close to its limit. Established agent: a range 10 percent either side of the team's real limit. Top agent: 5 percent either side. The read is honest and only you see it. Fire your agent in the middle of a negotiation and you keep the rounds you used, but lose the extra round and the read.

If the deadline passes, you sign the first offer in your order at its current number, final or not. Negotiating is a small edge on top of what your play is worth; training is what raises your price for good. In-game dollars only: they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Where: Your player page

You can hold out of camp when all of these hold: it is camp (from the rollover to cut day), the coming season is the last on your contract, your salary is at most 70 percent of your market price (what the league would pay you today), you have played at least a season on this deal and never held out on it, and it is not a franchise tag. AI players never hold out, and no game is ever played without you because of one.

While you are out you are not paid for the days you miss, and every service on your plan is still charged, your personal trainer too, with nothing to work on. Your plan does not run and check-ins are closed. When you report, your coach's trust drops 2 for every week or part of a week you were out, at most 10. You are not cut while out, but you come back behind the rivals who trained.

The front office answers at the end of each week. In the first week it does not negotiate with players who are not in camp. From the end of week 2 it offers a new deal if you would start for it, the deal fits under its salary cap, and you are 30 or younger; otherwise it holds firm and says why. The deal: your salary plus 50 percent of the gap to your market price, for this season and one more season at that salary. You can counter it like any offer.

It ends when you accept (you report at once, and the raise starts with your next pay; the weeks you missed are never paid back), when you report on your own, or at cut day, when you report on your old deal.

A holdout pays you early and charges you later. An example, priced by the game's own salary rule: a wide receiver signs his rookie deal at 21, rated 58, for $420K a season. He trains daily, and at 24, rated 74, his market price is $1.18M with one season left. The settlement is $800K for this season and next. Without it he would be a free agent at 25, priced at $1.27M before any team's need or agent: the added season below market costs more than the raise brought in, before the 14 days of training he lost.

Training is the only thing that raises your price for good, and a holdout pauses it. A holdout makes sense as insurance when your price is about to fall (age past 30, a long injury), and it still costs training and trust. In-game dollars only: they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Where: Your player page

At the rollover, before free agency, each team may keep one player whose contract has run out for exactly one more season with a franchise tag. The tag pays the larger of 120 percent of his salary and the average of the five largest salaries at his position in the league, never more than 15 percent of the season's salary cap, so it moves with the league's pay.

A team tags only a player who would start for it, is 29 or younger and ranks in the top quarter of the league's starters at his position, and only when the tag fits under its salary cap with room left for its rookies: no exception, not even for a human. A player can be tagged at most two seasons in a row. Next rollover he is a free agent again, unless he is tagged again.

A team tags a human only to keep a star who would otherwise leave: when the offer he would sign by default is another team's. It can tag him only once in his career, and never for less than the best offer free agency would have given him that season: the market is run for him in the background to find that number. If that number is more than the tag may pay, the team cannot tag him. A tag can never cost you money.

On a tag you cannot hold out (it pays at or above your market price) and it cannot be countered. Your inbox says when you are tagged, and the season after, every free agency choice is yours again. In-game dollars only: they are never real money and cannot be bought or cashed out.

Where: Awards night, Legends

The game has no human voters. When a season closes, one formula picks every award from regular season play, and awards night shows that ranking as a ballot. Playoff games do not count, and a player needs at least 11 games to be considered.

Each player's season impact is the expected points he added over an average player at his position, plus a small bonus for how well his plays were graded, summed over every graded play. The Most Valuable Player is the highest impact of anyone, and Rookie of the Year is the highest impact among first-season players aged 23 or younger who joined after the league was founded (a draft pick, a call-up or a later signing) and have a stat to show: tackles, catches, yards or field goals. A league's first season has no Rookie of the Year, since everyone is on a founding roster. Offensive and Defensive Player of the Year rank impact divided by the square root of how widely that position's impact varies, so a quarterback or kicker does not win on a wide scale alone; the offensive award is open to quarterbacks, running backs, receivers and tight ends, and skips the Most Valuable Player so the two honors go to different people. Comeback Player of the Year goes to the biggest rise in impact per game after a season of fewer than 11 games or below zero impact.

A candidate's share is his score divided by the five scores on the ballot added together, as a percent, with scores at or below zero counted as zero. The shares show how close a race was; the winner is always the one the game named. The All-League First Team is the best players by impact at each position, as many as a starting lineup uses, and the Second Team is the next group.

A season appears once it has closed and the final has finished playing out. The candidate lists are kept for the latest two seasons; older seasons show winners and All-League teams only.

Where: Watch, Records book

Before a regular season game, the preview and the Watch page can name players who are within reach of a record in the records book. They use only games that have finished playing out, never the game you are about to watch, so an alert tells you what a player needs and nothing about what happens.

Season record: the player already has at least 50 percent of it, and what he still needs is no more than his average per game times the games his team has left, plus a quarter for one big week. Career record (league book): the same test starting from 80 percent, for players whose whole career is on the books. Single game: his best game so far is at least 80 percent of the record. Tying a record does not break it, so the line counts one more than the tie.

Each team shows at most 3 alerts, the closest first. Computer players and human players are treated the same.

Where: Stats

Pick the main league, its playoffs or the development league, and a season. Then pick Offense, Defense or Special Teams, and a category under it. Tap a column heading to sort by it.

Stats add up every game's box score once that game has finished playing out, so a game still playing shows nothing here yet and nothing is spoiled. A category only shows once someone has a number in it.

Tackles (TOT) include tackles on kickoffs and punts; Special Teams, Coverage counts those on their own too. Short notes under a table explain any column that needs it.

The same groups and columns are used on player and team pages, the leaders page and every box score, so a game, a season and a career all add up the same way.

A game's box score goes category by category, both teams in each: Passing for the away team, then the home team, then Rushing, and so on. On a wide screen the two teams sit side by side. The switch at the top shows both teams or just one, and is remembered for the next game you open; the bar under it jumps to Offense, Defense, Special Teams or Win chance.

Where: Record book

The record book has six sections: single game, single season, career records, career leaders, franchises and the Hall of Fame. Each record names who holds it, the number, and the season and week it was set, with links to the player and his team. The franchises section has a page for each team, and the Hall of Fame lists each year's class.

Records count regular season games only. If two players ever share the same number, both are shown and the one who got there first is listed first. Career leaders are the top five by career total for each main stat, and the leaders page has the full list.

A record or an induction that a game decided appears only after that game has finished playing out, so the book never gives away a result early. Each section has its name written out, so you never need to tell colors apart.

Where: Owner leaderboard

The board lists the people who run teams, best first by franchise value (rounded to the nearest $5M, so nobody can work out a rival's cash) after their latest finished season. Titles, playoff runs, seasons in charge and record sit beside it; they only break ties. Each name opens that owner's page, season by season.

It shows only what the league already shows everyone: a name, the team, results and franchise value. Cash, loans, ticket prices and every other lever stay private, and so does anything about an account. All dollars are in-game dollars, never real money.

Where: League leaders

Each table lists the top 10 in one stat, under Offense, Defense and Special Teams. Switch between the main league and the development league, and between this season and a whole career. The main league tables count regular season games only.

The numbers are added up from the same stored game lines as the season stats page, so a leader's number matches his row there. Tap a name for his player page, or use Compare two players to set two of them side by side.

Only games that have finished playing out count, so the leaders never give away a game. Career totals include the league's early years before the first season, and those players have all retired.

Where: Compare players

Pick any two active players from the lists, grouped by team and position, and press Compare. You see overall rating, position and age, then each rating that matters for either position, with the higher one marked. A rating a position does not use shows as 0.0, so two players at different positions are not a fair fight on those rows.

Below that are this season's and career stats for the main league, the awards each has won, and how each one's overall has changed. Growth is kept only for players run by people, so an AI player shows no history.

Stats and awards count only games that have finished playing out. A rookie whose draft pick has not aired yet is not in the lists, so the page cannot show you which team took him early.

Where: League history

Champions lists every season's champion and runner-up with the final's score, linked to the playoff bracket and the game recap. Award winners lists each season's MVP, offensive and defensive player of the year, rookie of the year and comeback player. A season with no rookie of the year says so.

Seasons before the first game are labeled early years: the league's history was simulated so the books are not empty. The Hall of Fame lists who has been inducted and in which class. A retired player is voted on once, one full season after he stops, and is inducted at 40 points or more (the legacy score guide lists the points).

An entry appears only after the game that decided it has finished playing out, so this page never gives away a final or an award early. Links across the top lead to playoff history, standings by season, career leaders, the records book and the draft.

Where: Legends

The Hall of Fame is first, with each inductee's score. Players become eligible one full season after they retire, and induction needs 40 points, so few get in. Below it are this season's players of the week for offense, defense and special teams, then each finished season's honors: MVP, the player of the year awards, rookie and comeback player, and the two All-League teams (open a team to see its players).

Awards ask for at least 11 games in a season, so a short run cannot win one. The records book has its own page, linked at the top.

Everything here appears once the game that decided it has finished playing out. The books start with the first games played under them.

Where: Accessibility

Field colors has a colorblind-safe choice. It puts the two teams in a deep blue and a pale amber, which differ in lightness as well as color, so they stay apart whatever kind of color vision you have. The blue team's jersey numbers also sit in a ring, so you can tell the teams apart by shape too. Numbers stay readable on both.

Motion follows your device's reduce motion setting unless you choose otherwise. With reduced motion, players step from spot to spot instead of gliding, the camera cuts instead of panning, and nothing on the page animates or pulses. Play and Pause, Next play, the clock and every stat still work.

Box scores and the other game tables are always built for screen readers: every table has a caption and labelled columns, each row starts with the player or team, short labels like YDS carry their full words, and a short summary of both teams comes before the tables.

Your choices are saved in this browser, so you do not need to sign in to use them. The Accessibility link is at the bottom of every page.

Where: Weekly email settings

The weekly email is off unless you turn it on. When it is on, it goes out on Sunday evening, not before 5 PM Denver time and only once every league game of the day has finished playing out.

It has your player's game that day with the score, his stat line and the win chance he added, your next game, and three headlines from around the league. The subject line never has the score in it.

Every email has a one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom, and you can turn it off on this page at any time. The preview here shows the latest Sunday's email without sending anything.

Where: Invite a friend, Guides

One person, one account. Do not make a second account to help your own player, and do not let someone else play your account. Friends and family playing from the same home is fine.

What is checked, all of it Depth Chart's own: how each account signs in and whether its email is confirmed; whether two accounts use the same device (a random cookie Depth Chart sets when you sign in) or the same network; and whether one account keeps helping another, through invites, votes, trade requests, contracts, a manager's lineup or chat. Your network address is never stored, only a scrambled code that cannot be turned back into it, and every code is deleted after 90 days without being seen. No outside tracking or fingerprinting is used.

Nothing is automatic. A match only puts the two accounts on a list for the admin to read, and a shared network on its own is the lowest level, because families, roommates and friends on one home network are welcome. Nobody is banned or limited by a check; the admin looks first and asks before deciding anything.

Where: What's new

Each time something you can see or use goes live, it is added to What's new the same day, dated on Denver time like the rest of the league. Behind-the-scenes work is left out, and nothing there gives away a game result.

Where: Manager mode: Coaching staff

Managers only (an admin preview while manager mode is in development; free). From the coaching staff page you can fire any coach on your staff. An assistant steps up as interim and keeps the same style until you hire someone. Firing costs the rest of his salary, this season's unpaid share and every season left on his contract, and it counts against you with candidates for two seasons.

The candidate pool shows each coach's public facts: age, experience, his style and his record. His ratings are hidden. Each interview narrows what you know: before any interview each rating is a range 40 points wide, and after one, two and three interviews 26, 16, 10 points wide. You can interview a candidate three times a season; the range always holds his real number and never closes on it. A coach on your staff counts one more interview for every season he has spent with you.

An offer is a salary and a number of years. Asking salaries come from experience and record only: head coaches $1M plus $100K a season of experience (up to 12) and $600K more with a winning record; coordinators $400K plus $40K a season and $150K for a winning record; special teams coordinators $250K plus $25K a season.

A candidate adds up points. Last season's wins: 11 or more +2, 9 or 10 +1, 7 or 8 none, 5 or 6 -1, 4 or fewer -2. Your roster's talent ranked in the league: top quarter +2, second quarter +1, third none, bottom quarter -1. Your city: a tier 1 market +1, tier 2 none, smaller -1. Each coach you fired this season or last -1 (up to 3). Pay at least 1.2 times his asking salary +1, under it -1. Fewer years than he wants -1 (head coaches want 4, coordinators 3, special teams 2). Under 0.9 times his asking salary he says no whatever else counts, and a coach never goes back to a team that fired him this season or last.

He says yes when his points reach what he needs, and the better the coach, the more he needs: the best need 2, good ones 1, average ones 0 and the rest -2. A no tells you every point and the total he wanted, so you can see what to change.

On the manage page, each lever you set is held inside your coordinators' range. If you ask for more than they will call, the plan uses the nearest value they allow and a note says who, what they allow and what the plan uses.

Where: Manager mode: Team finances

Owners only (an admin preview while manager mode is in development; free). Every team has its own books in in-game dollars. They are never real money: nothing can be bought with real money or cashed out, so nobody can pay their way out of trouble.

Money in: an equal share of the league's TV money (the biggest part, the same for every team), tickets (from your fan base, how much the team wins this season and your ticket price), merchandise (fan base and winning), and playoff gates (home playoff games sell out at 1.5 times the price, plus a league payment for every playoff game played and for the title). Money out: the player payroll, your coaches' salaries and the buyout of any coach fired this season, stadium upkeep, facilities and scouting, and interest on any league loan. Every amount grows with the league's pay level, which follows the salary cap. Your city's size only nudges tickets and merchandise, so a small market can do as well as a big one.

The fan base, from 10 to 100, is what fills the seats and sells the shirts. It grows after a winning season (up to 10 points for a perfect one, 2 more for each playoff game and 4 for a title) and shrinks more slowly after a losing one (at most 5 points), and drifts a little back toward where the team started. The fan base belongs to the team, so it stays through a change of owner.

The books settle once a season, at the rollover after the championship. Every team starts with $20M. The finances page shows the season so far (only games whose replay has finished) and a forecast that plays the rest of the season at the same win rate.

The levers. Ticket price, from 80 to 130 percent of your market's standard price: higher prices bring in more per seat and fill fewer seats, and nothing on the field changes. Facilities and training: basic -1.5 percent, standard as calibrated, good +0.5 percent, elite +1 percent on every training session for every player on the team, the same for everyone. Scouting: how much of the league scouts' misjudgment of draft prospects your scouts make (minimal 130 percent, standard 100 percent, strong 85 percent, elite 70 percent). Staff budget: no limit unless you choose one, then the most your four coaches' salaries may add up to; an offer above it is refused. Ticket price, facilities and scouting are set for a season, so a change applies from next season; the staff budget applies at once.

Money never beats effort. The most facilities can add is a small share of each session, the same for every player, so a player who trains every day still gains far more than one who rarely trains, whoever owns his team.

The risk ladder is slow and always shown on the page. A season that ends with cash below zero is an insolvent season: the league lends enough to bring cash back to $5M, at 8 percent a season, and warns you. A second insolvent season in a row brings league spending limits: facilities and scouting at most standard, the staff budget frozen at today's salaries, and no firing that costs a buyout. A third in a row brings a final warning, and a fourth in a row, three full seasons after the first warning, and the league takes the team over and runs it as a bot team. A season that ends above zero steps you back down, and everything above $5M of cash repays the loan. Each step is on this page, in the league news and in the weekly email digest if you have it on.

What to do when a warning comes: cut facilities and scouting, avoid firing coaches with years left on their contracts (the rest of the contract is the buyout), and set a ticket price your crowd will pay. Winning helps the gate and merchandise too.

Starting over: if the league takes your team over, you keep your owner history and record, and you can take over any team without an owner right away, as it is: its own money, players and staff. Nothing carries over from a team you ran before.

If you play for a team the league takes over: nothing changes for you. Your contract, career, trust and stats carry on under the league's owner and the same staff.

Where: Your team page

Who can use it: while the game is in development the logo builder is free for a team's manager, for that team, and for the league admin. Managing a team is still an early preview that players cannot join yet, so most players will not see the Design the logo link.

A logo is built from parts, never an uploaded image: a frame, then up to four layers of emblems and text (at most two text layers: initials of up to three letters, or one word), each sized, turned, flipped and moved. Every color comes from the team's own palette.

Each change is checked: no emblem that echoes a real NFL logo in that city, no main color pair too close to an NFL team's colors, no letters or words that copy a real team, and every layer must stand out from the frame at badge size. A failed check says why and offers Fix it for me. Save stays off until every check passes.

A saved logo shows beside the team name across the site and is painted at midfield and in the end zones of the team's home field. Go back to the original crest undoes it.

Where: Your team page

A person who manages a team may also play on it, as in Footstar. He has full control: the depth chart and the game plan, his own player's spot included.

Nothing about it is hidden. The team page says it is a player-manager team and names his player, his row on the roster is marked, and the manager's own pages say so too, so everyone on the team knows who sets the lineup.

A manager may also run a team other than the one his own player is on. That is allowed and marked the same way: the team he manages names his player and the team he plays for, his roster row says which team he manages, and when the two teams meet, the game preview says so.

Whether to play for a player-manager is up to you. If you would rather not, the usual ways to leave are all still there: ask for a trade on your player page (once a season, before the trade deadline; the front office decides, not the manager), or let your contract run out and choose from the offers teams make you in free agency (your own team may bid too; if nobody bids, it re-signs you).