Eight-player trade for Rod Woodson

I started a simulation in which I take over the Houston Oilers in 1991.
now it's 1996. my team has Brett Farvre (90) at QB and 80+ players at every position and one or two more as backups.
My team is rated five stars in every category except pass defense (one star).
my team finishes 5-11. (that can't be right!)
I re-do 1996 four more times. best record 9-7. meanwhile Pittsburgh wins 10-12 each year and wins a SB.
I do a roster comparisom. Only place they have a better player is at CB; Rod Woodson is a 90.
First a traded a couple draft choices for a mid-80s safety. Then I initiate trade negotiations with the Steelers. I wanted to upgrade my pass D and hoped to do so at their expense. After offer and counter-offer I give up:

Jerome Bettis 80+ rb (starter)
Ricky Ervins 80+ fb (starter)
Wayne Gandy 80+ T
Chris Villareal 80 G
Philip Daniels 77 DE
Nolan Harrison 80 DT
Ryan McNeil 80 CB (starter)
Lawyer Malloy 80+ S
plus my #1 draft pick in 1997.
Gandy and Malloy end up starting in Pigsburgh. They get five starters and three high backups, plus my #1 pick the next year.

I get:
Rod Woodson CB 90
Pitt's #1 pick in 1997
Pitt's #1 pick in 1998.

wow. sounds pretty lopsided.
Except I simulate the 1996 season and go 13-3 and win the SB. My team had a four-star run offense and a three-star pass defense, other areas five-star. When the playoffs began my run O gained a fifth star.
Pitt goes 9-7, loses first round wild card.
what a difference one player made!

curious if I had sold my future, I had the pc run four more seasons without me. I went 9-7 (WC), 8-8, 5-11, 5-11.
Pitt went 7-9. 11-5 (wc), 5-11, 9-7 (wc). They won five of the eight reg season games. So they did well but no championships.

When I get back on I'll pick up after my SB win and see how I'd do running the team.

I had good quality backups for the starters I traded, by the way. I had drafted a bunch of linemen and had a good backup rb. Winning the SB means my old 1st round pick is the last in the round, so I got about 8 places ahead.

(Real-World, I'm pretty sure I Woodson would have gone for a lot less, maybe one of my starting CBs and a first-round pick.)

Have you guys made any trades like that?

I've not any trades such as yours, but my favorite team, the Cowboys made the largest trade in NFL history in 1989 - what a deal!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Walker_trade

I remember that. The Vikes thought they were 'one player away'. those draft pics really boosted the Jones/Aikman era.
IIRC the Vikes had money problems. hard to believe in the NFL today.

Trading the computer teams for other players is typically a no-win option for the human player. You will not get value for your trade. Trading for draft picks works much better for a franchise. You can get 3 #1s for a decent running back and for a good QB you can get 3 #1s and a couple of #2s. To do this, make direct trades to teams (using the Trading Block will always result in much lower offers than the computer teams will actually accept). You get the most value by trading to teams with the best record of the previous year. Don't worry that they will finish well in the current year, that is unlikely since teams with good records have their players age dramatically.

If you are willing to sacrifice your first year, trade all of your good players for draft picks (keep your best QB because a decent one may not be offered in the next years draft). You may need to add Free Agents to keep your team at 53 players. Start each trade by offering the player for 3 #1s. If the computer doesn't take that and gives an insulting remark about your trading ability. Drop down to 2 #1s. If you get another insulting remark, drop to 1 #1. At any time if you get a statement about "too many unknows", "we are close", "another million", etc, you know you are in the ballpark. Try the same trade with each of the other teams. One will almost certainly accept.

Try to get 6th and 7th draft picks thrown in. You can get excellent DTs, good TEs and excellent FBs in the 6th and 7th round. Good Kickers and Punters can usually be obtained in the 7th round. Don't draft RBs in the first round. They are rarely taken by the computer teams in the first round. WRs are also rarely taken in the first round (unless they have high overall and peak ratings). QBs, DEs, CBs, LBs and Ss are drafted (ahead of all other positions) in the 1st round by computer teams. So if you need one of those use your first round pick on them.

Computer teams will draft top offensive linemen in the first round but your best bet is to wait until the 3rd or 4th round for them. You can usually pick up good linemen in the later rounds.

A #1 pick two years out has roughly the same trade value as a #2 in the current year.

Oh, don't try to trade with the same team repeatedly by increasing your offer. If a trade is rejected, switch to another team and attempt a ridiculous trade that you know they won't accept. Then go back to the first team with an increased offer. Otherwise, each time a team refuses an offer they increase the bottom line they will accept.

One last bit of advice. If you have a good season, at the end of the season -- before advancing to the next season, change your record under League->League Editor... to 0 wins and 16 losses. Otherwise your players will age dramatically.

(lol) you really know how to game the system! I'm too lazy to go to that much trouble.

I do start a team by trading (older) players for draft picks.
sometimes when a great qb is in the draft I offer tons of stuff to the team with the first pick (my starting qb and first round pick and some sweetener). that's the surest way I've found to get one.
and now and then a good qb shows up in free agency.

Yeah, I have a pretty good idea how it works. And that is the problem. It is poorly implemented. A lot of promise but it falls way short of what it could be. They simply do not fix the many reported issues with the game -- and these problems seriously affect the enjoyment of the game. For example, in simulation mode, you have a one point lead with 5 seconds left in the game. You are on your own 1 yard line. Your QB will take a knee to run out the clock. Oops, that's a safety. You lose..... And MANY more similar issues.

I have enjoyed this game but am getting tired of it since the more I learn about it the less I enjoy it. I am 10 years into my current franchise and have all 32 #1 picks for each of the next 3 years and also have a bunch of #2s, #3, etc. It gets real boring unless you do something artificial to try to make it more interesting.

Good luck! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did before I realized how player aging, trading, statistics, etc were implemented.