My CB Lomas Walker is in his last days. Just to be clear in this thread, I do not believe he is the best CB in GLB by any stretch. I do believe, however, that he has played far above average over the course of his career, with what is very far from the accepted optimal build in GLB. His build will be posted in the 2nd post of this thread. It has been opened, though I'll likely be selling back my Custom in the next few days and likely retiring him this off-season.
Hopefully this thread can be a help to the CB community as a whole.
Lomas Walker: http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=46524&playoffs=0
COMPETITION
S1-2: South American Pro
S3-4: USA A#6
S5: USA AA#3
S6-7: USA AAA#2
S8-12: USA Pro
It is worth noting, that USA A to AAA were of a higher quality than they are today, due to the overall structure of GLB at that time. At no point has Lomas been in a league with a significant (or even note worthy) level advantage over his opponents.
So for the most part, you cannot invalidate his production based on league competition. He has started at #1 or #2 CB his entire career, though I have purposely left him out of any play out of the nickle spot.
BUILD
As you can see, his build is fairly unique. Higher vision and catching, less speed and agility. A few things are worth noting as far as the build path.
Early on, he had higher vision/super vision/sticky hands than most. I primarily give credit of his early career INTs to his vision/SV, though perhaps sicky hands had a sizeable effect as well.
Also, catching as brought from around 52 to around the 3rd softcap during the s8 and with boosts for S9. Sticky hands and super vision were both around 7-8 until recently. Going into his first year in USA Pro (s9) he had aprox. 84 speed and 78 agility.
PRODUCTION
He has been on aggressive coverage his entire career. It is worth noting that a major tactic change happened between S5 and S6, switching from medium to close coverage. This substantially decreased his catches allowed, and this his subsequent tackles.
Lomas also has had soft-capped strength since around S9, which has helped with run support tackles. Despite his speed, he very rarely allowed catches over the top, or was burnt. I only remember 2 games in the last 6 seasons where he was handled by a WR, and in general he does a great job sticking with his man.
Its also worth noting that he has never given up more than 2-3 long passes over the top in any season of his career. I don't specifically remember more than 1 in any season, but I'd rather be cautious with my claims then waste time going through all those games.
Jumping was one of the last things to 3-cap, and stamina has been trained past 51-52 only due to it being an intense combination with confidence.
As you can see his PD-tackle ratio, while not conclusive, points to him being a good coverage CB during his time in USA Pro (which was the #1 league in GLB until S10). He has started at #1 or #2 CB his entire career. I would say that he has allowed <50% of throws targeted at his receiver to be completed in USA Pro.
With INTs, as you can see his production has varied greatly. I believe a large part of this is due to bort ever-tweaking the INT coding of the game. Though, the luckfactor in INTs themselves likely added to that large deviation in production. Heck, even looking at S12, he had 0 INTs in the first 8 games, and 7 in the later 8.
THOUGHTS
Vision
As a whole, this build was made under the train of thought that the top two reasons in GLB that players allow big plays is either (a) they get pumpfaked, or (b) they miss a PD/INT attempt. I've found that this holds true. With the increased vision, Lomas was rarely pump faked, and thus he very rarely allowed big plays over the top, with his vision helping to make up for his lack of speed/agility on short and medium routes.
So many CBs just stand there when the ball is thrown rather than attacking it, and I feel that this is one area that has been helped by very high vision. I also am up in the air as to whether I believe vision itself is a substantial factor in PD rolls. On one hand it may be, though it also might just be that the improved positioning is helping his rolls.
By the same token, I think it's evident that either vision itself is a large part of PD rolls, or that positioning is extremely important. Personally, I'd say that its a combination of the two in some form for both PDs and INTs.
Catching
As catching as pumped to the 3rd cap, he did immediately have a very productive year, though production after that is hit or miss. The thought process is that since WRs get an anti-PD roll, they also likely get an anti-INT roll, and higher catching will help to overcome that roll and make one's INT roll much higher.
If I was going to make another ballhawking CB, I'd likely say that 1st-capped catching with SPs better used elsewhere is your best bet, though if you do want more catching, you likely should not go past the 2-cap at 60.
I would also reject the idea that catching is anything but an extremely minor component in PD rolls. Its possible that bort uses a lot of attributes on a lot of rolls, in part to complicate those rolls, but I never saw any evidence as far as catching helping me get PDs. Though with sample size, this paragraph likely means very little.
Speed
So how does a starting CB survive in a top league with 84-87 speed? Obviously having agility close helps a great deal, as does having a bunch of vision and super vision. I would argue that without that high vision, I likely would have had GLB's worst CB, so don't take this as evidence that an 85 spd, 70 agi, 70 vision player can compete in GLB's top leagues.
With that said, this build, along with all those nifty 90/90 CB builds out there, is proof that a somewhat slower CB has the potential to compete at a high level against faster WRs. I believe this is in large part due to CB being a reactionary position, making vision and agility much more important than they'd be on a WR.
Confidence
For most of his career, Lomas played with 20-30 confidence, with it only being trained up recently. I have not seen any huge moral spiral outside of perhaps 1-2 games, and I'd agree with current thoughts that confidence is a less important attribute for CBs in general.
Strength
As most of you know, strength is nice. Being able to knock balls loose, dispite the recent nerf, is very nice, as is the ability to effectively shed blocks. Lomas playing CB2 late in his career was in part due to the substantial effect of strength in run support against outside runs.
Sticky Hands
For his final season's boosts, sticky hands was pumped from 7 to 10, which resulted in a solid 7 INTs. That along with his early GLB production with 4-5 sticky hands, leads me to believe that this is a viable VA for ballhawking CBs. Since INTs are so random, one could reason that a substantial temporary boost to catching would be a good bet for CBs wanting turnovers.
Also, throughout his career he has got a good amount of INTs late in games on 3rd down, which corresponds directly to SH's SA description. I probably feel like 10 sticky hands and 48 catching is better than 5 sticky hands and 64 catching, though that is a somewhat inconclusive claim based on little more than the above.
Shutdown Coverage
Its possible for a man-2-man CB to survive without maxed or near-maxed SDC.
CONCLUSION
Well, that is what I've got folks. Discussion, questions, thoughts, and comments are all welcome. Hopefully I didn't come off as some arrogant d-bag who thinks his player is Deion, as I can assure you that was not my intention.
Hopefully this thread can be a help to the CB community as a whole.
Lomas Walker: http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=46524&playoffs=0
COMPETITION
S1-2: South American Pro
S3-4: USA A#6
S5: USA AA#3
S6-7: USA AAA#2
S8-12: USA Pro
It is worth noting, that USA A to AAA were of a higher quality than they are today, due to the overall structure of GLB at that time. At no point has Lomas been in a league with a significant (or even note worthy) level advantage over his opponents.
So for the most part, you cannot invalidate his production based on league competition. He has started at #1 or #2 CB his entire career, though I have purposely left him out of any play out of the nickle spot.
BUILD
As you can see, his build is fairly unique. Higher vision and catching, less speed and agility. A few things are worth noting as far as the build path.
Early on, he had higher vision/super vision/sticky hands than most. I primarily give credit of his early career INTs to his vision/SV, though perhaps sicky hands had a sizeable effect as well.
Also, catching as brought from around 52 to around the 3rd softcap during the s8 and with boosts for S9. Sticky hands and super vision were both around 7-8 until recently. Going into his first year in USA Pro (s9) he had aprox. 84 speed and 78 agility.
PRODUCTION
He has been on aggressive coverage his entire career. It is worth noting that a major tactic change happened between S5 and S6, switching from medium to close coverage. This substantially decreased his catches allowed, and this his subsequent tackles.
Lomas also has had soft-capped strength since around S9, which has helped with run support tackles. Despite his speed, he very rarely allowed catches over the top, or was burnt. I only remember 2 games in the last 6 seasons where he was handled by a WR, and in general he does a great job sticking with his man.
Its also worth noting that he has never given up more than 2-3 long passes over the top in any season of his career. I don't specifically remember more than 1 in any season, but I'd rather be cautious with my claims then waste time going through all those games.
Jumping was one of the last things to 3-cap, and stamina has been trained past 51-52 only due to it being an intense combination with confidence.
As you can see his PD-tackle ratio, while not conclusive, points to him being a good coverage CB during his time in USA Pro (which was the #1 league in GLB until S10). He has started at #1 or #2 CB his entire career. I would say that he has allowed <50% of throws targeted at his receiver to be completed in USA Pro.
With INTs, as you can see his production has varied greatly. I believe a large part of this is due to bort ever-tweaking the INT coding of the game. Though, the luckfactor in INTs themselves likely added to that large deviation in production. Heck, even looking at S12, he had 0 INTs in the first 8 games, and 7 in the later 8.
THOUGHTS
Vision
As a whole, this build was made under the train of thought that the top two reasons in GLB that players allow big plays is either (a) they get pumpfaked, or (b) they miss a PD/INT attempt. I've found that this holds true. With the increased vision, Lomas was rarely pump faked, and thus he very rarely allowed big plays over the top, with his vision helping to make up for his lack of speed/agility on short and medium routes.
So many CBs just stand there when the ball is thrown rather than attacking it, and I feel that this is one area that has been helped by very high vision. I also am up in the air as to whether I believe vision itself is a substantial factor in PD rolls. On one hand it may be, though it also might just be that the improved positioning is helping his rolls.
By the same token, I think it's evident that either vision itself is a large part of PD rolls, or that positioning is extremely important. Personally, I'd say that its a combination of the two in some form for both PDs and INTs.
Catching
As catching as pumped to the 3rd cap, he did immediately have a very productive year, though production after that is hit or miss. The thought process is that since WRs get an anti-PD roll, they also likely get an anti-INT roll, and higher catching will help to overcome that roll and make one's INT roll much higher.
If I was going to make another ballhawking CB, I'd likely say that 1st-capped catching with SPs better used elsewhere is your best bet, though if you do want more catching, you likely should not go past the 2-cap at 60.
I would also reject the idea that catching is anything but an extremely minor component in PD rolls. Its possible that bort uses a lot of attributes on a lot of rolls, in part to complicate those rolls, but I never saw any evidence as far as catching helping me get PDs. Though with sample size, this paragraph likely means very little.
Speed
So how does a starting CB survive in a top league with 84-87 speed? Obviously having agility close helps a great deal, as does having a bunch of vision and super vision. I would argue that without that high vision, I likely would have had GLB's worst CB, so don't take this as evidence that an 85 spd, 70 agi, 70 vision player can compete in GLB's top leagues.
With that said, this build, along with all those nifty 90/90 CB builds out there, is proof that a somewhat slower CB has the potential to compete at a high level against faster WRs. I believe this is in large part due to CB being a reactionary position, making vision and agility much more important than they'd be on a WR.
Confidence
For most of his career, Lomas played with 20-30 confidence, with it only being trained up recently. I have not seen any huge moral spiral outside of perhaps 1-2 games, and I'd agree with current thoughts that confidence is a less important attribute for CBs in general.
Strength
As most of you know, strength is nice. Being able to knock balls loose, dispite the recent nerf, is very nice, as is the ability to effectively shed blocks. Lomas playing CB2 late in his career was in part due to the substantial effect of strength in run support against outside runs.
Sticky Hands
For his final season's boosts, sticky hands was pumped from 7 to 10, which resulted in a solid 7 INTs. That along with his early GLB production with 4-5 sticky hands, leads me to believe that this is a viable VA for ballhawking CBs. Since INTs are so random, one could reason that a substantial temporary boost to catching would be a good bet for CBs wanting turnovers.
Also, throughout his career he has got a good amount of INTs late in games on 3rd down, which corresponds directly to SH's SA description. I probably feel like 10 sticky hands and 48 catching is better than 5 sticky hands and 64 catching, though that is a somewhat inconclusive claim based on little more than the above.
Shutdown Coverage
Its possible for a man-2-man CB to survive without maxed or near-maxed SDC.
CONCLUSION
Well, that is what I've got folks. Discussion, questions, thoughts, and comments are all welcome. Hopefully I didn't come off as some arrogant d-bag who thinks his player is Deion, as I can assure you that was not my intention.
Edited by WiSeIVIaN on Nov 18, 2009 12:01:57
