Originally posted by Kayoh
Confidence has to play a huge role in SAs that actually affect Morale. It's kind of common sense.
And also, the reason I went Vision over Agility is simple; NTs aren't supposed to move. When I think NT, I think big Grady Jackson, or Vince Wilfork, even Jamal Williams. Those gigantic guys who don't let anybody past them no matter what.
So, Vision made sense to me. You have to be strong to get off the blocker, you have to be able to tackle the ball carrier, but most importantly, you have to be able to sense which gap the RB is going to try and go through. That's the reasoning behind the Vision. In my opinion, soft capped vision can actually make your player seem faster than they really are, simply because they'll start moving towards the area they need to be at before other defensive players. Basically, if you're in a foot race, the only thing better than being the faster man is having a head start.
I see where you're going with this, but all the vision in the world won't help you if you can't get off the block in the first place. Strength will help you stand up to a single guy, but NTs get double-teamed routinely; the combined strength of any decent G/C pairing will be too much for strength alone to overcome. High agility combined with great strength, however, should help you shed those blockers and step to one side or the other... and then a decent vision score will help get you going in the right direction when you get off the block.
As skel has said, no one can really tell whether confidence affects D-Line General or any other SA. It makes sense that it would, so I'd definitely suggest bringing it up to 30 or so through training, but I don't know that it's worth capping. The other benefit to confidence is that your play will remain strong even if you take a couple of pancakes because you're getting double-teamed. No matter what your strength you're gonna get crushed a few times a game.
Now, your argument is very sound as a reason to neglect speed, which is precisely what I plan to do. NTs just aren't expected to go very far. As far as I'm concerned, if my check to shed the block succeeds, I'm going to get shifted to one side of the G/C or the other, and if I chose correctly I'll be in position to make the tackle. I'm not expecting to break through the line a lot in the pass rush, so the fact that I can't run down Jared Lorenzen back there doesn't bother me. That's what my D-Line General skill is for... let the other guys on the line get through and wreak havoc.