Draft Day Sports: Pro Football 2021

This game has a lot of potential, but if you're already familiar with OOTP, you'll be disappointed. The UI is not user friendly, it's clunky, the player contracts don't make sense, the overalls don't make sense, there's no consistency, etc.... Don't get me wrong, this is a very cool game, but to ask $35 for a game that feels alphaish? They have a LONG way to go. I'm going to dive in once more, but I will most likely look for a credit. **Yep. Played it for a few more hours and the game is trash, still** My 90 overall QB just threw 48 interceptions. I still cannot believe they ask for $35 to buy this.

Having played arguably the best sports management sim for many years (Football Manager), i wanted to give American Football a go. I thought the stat based way the game is played could work well, and I had a fairly good understanding of the sport and rules and with all sports games, this makes the better to play. The short answer is I am 1 season in and its a very good game. It nails the stats, rosters, draft and contracts well. Real players are used and helps me research those I don't know (which to be fair is most of them). The game engine works well and provides realistic scores, yardage and occasional gems like returning a punt for TD. You can also edit team names and emblems, which is easy to do. I just do a couple more each time I play and have most of them correct and looking good now, just need to work a bit on my end-zone images. There may well be bugs I come across as I get 100 plus hours in, but nothing has jumped out. Interface is fine, less so graphics but that's not a deal breaker - and the 2d game engine is engagingly well done. It would take some work, but a 3d game engine with stadiums would make it outstanding (as per Football Manager), and more interaction with players and staff. I would recommend this to someone who enjoys a sports sim like Football Manager, and likes the sport and has a decent level of knowledge about it. Ps. Season 1 - Went 12-4 as Green Bay and lost superbowl to Denver 38-35

Couldn't start a season because i didn't have enough FB's on the roster , couldn't trade for a 55 rated fb with a 1st rd pick and no free agent FB's.....waste of money!

I feel kinda obliged to drop a review here - having seen (to my surprise) that it has a mixed rating, and some negative reviews. This game isn't perfect, but I've personally not had any crashes or game-breaking bugs. Sure there's a few UI glitches occasionally, but nothing super obnoxious or frustrating. I'm not going to go into massive detail here, but I enjoy the game a great deal and it's the closest thing we have to an NFL version of "football manager". Some of us are desperate for that kind of game, and this is the best option currently. If that's what you're looking for then I say give it a shot.

Until there is an OOTP Baseball but for football this scratches the itch. I would recommend you seek out the mods/rosters that put the real overall ratings, player pictures, and logos into the game. It really adds a lot. If you don't you get player names but the overall's are randomized each time you begin a new league. Only by adding a modified roster file can you get "realistic" ratings for your players. Another thing that you should know is that there are a lot of settings and you will likely need to futz with the salary settings to fine tune it to be more realistic. I think they are planning on adding more features like this but make sure you set your minimum contract levels to a reasonable amount or you will be able to sign the years hottest free agents at the end of the process for $300,000 a pop. Ridiculous but could also be fun. I've yet to encounter any major bugs yet, I had one hard crash that was probably my fault for futzing with something while the game was running. If you want something similar to OOTP Baseball, Football Manager, or Head Coach 09 but for American Football or the NFL this is your best bet as of now. The customization options let you decide how to run the league. I think if you wanted to run weird simulations or scenarios and sim for decades to look at pages and pages of stats this is exactly what you want. I haven't messed with historical rosters yet but it's my next step. As of now the career mode is a bit wonky but I'm slowly adjusting it as I go to make it play closer to how I'd like it to. You will need to visit the forums if you want to get a good experience from the game. It relies on the community to make it good but that's fine with me bc it seems like a bunch of people like me are out there that want to do fun GM stuff. This is the best we have rn, with mods ofc.

I've played this game since 2020 and this version is definitely an upgrade. This game allows expansion teams as often as I'd like, fully customize the league including how many playoff teams you'd like. A new feature allowing vets to mentor younger players is really cool. I highly recommend this game to anyone who's into football all the fun that entails.

My head coach won two super bowls in a row. He's under contract but thought he should leave to be an OC for another team to better his career. This game has no realism, I wish there was a real SIM game for football, this has no real trade block, draft analysis, or the ability to sim a franchise in any worthwhile way.

I would not recommend this game at its current state. It runs way too slow for anyone to enjoy for long periods of time. I just finished playing a few hours on Out of the Park Baseball, and the difference is night and day regarding performance alone. It takes a solid 4-8 seconds to switch from one tab to the other. God forbid you click on the wrong tab and have to spend 10 seconds total to do something so simple that any $5 game on the market could do it better. The game is so painful to play that I had to just laugh and close out of it. I simmed one season and quit, but I noticed a few more issues before quitting: - As I said, the game runs terribly slow. Takes anywhere from 4-8 seconds just to switch from one tab to the other. This is uncalled for in a game that charges you almost $40 just to play. I'm not paying $40 just to spend 30 minutes switching tabs. - The draft screen is clunky. If you want the CPU to sim the entire draft, great. You'll need to wait for it to finish loading, which takes some time, understandably. But after that, it just drops you off back at where you started. It looks like an error, and gives you no indication that the draft is even over. Previous installments of this series would take you to a different screen after the draft is done, this one just leaves you hanging. - Simming through the playoffs is just a little annoying. Previous installments would let you sim from the Playoff Bracket stage, so you could see your team progress through the playoffs. This installment, for some reason, only lets you sim from a generic boxscore screen where you have to sim and then check the playoff bracket separately. Not a huge deal, but annoying considering that the previous installments handled this better. Also, you have to wait 4-8 seconds if you want to switch to the Playoff Bracket. That part is ridiculous. - The season is over. Great. Now on to the Pro Bowl and the next season. Only, you don't actually receive any notification on what the next steps are. Is pro bowl next? Free Agency? Does the season end next? Who knows! Just click that "Advance" button and find out! Overall, this seems like the team tried to update the UI for this game to be onpar with its Basketball series, which they succeed at. But they completely forgot to put any effort towards optimization and making the game play well for its players. I would not recommend the game in its current state, but I would recommend that you play the Free Trial that they offer on their website if you don't want to spend the money right away.

This game has a lot of promise, the depth and detail is exactly what I want from a football manager style game for the NFL, however it must be one of the least user friendly games I've ever attempted to play. The pop-up windows never fit the ratio of my screens and therefore a lot of menu options and information are cut off the screen. The day to day operation could be much cleaner with drop down boxes or drag and drop systems, however i cant talk about the game as it is as not being able to see half the options makes the game unplayable. I reached the point where it was time to cut my roster down to 53 players but couldn't go any further due to the awful user interface

Wolverine Studios doesn't like their userbase