I don't know (or particularly care) what's realistic or appropriate or meets everybody's approval, but I would like to clarify a couple of things.
1. I've read admin's explanation and don't buy it: The playcalling matrix doesn't work when multiple personnel sets are available. I trust it as much as the highly reliable power rankings.
2. On offense, I utilized a full playbook over the course of a game, limiting play selections based on certain situations. On first down, I selected from four plays. Second down depended on yardage, utilizing entirely different plays. Third down was largely an anything-goes-crapshoot.
Side note: In addition to the broken matrix, the play knowledge "feature" was the catalyst for limiting first down plays. Calling those plays more often meant the team actually could learn the plays. If anything was an AI exploit, this was it.
3. Ryan is either a terrible scout or a liar. Without consulting play-by-plays, I would guess I rarely if ever called a single play more than 15 times in one game. Unfortunately, our playoff game was marred by an admin mistake (
https://mfn1.myfootballnow.com/community/thread/6/1735?page=1#10510 ... but even with my starters limited to a handful of snaps, I only lost by 3 points.) Regardless, the game was played before I embraced the first down strategy.
You've noted in multiple comments that we'll never know if my approach would have worked in the latest game engine. When things calm down at work and a passing game upgrade is deployed, I'll start looking for teams that share a division with you.
4. This discussion seems a little silly to me because my teams rarely fielded a competent passing game. Whether you approve of my approach or not, I would suggest you don't copy it.
5. I won with defense and special teams. Defensively, playcalling was much more complex, with a rule in place for each offensive formation.
6. The single biggest advantage I had was on punt returns and coverage. I put as much effort into finding depth players who would excel in punt coverage or blocking as I did into assembling an offense or defense, and it paid off. Four TEs and two FBs? Why not.
I won a lot of games I had no business winning because I limited opponents to 10 yards per return while scoring a couple of TDs. The new game engine neutered this, and I would expect to have lost at least 2 or 3 more games per season as a result.