Front Office Football Nine Documentation

The 9.0e update was released on January 23, 2024.

• Several changes made to the AI handling the salary cap to lower the number of players released in order to remain under the cap. Note that these changes will result in a small increase in the number of teams that have trouble remaining under the cap, but it will also increase the number of players teams retain, long-term. Great cap management without all the tools available in the NFL will be beyond the AI, but this should be an improvement in some ways. Also note that cap checks are not made immediately upon entering a new season, so teams can (as they always have in FOF) be significantly over the cap until after the draft without penalty. They just can't sign free agents until they're under the cap.

• When clicking on a team entry in the Standings, advance to the team's Schedule.

• For FB/P/K/LS, a 10 rating in a player file, the designation for players not intended to be of draft quality, is interpreted in binary.

• For LS, average quality of a 0-rated player is too high. This will greatly change the talent distribution for long snappers.

• When Coach is calling plays and the offense is called for a false start, the play-by-play indicates the penalty and the game advances properly, but the play-by-play describes a 0-yard punt with a 0-yard return.

• When player holds out, the AI may renegotiate even if AI is not set to make major roster decisions.

• Some work to beef up AI use of WLB as a pass-rush leader in 34 defenses.

• During the brief window (staff hiring through draft reveal) when you can extend contracts to your players, you should not be able to make offers to free agents.

• In the Transaction Log, clicking on an entry for the hiring of a head coach advanced to a random player card rather than the coach's card.

• More work to try and ensure that a player who is seriously injured cannot continue to play under any circumstances.

• In overtime, try to decline any penalty on the defense if a kick is made and would win the game.

• More work to prevent the end-of-half perception that a FG attempt is necessary when it's just too far or there's time for a couple of plays (the AI can't control the execution of a short pass play, so this won't go as far as many teams will).

• League-Wide Profit/Loss Report year drop-down selector does not change the year for which information is displayed.

• Added tracking list to Roster view. Players are added through player card actions. Players on list are highlighted on free agency ranking screen and find a player.

• Can change player numbers for players on other rosters and player names for any player through the player card.

• Pistol and Shotgun are reversed in tracking shown on Offensive Film screen.

• Reworked inclusion on team-related Free Agency screen to show more players specific to the controlled team's experience.

• Added team-specific News for when a coach retired or is hired away by another team.

• Added logic to provide proper notification and update the staff list when a coach retired or was hired away by another team, preventing mysterious inability to get past hiring stage when you're unaware the coach is no longer with your team.

• Removed some ability to hire away other team's staff under contract at the same level.

• Show birthdate, home town and college attended for retired coaches.

• Trade offer logic - do not let teams show interest if they will not make an offer on the player because they don't value him and do not let teams offer to swap high picks for low-valued players.

• Code written to try and prevent potential crash in standings resolution when multiple teams in different divisions in the same conference have enough common games to use that tie-breaker.

• Ease up on and condense the owner salary limit for a single year when making an offer to a player.

• Include the current bonus in calculation of projected cap room after renegotiation if player is on your team. Improve assessment of remaining salary if in mid-season.

• Some players (almost all of them long-snappers) could be renegotiated by the AI to have negative bonus money.

• Properly assign stadium payments for five years after a move or new construction plan is approved.

• When statistics are accumulated, tackles for loss is not updated correctly.

• On the last day of late free agency, when controlled team signs a free agent who is connected to another team, he is resigned to his current team instead.

• Add a global option for a more generic color scheme for lists.

• Saved games can continue.

• For those who are working on customization, please remember to back up all your work.

• This version adds notes to the following instructional files in the installation: schedules.txt, customization_info.txt, league_info.txt, league_years.txt.

• This version updates the game-supplied player files associated with the 2023 season.

• Steam updates should not touch other .csv files, but we can't guarantee that.

The following adjustments were made to the default player files:

• Player 516 (2023_quarterbacks.csv) Derek Carr: all future salaries reduced to 3000 ($30 million).

• Player 539 (2023_quarterbacks.csv) Deshaun Watson: all future salaries reduced to 3400.

• Player 1252 (2023_players.csv) Amari Cooper: current and future salary reduced to 1400.

• Player 1350 (2023_players.csv) Myles Garrett: future salaries reduced to 1400.

• Player 1605 (2023_players.csv) Ryan Ramczyk: future salaries reduced to 1000.

• Player 1856 (2023_players.csv) Wyatt Teller: current and future salaries reduced to 700.

• Player 1870 (2023_players.csv) Denzel Ward: future salaries reduced to 700.

Your installation of Front Office Football Nine will automatically update on its own. If you go into the Steam app's Library and right-click on the game and examine Properties, you can change the priority for Updates. There's a line at the bottom of this screen that tells you when your game was last updated.

You can also view the Credits screen in the League Menu within the game. This screen shows the game's version. This update is version 9.0e.