Ultra GM

[zbeaster]

Hey everyone,

I think this should interest a lot of us – my dad is launching a new website called Ultra GM (he has plans for mobile apps down the road), where we can live out our dream of being an NFL GM. Ultra GM lets us take control of our chosen team (presumably the Ravens) fantasy football-style subject to the real NFL salary cap and real player contracts. I remember the very early brainstorming stage of Ultra GM a few years back and it’s really cool to see it now coming to fruition.

In Ultra GM, you pick an NFL team to manage and you will acquire that team’s roster as of the start of the league year and free agency. From there you can build your team through the draft, free agency and trades and compete in two different leagues. That just means each week your team’s score based on the performance of the players on your roster is compared to the scores of two different teams in two different leagues. The first one is a 32-team league that mirrors the actual NFL, so you control one of the 32 teams and go head-to-head with other users managing the other teams. The second league is a 14-team league where all the teams start with the same NFL roster. For example, if you choose the Ravens, you’ll compete with other users who are also managing Ravens-based teams, as well as the actual Ravens roster. We’ve had it pretty good with DeCosta (and Newsome prior) at the helm of the team-building, but most NFL fans think they can do the job better than their team’s GM. You’ll be making decisions on trades, draft picks, free agency, player cuts, and even practice squad maneuvers—you name it—all in a dynasty-style format where your roster and transactions carry over from season to season so you can build your team the right way over time. It’s kind of like a combination of fantasy football, a mock draft and/or GM simulator, and Madden Franchise Mode.

It’d be great if we could get a group (or multiple groups!) of us together for a private 14-team Ravens league (or multiple private leagues, if there’s enough interest). You get to manage the offseason for your own Ravens team and then compete against each other’s unique Ravens-based teams during the season. I’m really psyched about Ultra GM and I think it’s something we’d all have a ton of fun with. Let me know by PM if you are interested in playing in a private PurpleFlock league in which we will compete to see who can build the best team from the Ravens roster.

Ask general questions here so others can get the answers too.

 

[Truth]

That just sounds like the Forum Mock with extra steps.

 

[RavensMania]

We have been doing this for about 15 years from the BR message board to purpleflock.com.

Just take a look at the Forum Mock section on this board.

Maybe you'd like to join our existing game next year!

 

[zbeaster]

The concept of Ultra GM is not unlike the Forum Mock, but it is really quite different in many ways. Here are a few:

1. As I understand it, in the Forum Mock only one person can manage the Ravens, which is the team we are all most interested in. In Ultra GM, we can all manage the Ravens in different 32-team leagues (with fans of the other teams managing those other teams) and we can compete with each other to see who does the best job of managing the Ravens.

2. Ultra GM provides the platform for all the trading, free agency signings, draft and salary cap management. It's "automated". It doesn't require tracking each move via message board and spreadsheet.

3. I don't see anything in the Forum Mock about scoring or if/how there is any competition based on how the players on one's roster actually performs. That's what Ultra GM is -- it is a more sophisticated form of fantasy football using full rosters and scoring for all positions. From what I can tell from the Forum Mock, Ultra GM includes all of the same team management functions but also continues to a competition based on the actual performance of the players on your roster.

I would think anyone who has done or is interested in the Forum Mock would also be interested in Ultra GM, especially if you'd like to manage the Ravens. And isn't that the team that we'd all be most interested in managing?

There are other differences between Ultra GM and the Forum Mock, but that's a few of them.

 

[RavensMania]

It seems like a good concept, but what you don't understand is atleast half the participants in this game aren't Ravens fans. We have Patriot, Cowboys, Washington, Bills, Rams, Giants among others. The Ravens don't go as high in the team selection draft as you might expect, if this were an all ravens fan game. We enjoy the independence of running the game without point values attributed to the moves. No one needs to win the game, we all enjoy the independence of being able to manage a team on our own and build it the way we would like without being graded based on a point value system.

 

[zbeaster]

To answer some questions:

Draft -- You will draft where the Ravens picked but can trade picks in this draft to move around.

Free Agency -- You can bid on and "sign" free agents. Players and their contracts are a package deal so you are bidding on the player and the contract together and will be subject to the salary cap.

Trades -- You can trade players and current season draft picks, but subject to the salary cap, so there are dead cap hits if you trade guys with big contracts.

Practice Squad -- You can sign players to practice squad and poach players from other teams' practice squads. For this, the rules are a little simplified compared to the NFL. You can sign a player to your PS from another team's PS, but anyone else can then sign them from yours. So if you want to "protect" that player, you have to put him on your active roster. They aren't using the rules about the player having to be put on the active roster for a certain number of weeks or restrictions on how many times a player can be elevated, etc.

Scoring includes all positions and is calibrated to the relative values of the positions (as established based on contracts and use of draft resources) by position.

The first drafts will be in July for leagues that fill and lock by July 1 so ideally you'd be in by then. There is a later draft in August for leagues that fill later, but that gives you much less time to develop your roster through FA and trades.

If there aren’t enough people for a full Purple Flock private league you can play in a public league and still play with others from this forum (or other friends) using the Find a Friend feature. If you do that, you will play against your friends but also people you don't know (yet).

The FAQs on the site are pretty extensive and give more details.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[ndub]

To answer some questions:

Draft -- You will draft where the Ravens picked but can trade picks in this draft to move around.

Free Agency -- You can bid on and "sign" free agents. Players and their contracts are a package deal so you are bidding on the player and the contract together and will be subject to the salary cap.

Trades -- You can trade players and current season draft picks, but subject to the salary cap, so there are dead cap hits if you trade guys with big contracts.

Practice Squad -- You can sign players to practice squad and poach players from other teams' practice squads. For this, the rules are a little simplified compared to the NFL. You can sign a player to your PS from another team's PS, but anyone else can then sign them from yours. So if you want to "protect" that player, you have to put him on your active roster. They aren't using the rules about the player having to be put on the active roster for a certain number of weeks or restrictions on how many times a player can be elevated, etc.

Scoring includes all positions and is calibrated to the relative values of the positions (as established based on contracts and use of draft resources) by position.

The first drafts will be in July for leagues that fill and lock by July 1 so ideally you'd be in by then. There is a later draft in August for leagues that fill later, but that gives you much less time to develop your roster through FA and trades.

If there aren’t enough people for a full Purple Flock private league you can play in a public league and still play with others from this forum (or other friends) using the Find a Friend feature. If you do that, you will play against your friends but also people you don't know (yet).

The FAQs on the site are pretty extensive and give more details.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

If you're still around here, get me an invite please. This sounds very fun.