Luqa74 wrote: Good morning. I'm a former rugby player and I'm quite new to American Football, I think I need some clarification about player attributes. Carrying: in rugby it's the ability to forward the ball and brush off opponent tackles. Am I right if I say it's the most important attribute for RB? Is it needed by KR too? Blocking: Is it only for OL? Protecting QB is their main task, other player do blocks only occasionally. Footwork: In rugby is essential to get rid of the tackler before the contact, so I think it's very important for RB. But what about WR? I think footwork is very useful to get rid of the guard and receive the QB pass without troubles, am I right? Catching: Very important - obviously - for WR, but what about KR: their first task is catching the kick! Intelligence: attack team call a play, while defense team must read it and react. Must I assume intelligence is primary for defense team and secondary for attack team (except, perhaps, QB)? Intelligence, vision, positioning: difference is really slight. Someone can explain? Thank you everybody!!

First of all, greetings mate! Glad to have you aboard GI to give American football a go round..

I'll break it down quite simply so as not to over-complicate things, which I have a tendency to do.. Simply ask for any clarification if needed.

Carrying: The ability of the RB/KR to hold onto the ball. This skill is to prevent fumbles. You were dead on about the positions needed it for, just missed out on why.

Blocking: Blockers prevent pass rushers from getting to the QB, and/or attack the defense to open up holes for the ball carrier to go through. OL block on every play, RBs block on passing plays, TEs block on running plays.

Footwork: This one is heavily debated, but I fall on the side of the argument that it is helps keep one's feet in the proper position to maximize speed. I think it's a great skill for every position, but some would disagree on it's usefulness and insist it's essential only for blockers and/or tacklers.. IMO, the majority of the community trains footwork and agility pretty evenly just to cover all the possibilities..

Catching: Very important for WRs and TEs.. Kick Returners also make use of the skill from my understanding, but their threshold for it's importance is very low..I'd focus on carrying/agility for them, although they are altogether not an important part of the game engine, imo.

Intelligence: There are 3 positions where it is important, these are QB, MLB, Safety

While it does seem logical that Intelligence, vision, and positioning would overlap in their functions, in this game engine I can assure you they do NOT. In the current engine, Intelligence is calculated as a seperate individual skill altogether and does not affect any other skills. I'm looking for this to change in the new engine coming out at the start of the season though, but this is simply speculation..

For the record I treat positioning and vision very differently.. I prefer vision for my LB/SF/QB and positioning for my CB/DL/Offense, although I'm definitely in the minority when it comes to that..