Hi and welcome to the game. Hope you enjoy it. At the moment this game is more pass oriented, but not until you get promoted and play regularly against better teams. The general rule of thumb is to run against bot teams (90% across the board), and pass against human teams, but the passing game takes a bit of time to be effective. You will need to experiment against the teams you are up against to see how much emphasis you put on running and passing. Defensive options depend on what your opponent usually does. Against bot teams you would normally set for ... rush, rush, pass, rush. Against human teams, if they run all the time, set it against rush. If they pass all the time, set it against pass. You are right with the kickers. They won't make 40 yard FGs to start with. It depends on their rating (BPOS), and skills.
Try a few different styles and see how you get on. Once you've worked out who's playing at what position, stick to it so that they're BPOS increases (a half star per 10 games), until they max. Remember, the higher a plyers talent, the higher their BPOS and skills can go.

Whether or not running at the top level is completely useless IMO is debatable. It's just that passing gives more chunk plays, more chances for scores, harder to defend against generally speaking. Wonder if any top-tier players have ever tried going to an all-run attack just once to try and screw over a totally pass-set defense?

Vertigo wrote: Whether or not running at the top level is completely useless IMO is debatable. It's just that passing gives more chunk plays, more chances for scores, harder to defend against generally speaking. Wonder if any top-tier players have ever tried going to an all-run attack just once to try and screw over a totally pass-set defense?

yes even NT teams did (or did they just talk about trying?)
As far as TD teams are concerned peter and mercutioh and/or some other teams played friendlies with their first string teams running the ball.

unless ur opponent in the top div has a leaky DL, running the ball gives you -3yards and a pound of dust

Now I m not saying you should not try- FC Kazimierz played a balanced offense initially and were successful till they hit div 2
And i think Kazimierz said his v2 was going to be all-pass attack but I havent checked in on his team in a while.

Okay, thanks alot guys for your inputs!