I myself just had the game freeze-up on me when I went to college scouting. First time it has happened to me, but, it is discouraging. Now each time I go into scout I'll be worrying about a freeze. I just skipped it for week 1 and went into my team's practice for week 2.
I also made a trade with the Chiefs. Being that Marcus Spear is on IR and I have a roster spot open, I decided to check to see what was available in FA and on the market. Didn't like much of what was in FA, but, I did see the Chiefs had DE Ropati Pitoitua available. Looked at the pertinent numbers you would normally have an interest in for a 3-4 DE (STR, PRC, TAK, AWR) and they were all decent to good. I offered the Chiefs a 5th round pick in 2014 and they accepted. Ropati will join a rotation on the left side with Kenyon Coleman and Tyrone Crawford. All three will get playing time as I manually sub in and out throughout the game from the play-call menu depending on the DnD and what I think the CPU will call in general. Crawford is the most talented of the bunch, but, his low ratings in AWR and PRC keep me from getting him on the field more. Ropati will be ideal in short DnD situations and Coleman is the starter who can do a bit of everything.
I have quite a bit of depth at the end position now which really just gives me more flexibility to focus on other areas of concern in the off-season. I know a lot of people are complaining about the functionality of CCM and justifiably so. However, if they can fix some of the freezing issues, this mode is like crack! I love that I can manually progress my guys and dictate what they improve on and actually have that make a difference. I can take a guy like Ropati Pitoitua and actually turn him into a pure run-stopper if I want and use him in situational DnD packages. Guys like Tyrone Crawford can get some PT and I can still upgrade them in other areas. It is really fun. Plus, I can build a team my way!
I was messing around with the strategy section and the "schemes" tab which allows you to select what type of player you are looking for at each position and I loved the ratings spikes, and hits, guys would take as I made changes. For example, I have my DT position set to "prototype" and Jay Ratliff is a 93 OVR. If I switch it to "Nose Tackle" focusing more on STR and TAK ratings, he drops to an 80 OVR. I have my WR1 and WR2 set to "speed" and Miles Austing and Dez Bryant come out to a 85 and 83 respectively. I switched it to "possession" and "red-zone threat" and they both went to 86, but, the rest of the WR core sank like a stone, so I moved it back to speed so that my other WRs wouldn't take such a big hit in OVR and in the XP they gain from playing out of their scheme.
BTW, I use a trade value chart when trading picks for players. Nothing too in depth or fancy, but, it gives me a guide when making offers:
99-95: 1st round pick
94-90: 2nd round pick
89-85: 3rd round pick
84-80: 4th round pick
79-75: 5th round pick
74-70: 6th round pick
69-00: 7th round pick
The OVR rating is based on the players OVR in YOUR SCHEME not their OVR w/their current team. For example, I looked at Ron Brace as a potential addition to my DT spot before deciding to grab an end. With the Pats he was a 75 OVR, when adding him to the trade list I saw that he was a 65 OVR with me. I still liked some of his numbers for a backup DT, but, I felt I should add a DE instead of a DT.
