The biggest update since the play-by-play engine: pick the situation you start in, coach a real identity on both sides of the ball, and watch the MVP race live. Much of this came straight from your F9 reports — keep them coming.

🎬 Scenario Starts

Five ways to start, picked at New Game — each reshapes your chosen team, and the owner's ask matches:

• Fresh Start — the classic campaign.
• Aging Elite — loaded, old, cap-stretched, picks gone. Win now or strip it.
• The Teardown — no stars, clean cap. Develop the core.
• The War Chest — bare roster, a vault of extra firsts. Turn paper into players.
• The Bill Comes Due — good team, over the cap. You can't sign anyone until you dig out.

🧠 Tendencies — Dials, Not Scripts

• 3rd- and 4th-down dials on Practice & Tactics: Pound It → Max Throw, Play It Safe → Go For It. They push tendencies, never call plays — Max Throw still sneaks it on 3rd-and-1.
• Defenses study film. Telegraph your third downs and they sit on them. Breaking your own tendency is when they're leaning wrong.
• Game Plan Leans and the Goal-Line / 3rd-Down Back pickers now live on Practice & Tactics. Free, standing, every game.

🏈 Offensive Identity

• Run game (zone / gap-power) and passing game (quick / intermediate / vertical) inside every scheme. Going off-native costs OC focus and playbook — and it genuinely plays differently.
• Your formation is real now. Air Raid fields four wideouts; Power Run fields a fullback — who finally gets snaps.
• Personnel packages: Spread Sets or Heavy Sets trade a body. Depth chart, starters, and the field all follow.

🛡 Defensive Identity

• Fronts: Attack (havoc, but a broken gap runs long) or Control (nothing comes easy).
• Coverage: Press Man, Pattern Match, or Soft Shell — each fits different archetypes.
• 3rd Down Defense: Jump the Read — big stops, big burns — or Disguise & React.
• Personnel matching: four-wide draws a sixth DB; heavy sets draw an extra man in the box. Check the snap counts.
• AI staffs run all of it.

🏆 The Awards Race

• Live races for MVP, OPOY, DPOY, and both Rookies of the Year in League Pulse — top-5 cards, faces, stat lines, % to win, week-by-week odds graphs.
• NFL voting rules: majors go to winning teams, MVP is offensive, QBs can't take OPOY.
• Projected All-League and Pro Showcase teams below the races; the offseason turns it into the results show.

📊 Stats That Time-Travel

• Year toggle everywhere — any past season's team sheet, leaders, and awards, retired legends included.
• Decades recap — every major winner, one row per season, your guys in gold.
• My Starters grouped by unit; League Leaders opens on a top-ten board with Targets as its own category.

📰 The Weekly Loop

• Around the League (X): every score, every week — matchup cards, marquee games first, linescores, OT/BLOWOUT/SHUTOUT badges — plus a news archive. Nothing is lost anymore.
• Sim ahead (Shift+Advance): skip quiet weeks; it stops for anything that needs you.
• Cuts, rebuilt: a real browser with Dead if cut and Net saved before you click.
• Saves: F5 quicksave, named slots, loadable autosave backups.

⚠ Controls Changed

• Space no longer closes screens — Esc or C. Space is Advance, and only Advance.
• "End FA Season" moved far left and asks for confirmation. No more one-misclick phase skips.

🧭 Fixes

• Retirements get their own Season Review card.
• Destructive actions share one styled confirm that leads with the cost.
• RB workloads honest — no more 430-carry seasons.
• The $0.0M/yr double-restructure exploit is closed.
• Esc → Send Feedback — F9 is no longer a secret.
• FA board shows NEED/OVER position chips. Saves stay lean over decades. The last emoji tofu boxes are real icons now.

🗺 What's Next

A free public demo in late September — one full season, all five scenarios — then Steam Next Fest in October. This build is live on the playtest now. F9 steers what we fix first.

Good luck!