Finally, there is an issue with player progression and aging. Players simply do not show signs of age fast enough. In simming through the 2013 season, is it even remotely possible that Tony Gonzalez could still be a starting TE in the league? Or that Jamal Lewis would still be the starting RB in Baltimore? Or Rudi Johnson getting over 250 carries a year in Cincy? We’re talking seven years in the future – and these guys are still in the league – and starting!

These are mainly realism issues so your mileage may vary as to how much it all matters to you, but one has to assume that if you are sitting down to play an NFL management sim that you’d like it to behave as realistically as possible. And that’s the rub with Football Mogul. A game like this does not have to track every stat under the sun or wallow in numbers minutia, but it absolutely must be a moderately realistic representation of the league.

If you’re looking for a deep text-based football simulation – get Front Office Football 2007. Mogul just has too many holes right now. There is definitely a market for a game like this that doesn’t throw reams of data at you at every turn – but until it gets the fundamentals down, it’s very hard to recommend – even at $19.99 - William Abner