That Nasty Retirement Feature


Despite what the gentlefolks at Sierra would have you believe, there really is very little mysticism when it comes to retirement in FBPRO96. Below are the retirement rules - you can verify them yourselves by looking over the league file and observing the ages of the players.

In guaging retirement, there are three distinct concerns - age, position, and roster slot. The way it works is fairly straightforward. If a player at a specific position is beyond a certain age, they will ALWAYS retire. If a player is beyond a certain age and NOT in the #1 slot at their position, they will always retire. If they are NOT at the critical age between these two values AND in the #1 slot, they RARELY, if EVER, retire.

It's easier to give an example I think than describe each case. Consider WRs - the Maximum age for a WR is 12. You will notice if you look at the IFL2 file, there are NO WRs beyond year 12 - they all retire, no matter what. Any league that DOES have a 13th YR WR either hasn't gone through one complete season or the commish has used a 'unretire' utility to bring them back. The maximum age that a WR will NOT retire if he's NOT in the #1 slot is 7. All 8th year WRs and above MUST be in a WR1 Slot or they're gone. There might be the occassional fluke but I've never seen it. It's pretty simple actually.

Here's the breakdown by position:


Retirement Ages by Position
PositionMaximum AgeCritical Age
QB1512*
HB/FB1310*
WR/TE128
C/G/T1410
DE/DT1310*
LB1310
CB/S128
P/K15??

* = I don't know this for sure. I haven't paid that much attention to those positions.

The WR and DB slots are the ones that I've personally paid A LOT of attention to. The WRs are particularly painful to loose!

I hope this helps.