NFL Head Coach 09

This is by far the hardest achievement in the game. This is a guide posted on X360A. It was originally posted by Sge77i. I followed the guide line by line, with a few exceptions. I could never sign Albert Haynesworth and Lance Briggs together. Instead I signed another 90+ rated CB in free agency. Also I was having a problem getting Kevin Robinson, Xavier Omen and Andre Woodson all in the draft. In the 3rd round I traded some 2009 draft picks in order to get an additional pick and Woodson, then in the 4th I traded the remainder of my 2009 picks in other to make sure I got Robinson and Omen in the 5th. You may have to play around with it, really Omen is the only one you will rely on since he is almost a guaranteed 85+. I also cut Colsten prior to preseason, since resigning him was always a goal and I never could. Dude is expensive!! When doing this make sure you don't get "Hire a college coach" as a goal. I had to reload the pre-season goal save a few times, but I was able to get the goals w/o signing a coach so it can be done. It was a little harder to win games w/o Colsten but it can be done. Save a lot in multiple slots, and go back to earlier saves if it doesn't seem to be working.

The simple rules to follow are:

-Pick skills that will increase learning to all players, not just specific to one position (special skils) or have a team with coaches already set with that
-Overload on one side of the ball in free agency. Whichever your positional goals are in the offseason, stick with the position that has 2/3 goals (for example, the Saints will have TE on offense, and the two OLB positions if you keep the default philosophies, so grab a few more defensive players to ensure all of your learning goals will be players on one side of the ball, so you can focus on just defensive learning)
-Grab high Learning Stat (90+) players. Albert Haynesworth, Lance Briggs, and any ex-Patriot player are perfect. This will help them learn the plays in less time.
-Draft Xavier Omen (HB) in the 5th round or so. Another popular pick is Andre Woodson, but I've never had Xavier Omen rated less than 86, so that's my preference.
-Save after you complete every chunk of goals (all off-season, draft, pre-season). Save to different files, so you can go back if you screwed up (this is especially useful when trying to get #1 offense or MVP with a player, just in case of injury)
-If you can't avoid drafting a bust, trade BOTH your first and second round picks away. No pick = no bust.

Saints Walkthrough:

Before you start, just remember to NEVER SIM unless it's a game. You need to see alot of events you won't see if you sim forward.

Start a career as the head coach as the Saints. Do whichever style you want, but when you get to your skills, first get Ambition, a 20,000 point skill that decreases the points needed for other Special Skills by 15%. Then, buy Speed Training and Strength Training to unlock Disciplined Routine, which will increase the players' Learning Stat. Also, buy Off Season Seminar and Regular Season Seminar, which decreases the rate at which player's knowledge degrades. This will unlock Playbook Training, but you can't afford that yet, so keep the 7,900 points you have left and continue into the off-season.

The first thing you want to do is go to your Team Philosophy, and change your positions to these settings:

QB: Pure Passer
HB: Speed
FB: Blocking
WR: Tall/Redzone Threat
TE: Balanced
All OL: Size/Strength/Mauler* (*Engulfer for Tackle)
DT: Run Stopper
DE: Prototype
OLB: Prototype
MLB: Balanced
CB: Man Coverage/Ballhawk
FS: Man Coverage
SS: Run Stopping/Big Hitter
K/P: Balanced

You now have a 91 rated HB, a 90 rated WR, and your OLBs are now 81 each. This is huge because it changes your off-season acquisiton goals (Normally you'd need both a LOLB and a ROLB). Also, go to the Trade tab and set GM Trade to Trade Up.

Now would be a good time to SAVE. Just to skip all this crap if you mess up.

Now, just skip everything until Franchise Tag comes up. Franchise Tag Jeff Faine (C, 87 OVR). Otherwise, you'll have no centers on your team (your other center becomes a free agent once it starts). Now just keep going until you get to a few days before Free Agency begins, you'll have your first season goals, which will to be to acquire a TE, CB, and P rated 85 or above.

Wait until FA begins. First thing you want to do is go to Roster, then Trade, and Trade for. Go to the Patriots, TE, and trade for Ben Watson (86 OVR). Haggle to a 2nd and 4th round pick.

Now, check the roster of Free Agency. Asante Samuel's the CB you'll be getting (92 OVR, 97 learning skill). If Albert Haynesworth (94 DT) and/or Lance Briggs (90 OLB), grab them. They won't help the goal, but with a high Learning Skill, they will help later on. Grab an 85 punter.

Once you meet your goals, SAVE, this time to a different slot.

Now, if Lance Briggs and/or Albert Haynesworth aren't there, grab a highly rated guy or two with a 90+ Learning Stat. Do not sign or trade for ANY OTHER Offensive players (besides Ben Watson). This will hopefully set your pre-season goals to have 3 of your big signees learn skills, and all will be on the defensive side of the ball (which is huge).

Continue towards the draft. You will get 3 more goals, Trade Up, Avoid Bust, and Sleeper. Trade Up is self-explanatory, Avoid Bust means make sure your first and second round picks have an 85+ potential, and Sleeper means 85+ potential for any other round.

Once the draft starts, you have pick 10 in the first round. Try and Trade Up on every pick ahead of you. They all want this and next year's first round pick. If you're not keeping this career, do it, otherwise, wait until the 9th pick (Bengals) and trade them (they'll want the 10th overall and this year's 3rd and next year's 5th, I believe). Now, you'll either be told to draft Sedrick Ellis (DT) or Leodis McKelvin (CB). If not, don't listen to the GM and just take one of them (or the best available at either position). Now sim until your next pick, but since you don't have another this day, it'll end the draft.

NOTE: In case you were wondering earlier why I was so willing to lose the 2nd round pick, it's because Avoid Bust only applies to players you drafted, so now we only have to worry about one player as opposed to 2. If you're having really bad luck with your picks, trade your first round pick away completely either after you trade up, or by having your trade philosophy to trade down (before it assigns season goals obviously). Sneaky, eh?

Now in the 2nd half of the draft, 3 players you'll want (or at least 1 or 2 of them) are Kevin Robinson (WR), Xavier Omen (HB) and Andre Woodson (QB). These guys have always had an 85+ potential for everyone I've talked to (including myself). Listen to your GM otherwise.

After the draft, SAVE to a different slot.

Continue on to the pre-season and training camp, ignoring the Develop Coach event every time (you'll need those points soon, so keep them). Sign your picks, don't bother haggling much with them, and continue on to the pre-season.

Now it actually gets easy. Once your goals pop up, you should have "Add 10 Plays", and 3 learning goals. For me, it was Asante Samuel 48% (He starts at 25% though), Lance Briggs 25% and Sedrick Ellis 25%. Now, SAVE, then spend EVERY practice learning a defensive play (don't worry about your rookies). Now, once you get to your first pre-season game, you'll have 3 more goals, picking 3 of your players to play at least 50 snaps in the pre-season. Unless one of them gets injured, you will get this by the 2nd or 3rd game, so don't worry about it.

After the first pre-season game, immediately go to Develop Coach and get that Playbook Training skill we couldn't afford earlier (you should have like 8,600 points now). After that, it's smooth sailing. Just keep practicing defensive plays and you should get all the learning abilities, and hopefully my boy Xavier Omen works his magic and has a potential of at least 85. Just remember to download 10 plays from Xbox live (don't use the play creator, as it locks injures. So any injured player will be injured forever, but uninjured players can never be injured).

If you meet all your goals, once the new regular season goals come up, SAVE, again to a different slot. If you don't like your goals, try going back to the off-season and unload a player or two who may make your team worse (but not by too much) on either side of the ball.

The regular season goals are doable (mostly re-signings, everything else you can get if you sim game by game and go undefeated). Just make sure to cut any players you need to so you can clear up cap room for re-signings (Marques Colsten will be expensive).

From gjjdemarco:

Here is a tip for getting really easy season goals.

Follow Sge77i's walkthrough all the way to the preseason (also signed Samuel, Briggs, and Haynsworth, and drafted Ellis and Robinson. I know all those guys aren't available all the time, but it should work even if you get guys with high learning ability)

With those players, my preseason goals were exactly as Sge77i described they would be. I achieved them before game 4 of the preseason. It should happen then, or just after the game.

Now from here, I kept starting the season with ridiculous goals, #1off/def, bunch of resigning, COTY, approval above 90, hire college coach etc.

So I went back to and loaded my SAVE that I made right after achieving my preseason goals and and dropped the following players: McAllister, Brees, Colston, Faine from offense, and Evans and Brown from Defense.

Went on the the regular season and made the promise to "win under .500" and my goals are now "win 3 of first 4", Beat Vikings week 5", "Beat Falcons week 10", "resign Vilma", and "approval over 90".

Then I went into free agents and signed a new QB, Evans, Brown, McAllister back onto the team. Brees and Colston were gone.

I don't have the achievement yet, b/c it is a little harder to win games with out Brees/Colston, but the new goals are ridiculously easy if you sim/save.

This achievement made me want to kill myself, or somebody else. Frequently the team goals will include some things that are nigh on impossible (learn 25% with the dumbest player in the league) or improbable (lead the lead in offense AND defense). Watch out if you try to use the Colts, as well, since they often want you to keep Tom Moore and Howard Mudd, two old coaches who retire nearly all the time... and you don't wand to struggle through the entire season only to lose the achievement to these two old dudes who you can't convince to stay. The 1st in offense and defense can be accomplished by downloading highly successful offensive plays and playing with the game time settings - SuperSim some games at 15 min quarters against poor opponents (always onside kicking to keep their yardage low), SuperSim other games at 1 min quarters when you need to regain some defensive ranking.

But... here's the SOLUTION part of the equation: you can cheat your opponents pretty easily, by editing the only thing in the game you can edit: the player positions. Can't beat Tom Coughlin for Coach of the Year? What if you move Plax Burress to QB and Eli Manning to WR? Can't get past Manning or Brady for QB of the Year/MVP? Move them to WR, and move Wayne and Moss to QB. Duplicate this devious move with every team/player standing in your way, and watch their stats plummet and their standing in the awards races vanish. Yeah, it's cheesy, but when you're 16-0 and Tom Coughlin wins Coach of the Year at 15-1 or 14-2, you'll see the light. Here's the list of positions that can be edited, as far as I know:

QB-WR; HB-FB; TE-FB; T-G-C; DE-DT; LOLB-ROLB-MLB; FS-SS-CB; K-P

It doesn't benefit you much to switch CBs to S and LTs to C unless you massively overstack one position - make all the good OL centers, for instance. I'm not sure how the computer compensates for losing all those guys, but I do know I changed Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson to QBs, and suddenly Mike Furrey was catching all the balls for the Lions. Thank me later, this is one of the most painfully broken achievements on the 360.