NFL My Career

Draft night to retirement speech. Every choice bends the career.

Create your player

You are a fictional prospect entering the real league. Position and archetype shape your whole career: growth, injuries, money, legacy. Saves automatically.

Create Your Look

Cleats in bright red.

Fictional gear and signature poses, just for your look.

Road to the Draft

Start before the spotlight. Choose your route, earn your stock, and make draft day yours.

Or quick start below with an instant draft result.

NFL My Career: Football Career Simulator

Build a fictional prospect and live a full NFL career inside the real league. Your position and archetype drive realistic season stat lines, your choices drive everything else: training focus, holdouts, trade requests, surgeries, hometown discounts or max-money moves. Chase rings, MVPs and All-Pro nods, fight the aging curve, and retire to a legacy verdict that tells you if Canton calls.

Every draft night some kid hugs his mom and walks into an unwritten life. Here you get that life: create a fictional prospect, get drafted by a real team, and play a whole career, up to three big calls every offseason.

Seasons produce realistic stat lines from your rating, health, and team. Between them come up to three crossroads, one at a time, drawn from over a hundred of them: contracts, trade requests, surgeries, rookie hazing, a mural in your name, and a podcast invite the front office will hate.

You build your player's actual face before the draft, and there is a dirty side waiting whenever you want it. Selling the injury report to an offshore book, a bounty pool in the meeting room, a clinic in Arizona running a program the league cannot test for yet. Every dirty choice raises a hidden league security meter, and at the top of it sits an indefinite suspension and a comeback from the minimum.

How to play NFL My Career, a free online NFL career simulation game

Creating your player

Create your player: name, one of 8 positions (QB, RB, WR, TE, LB, CB, EDGE, K), and an archetype like Cannon Arm, Island Corner, Speed Bender or Ice in December that sets ceiling and durability.

Picking today's NFL or the 2005 throwback

Pick your league: today's NFL, or the 2005 throwback with the Raiders in Oakland, the Chargers in San Diego and the Rams in St. Louis.

Building your look or hitting surprise me

Build your look: skin tone, hair, beard, accessories and a signature celebration, or hit Surprise me.

Entering the draft and winning a job

Enter the draft. Your hidden rating decides the slot, and a real team calls your name.

Winning your job over the incumbent

Check the depth chart. Top twelve picks open as starters; everyone else fights the incumbent in camp, every single summer, and backup seasons are spot duty until you take the job.

Playing seasons one tap at a time

Play each season with one tap: yards, touchdowns, awards, how far the team went.

Open Career Log and pick a year to review its saved overview, regular season and postseason. Changes compare with the previous saved season; older missing values say Not recorded. Back to seasons returns to the year tiles, and Review seasons is available after retirement.

Working a real free agency window

When the deal expires, work a real free agency window: competing offers from named teams with their own money, length and roster quality, and one push for more on any of them.

Making tough offseason calls

Make up to three offseason calls, one card at a time: train skills or body, fix the knee or play through it, take the envelope or report it. Only the first card of a summer can move your rating, and a card you just saw rests for a while before it comes back (press moments follow your season, so those can come right back).

After a normal offseason choice, the result shows the actual changes. Expand it for any extra changes, then Continue opens the next card, or takes you back to your career after the last one, without applying the choice again.

Banking, investing and the card school

Open the Bank between seasons. Savings pays 2.5% a season and never loses, five things you can put money into each have a price that moves every season whether you look or not (a fund, flats back home, two shares and a coin that halves as often as it doubles), the statement keeps your last 12 moves, and the card school in the locker room is one sitting a season on odds that are printed before you sit in.

Spending money across seven store aisles

Spend the money in 7 aisles: home, rides, investments, body, flex, family, and a shady aisle that only appears once you have something to hide.

Following the news through retirement

Read the News box. The paper writes up every season in your own position's stat, the SocialGram shows followers read off your fanbase with three fan comments under the latest post, and the rival's card keeps the head to head against the player drafted the same year as you.

From 30, a falling rating brings the retirement talk: stop now, play one more year, or announce a farewell season. Then the legacy verdict, and the Hall of Fame wait one ballot at a time.

Filling the Trophy Case with badges

Collect badges in the Trophy Case: 25 of them, from a first ring and Rookie of the Year to 10,000 passing yards, a 20 sack season and $100M to your name, each lit the moment the facts of your career say so.

Answering your phone on the football calendar

Answer your phone. Texts from your agent, the head coach, the GM, a teammate or your mom land on the beats of the football year: draft night, camp, the bye, the trade deadline, the playoffs if you get there, the offseason, and the summer before the last year of your deal. Every text says which beat and which year it came in on, and how you answer moves your karma, morale, fanbase or bank.

Making the call when your rival forces one

Some seasons your rival puts a decision in front of you instead of a story: a late hit you can answer or let go, a debate show offering real money, a youth camp his foundation wants you to co-host. Every button prints exactly what it moves, and a gamble prints its odds.

NFL My Career rules: growth, aging and the security meter

Growth, ratings and aging by position

You start at 22 on a 4 year rookie deal. Growth is slow and honest, 1 to 2 rating points a year through age 26 with a late bloomer chance after that, and the last few points above 88 are the hardest in the game.

How each position ages and declines

Every position has its own stat line, its own awards and its own aging curve. Running backs fall off at 28, corners at 30, quarterbacks at 34, kickers at 39. Defenders chase Defensive Player of the Year instead of MVP, and kickers chase neither.

Decline starts at 31, or 28 for running backs, and it hits them harder.

Money rules and the league security meter

The league security meter runs 0 to 100 and cools 9 a year while you stay clean. Unexplained money keeps it warm. At 65 they open a file on you, at 90 you are suspended indefinitely, you lose the season, the money is seized, and you come back on a minimum deal if anyone calls.

Money has rules of its own. There is a 1% fee on both sides of every trade and a $100k floor in the account that cannot be invested away; a season that leaves you under the floor is covered out of savings first, then by a forced sale of holdings at whatever the price is that day. Cards win 42% of hands and a win pays 1.15x the stake, the most you can stake is $50k or 4% of your cash, and once you are $500k down for your career the guys stop dealing you in for good. Keep sitting in while you are losing and somebody at home notices, which costs morale and fanbase.

Injuries and when retirement is forced

Injuries can erase 2 to 10 games a season and leave permanent wear on your health bar.

Retirement is forced at rating 64, age 40, 34 for backs, or 19 seasons. Before that, from 30, slipping 8 points off your best (or down to 70) brings the talk: retire now, one more year, or a farewell season that ends the career after it. You can walk away after 6, and progress saves automatically.

Why the depth chart never guesses at fairness

The depth chart is real: the man ahead of you is as good as your team is, camps have memory (a starter is not benched over a small gap, a backup does not need a miracle), backup quarterbacks hold clipboards, and signing with a stacked contender can cost a mid player the job. Kickers never sit.

How the press and fans read your season

The press reads your actual season: win it all and you take the podium, collapse and you face the accountability scrum, ride the bench and someone asks the role question. Every presser is three answers, safe, honest or fiery, and the fiery one genuinely gambles your fanbase.

The fans nag you for the thing your position is judged on and never the other way round: a quarterback hears touchdowns, a corner hears lock down that side, a kicker hears just make the kicks.

The phone's calendar and your rival's choices

Texts only arrive on beats your season really had. No playoff texts in a year you went home in January, no contract year texts with years left on the deal, and draft night's text lands before you play a down. One text a beat, up to three a season, fewer while old ones sit unanswered, and the same text never comes twice in a career.

A season with no rival story has a 45% shot at a rival choice instead, never both in one year, and you see every choice once before any of them comes round again. A button does exactly what it says: morale, fanbase, net worth, karma or the heat of the feud. Morale carries straight into how well you play next season.

Playing inside the 2005 sealed world

The 2005 throwback is a sealed world: all 32 franchises exactly as they stood that season, verified against the real records, and every draft, trade and signing stays inside it. Contracts pay 2005 money, about a third of today's.

NFL My Career walkthrough: a quarterback's road to a ring

Reading an actual capped change

Say Health is 98 before a recovery choice that adds 10. The 100 cap makes the result 98 to 100, so the card shows +2. Continue moves you on (to the next card, or back to your career after the last one) with Health still at 100.

A Dual Threat quarterback's rookie leap

You make a Dual Threat quarterback and go 12th overall to a shaky roster. The leap comes at 25: 4,000 plus yards, an All-Pro nod, a run that dies in the Championship game. At contract time you take the discount.

Playing through a knee injury to a ring

At 28 the knee starts talking. You play through it, lose four games, and demand a trade. The ring comes at 31, you retire at 35 with one MVP, and the verdict reads Hall of Famer.

Answering your rival's late hit

Your rival drills you a second after the whistle and the card asks what you do about it. Settle it next time heats the feud and usually pays Morale +8, but it carries a 30% chance you draw the flag yourself (Morale -5, Fanbase -5, Net worth -$100k). Shake it off on camera is Fanbase +5, Karma +5 and the feud cools. You pick say nothing and watch the film: Morale +6, the feud heats up, and those six points ride into next season's stat line.

NFL My Career tips for building a Hall of Fame legacy

Cashing in early at running back

Running back careers are a sprint. Cash in early, because the cliff at 28 is real.

Why body work protects everything else

Body work is boring and correct. Health protects games played, and games played protect everything else.

MVPs and rings over stat padding

MVPs move the legacy score most, rings close behind. Stat padding on bad teams only goes so far.

Choosing between a contender and the money

In free agency the contender offers less and the rebuild offers more. The roster number on the card is the exact quality your next seasons run on, so you are choosing between money and January.

NFL My Career FAQ: positions, free agency and the Bank

Which positions can I play?

Eight of them: QB, RB, WR, TE, LB, CB, EDGE and K, each with its own archetypes, stat line, awards and aging curve.

Can I start in a different era?

Yes. The create screen has a 2005 throwback: the league exactly as it stood that season, with the Raiders in Oakland, the Chargers in San Diego and the Rams in St. Louis. An era career never meets a franchise that did not exist yet, and the money is 2005 sized.

How does free agency work?

When your deal is up you get a window of real offers: your team's re-sign number plus named suitors, each with its own salary, length and roster quality. Contenders lowball because they can, rebuilds overpay because they must. You can push any offer for more once, but push a weak case and it can be pulled. Your own team never walks away, so you always have somewhere to sign.

Why am I not starting?

Because the man ahead of you is better, for now. Late picks usually open on the bench behind an incumbent whose level tracks your team's quality. Grow your rating and you will win a camp; backup years are spot duty with slower fame and sagging morale, which is exactly why they sting. A rebuild with a bare roster is the fastest route to the job.

What decides the legacy verdict?

Rings, MVPs, All-Pro nods, seasons played, and stat totals, on a scale from cup of coffee to inner circle immortal.

What is in the Bank?

Four tabs. Account holds your cash, a savings account that pays 2.5% a season, and a statement of your last 12 moves. Market is five prices that move every season, each with its own risk word and a read on whether it is cheap or dear against what it usually goes for. Cards is the locker room card school, one sitting a season, on odds the screen prints before you play. Shop is the 7 aisles. It is the same engine Soccer Career's phone runs on, in dollars.

Who is my rival?

A generated player drafted the same year at your position. He plays his own seasons on the same scale you do, can win a ring before you and retire before you, and the head to head is kept for good. He is fictional, like your own player, so no real player's career is being simulated.

How do I earn badges?

By doing the thing. Each of the 25 badges is a test on the facts of your career, checked every time you open the case: a ring, an MVP, ten thousand yards, five full seasons without a missed game, a million dollars to your name. The three single season badges sit just under the real records, 5,000 passing yards against Peyton Manning's 5,477, 2,000 rushing yards against Eric Dickerson's 2,105 and 20 sacks against Myles Garrett's 23, and the ten All-Pro badge is the mark Jerry Rice and Jim Otto share.

Is NFL My Career free to play?

Yes. NFL My Career is free to play on DoUKnowBall, right in your browser. No download and no signup needed.

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