From my personal experience, I played for like 2-3 weeks. You get a starter set with mostly mediocre cards (card based UI) and then one decent and then a great

From my personal experience, I played for like 2-3 weeks. You get a starter set with mostly mediocre cards (card based UI) and then one decent and then a great card (defensive player for me and a few other people I know; don't know if it can be someone offensive). From there, you can do little skill things for points which can be turned in for either more cards or contracts. These are mostly skill drill type things and not really "I'm playing a football game as my team vs the Bears" or something though there are some. Don't know if the events refresh so you can unlock more points as I only played a few weeks. So there's the no pay options of keeping things going as far as I could tell. One week I got a Greg Olsen card as part of some event promo thing. Worked very well as a tight end in Ultimate Team. A week or two later it was around Super Bowl or something and received Dak Prescott. So solid passing tandem. Then, after a few games, contracts are coming up. At first it was Dak and it cost a lot to keep him. Then, I had burned so many on him that I didn't have many left for whoever it was that was my DE (it was a moderately good stats guy. Not great, but serviceable). So I lose him and the second string guy takes his spot. After a few more games, another boot falls and more attrition. Lost Greg Olsen because I was a few contracts short and just quit because it was basically a team of second string players by then. Dunno, I'm all for a GM/player hybrid mode, but I'd rather feel like I'm gaining something when losing something on the GM end.