FOF2K7: Some snapshots and specifics on retirement

[Ben E Lou]

I wanted to get a little more information on FOF2K7 retirements. I've run a career for 25 years now, and perused the career statistics and the current end-of-season rosters to come up with some hard numbers. The "LONG" column represents the longest career so far at the given position in my league. The "CURRENT SNAPSHOT" column represents just that: what's going in my league right now at that position.

POS	LONG	CURRENT SNAPSHOT
QB	17	7 with >13 years in league on rosters, 4 of those were full-time starters, current max is 15 yrs
RB	12	One RB on a roster in my league has >9 years of experience. Five have >8 years in the league.
FB	13	My league has only FIVE FB's with >7 years of experience on rosters, another four who are FA's.
TE	13	There are 9 TE's on rosters in my league with >8 years of experience, none with >11.
WR	14	11 guys with >10 years of experience are still in the league. Oldest has 13.
C	15	5 guys in year 11, one each in 12 and 13
G	16	7 guards on rosters with >10 years experience.
T	14	Seven tackles are in my league with >10 years of experience, only 2 with >12.
P	16	Three with >8 years experience, ranging from 9-12 years.
K	17	Five with >11 years experience, ranging from 12-15 years.
DE	13	My league only has 5 DE's with >9 years experience on rosters, and none with >12.
DT	14	9 players in years 10-12. Only one in year 12, though.
ILB	15	More relative longevity here than at most other positions, but still a good bit less than FOF2K4. 7 MLB's in years 11-13.
OLB	14	Only three guys with >10 years experience, and all three are in year 11.
CB	13	Suffice it to say that I don't think we'll be seeing too many Darrell Greens in FOF2K7. My league only has 2 CB's with >9 years experience. Both are in year 10.
S	15	Five guys with >10 years experience on rosters

Here's a link to the original discussion on this: http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=54149

[yabanci]

compared to the NFL rosters:

** updated **

See post 21 below.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by yabanci

Looks very good. My numbers for each position are probably high by a couple, because I counted guys under contract on preseason rosters and a some got cut.

Your numbers continue to convince me that:

1. This is MUCH closer to reality than FOF2K4.
2. It swung a *little* too far in the other direction.

If it doesn't get changed, it's definitely something I can live with, though.

[14ers]

What was the injury level you tried these on?

What kind of results would you get playing with Inj=200

[QuikSand]

I wonder whether the new retirements we are seeing are generally from players whose ratings are fading and/or who have become backups, or whether we're also seeing guys who are still in top starting form also retiring more frequently. I'd prefer it to be the former.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I wonder whether the new retirements we are seeing are generally from players whose ratings are fading and/or who have become backups, or whether we're also seeing guys who are still in top starting form also retiring more frequently. I'd prefer it to be the former.

Yep. I was hoping that retirement would take into account the "Darrell Green" effect where a player who plays consistently well and stays relatively healthy (minor injuries) would play a little bit beyond the cap for when players usually retire.

I thought the largest problem with retirements in FOF2K4 was the Guards and Centers who would routinely play for a decade and a half or longer.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I wonder whether the new retirements we are seeing are generally from players whose ratings are fading and/or who have become backups, or whether we're also seeing guys who are still in top starting form also retiring more frequently. I'd prefer it to be the former.

Yep. I was hoping that retirement would take into account the "Darrell Green" effect where a player who plays consistently well and stays relatively healthy (minor injuries) would play a little bit beyond the cap for when players usually retire.

I thought the largest problem with retirements in FOF2K4 was the Guards and Centers who would routinely play for a decade and a half or longer.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

I wonder whether the new retirements we are seeing are generally from players whose ratings are fading and/or who have become backups, or whether we're also seeing guys who are still in top starting form also retiring more frequently. I'd prefer it to be the former.

I know that I've seen some RB's go out while still productive, but no longer at the top of their game. Check out this guy, for example:




I'm fine with SOME guys like the above retiring, as long as most are of the no-longer-productive types. I don't feel like I've truly played enough seasons to have a good feel for this balance, though. The above career was from a, um, Quiksim, and I'm only in 2009 in the career that I'm watching everything carefully.

[DolphinFan1]

Just my opinion, but I don't have a problem with the retirement issue. This is just a game. It will never be just like the NFL. And I wouldn't want it to be. I want a game along the same lines, but it's good the way it is.

[CraigSca]

You're correct, it is a game. But why not try to be as accurately modeled around the REAL NFL as possible as long as the game doesn't lose its fun factor? For me, retirements aren't going to impact the fun factor unless they're not implemented as well as they could be.

[DolphinFan1]

I definitely think it's better that FOF2K4 where guys would stick around forever. Jim could tweak the new game a little more but I have no problem playing like it is. It's not a deal breaker for me.
Maybe an option is something like Madden used to have. Before a guy retires you can try to talk him into playing another year. Don't know how hard this would be to implement for this game though. Just a thought.

[AlexB]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I know that I've seen some RB's go out while still productive, but no longer at the top of their game. Check out this guy, for example:




I'm fine with SOME guys like the above retiring, as long as most are of the no-longer-productive types. I don't feel like I've truly played enough seasons to have a good feel for this balance, though. The above career was from a, um, Quiksim, and I'm only in 2009 in the career that I'm watching everything carefully.

Seeing as he played 15 times in his final year, did he have a serious injury in the penultimate game, which may have hastened his retirement (see Curtis Martin). Although still good, he had slowed a little over the last three years... Edit - OK, two years! Ok - just his final was little lower...

[Ben E Lou]

No. I checked. He had a minor injury in Week 1 of the regular season, and sat out Week 2.

[CraigSca]

A guy like Wendell Farmer should be an EXTREME rarity. Most guys that I'm looking at (Franco Harris, Tony Dorsett, Kevin Mack, Mike Pruitt, Gerald Riggs, Freeman McNeil, the list goes on an on) have an obvious dropoff later in their career and then usually are just out-and-out dogs their last year (leaving retirement as the only option).

Interestingly, however, those guys above had this many carries in their career:

Franco Harris, 2949
Tony Dorsett, 2936
Kevin Mack, 1291
Mike Pruitt, 1844
Gerald Riggs, 1989
Freeman McNeil, 1798

So, if we compare these guys to our beloved Wendell Farmer, it's not that Wendell's retiring too early, it's that he's not having the tremendous drop-off that the real-life runningbacks have that CAUSE them to retire.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

A guy like Wendell Farmer should be an EXTREME rarity.

I'd hope he's more of the exception than the rule. As I said earlier in the thread, I think it is going to take us a while to get a good feel for the balance of this.

[kcchief19]

I started running a test last night to compare some career numbers and career lengths with 100 injury vs. 200 injury. I got a crash simming a season during the 200 test, so I'll need to restart that.

But in my 100 injury 20-year test, using the same career length numbers Ben used above, here's what I have:

QB: 6
RB: 6
FB: 1
TE: 17
WR: 19
C: 8
G: 10
T: 14
DE: 11
DT: 23
ILB: 8
OLB: 6
CB: 11
S: 15

With the glaring exception at FB, this test league is seeing longer careers than SkyDog's which I'm assuming was run at 200 injuries. In general, these numbers are closer to the real-life NFL, which is of note because while the hardcore FOFers among us believe 200 is the best way to get realistic injuries, it is Jim's contention that 100 is a default setting, which would suggest to me that at 100 I should expect the most realistic statistical simulation. That appears to be closer to the case here.

My hypothesis is that the higher the injury setting, the shorter careers will be -- in essence, that injuries now have a cumulative effect on the length of careers, not merely ending a handful of careers early with a devestating injury. If that's true, that could also have major ramifications on MP leagues.

[JPhillips]

I don't think Farmer is that crazy. His YPA has dropped each of the last four years. He's no longer effective inside the 20. His long run is the lowest of his career. His team hasn't reached the playoffs for four years.

This shouldn't be the norm, but I could easily see a guy retiring with this set of givens.

[Solecismic]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

With the glaring exception at FB, this test league is seeing longer careers than SkyDog's which I'm assuming was run at 200 injuries. In general, these numbers are closer to the real-life NFL, which is of note because while the hardcore FOFers among us believe 200 is the best way to get realistic injuries, it is Jim's contention that 100 is a default setting, which would suggest to me that at 100 I should expect the most realistic statistical simulation. That appears to be closer to the case here.

I recommend using 100 because a higher injury level is frustrating for people who don't run a football team on a full-time basis. I'd prefer to use it myself. But 200 is designed to be more realistic.

I'd also appreciate as much information as possible about crashes. Is this something known in the bug thread? As far as I know, there are no crashes possible in the engine itself. If that's not the case, I need to stop everything and work on that full-time. I am not going to put out a second patch quickly, so I'll hold off until we get this resolved.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

As I've asked many, many times before, if someone is going to make some sort of assertion about something I've said, please quote it. Don't assume and then put my name on it.

I recommend using 100 because a higher injury level is frustrating for people who don't run a football team on a full-time basis. I'd prefer to use it myself. But 200 is designed to be more realistic.

I'd also appreciate as much information as possible about crashes. Is this something known in the bug thread? As far as I know, there are no crashes possible in the engine itself. If that's not the case, I need to stop everything and work on that full-time. I am not going to put out a second patch quickly, so I'll hold off until we get this resolved.

I agree with using 100. Yes, it's not as realistic as 200, but I don't like all those injuries. At least it's changeable if you want to change it.

[kcchief19]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

I'd also appreciate as much information as possible about crashes. Is this something known in the bug thread? As far as I know, there are no crashes possible in the engine itself. If that's not the case, I need to stop everything and work on that full-time. I am not going to put out a second patch quickly, so I'll hold off until we get this resolved.

I didn't post anything in the bug thread because I really don't have much info available -- I was playing around with simming full seasons to see how the injury setting impacted the lengths of some careers and in the middle of the season I got a crash along with the box asking if I want to forward info to Microsoft.

I was multitasking at the time and not paying much attention, so the only thing I can tell you is that I was simming the entire season and it crashed in the middle of the season. I'm also not completely convinced it was an FOF issue and not a Windows issue or a Matt-having-too-many-programs running issue.

[yabanci]

*** update ***

As I noted in my post last night, my numbers were a little high because they included some players who were on preseason rosters but got cut. I decided to go back and update it with only players on current NFL rosters. I also added the numbers Kcchief19 posted and the average of his and SkyDog's. Additionally, I added the longest exp on NFL rosters compared with SkyDog's longest.

As you can see, the numbers look great. Two FOF studies is a small sample size. I suspect if more tests were run they'd average out very close to the current NFL experience levels. Great work by Jim.

key:

NFL players with x exp (SkyDog's # / Kcchief19's # = Avg) - NFL long (SkyDog's long). NFL number and FOF avg in red.


QB - 5 with >13 exp (7/6=6.5); long -16 (17)

RB - 4 with >9 exp (1/6=3.5) -long 11 (12)

FB - 10 with >9 exp (5/1=3) - long 14 (13)

TE - 14 with >8 exp (9/17=13) - long 15 (13)

WR - 15 with >10 exp (11/19=15.5) - long 16 (14)

C - 8 with >10 exp (7/8=7.5) - long 14 (15)

G - 8 with >10 exp (7/10=8.5) - long 14 (16)

T - 10 with >10 exp (7/14=10.5) - long 15 (14)

DE - 17 with >9 exp (5/11=8) - long 14 (13)

DT - 14 with >9 exp (9/23=16) - long 16 (14)

ILB - 8 with >10 exp (7/8=7.5) - long 17 (15) (note: Seau only ILB with >11)

OLB - 5 with >10 exp (3/6=4.5) - long 14 (14)

CB - 14 with >9 exp (2/11=6.5) - long 13 (13)

S - 11 with >10 exp (5/15=10) - long 14 (15)

[yabanci]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

A guy like Wendell Farmer should be an EXTREME rarity. Most guys that I'm looking at (Franco Harris, Tony Dorsett, Kevin Mack, Mike Pruitt, Gerald Riggs, Freeman McNeil, the list goes on an on) have an obvious dropoff later in their career and then usually are just out-and-out dogs their last year (leaving retirement as the only option).
...
So, if we compare these guys to our beloved Wendell Farmer, it's not that Wendell's retiring too early, it's that he's not having the tremendous drop-off that the real-life runningbacks have that CAUSE them to retire.

See Barry Sanders.

Obviously though, I agree that this should be the exception to the rule and most guys decline late in their careers.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by kcchief19

I didn't post anything in the bug thread because I really don't have much info available -- I was playing around with simming full seasons to see how the injury setting impacted the lengths of some careers and in the middle of the season I got a crash along with the box asking if I want to forward info to Microsoft.

I was multitasking at the time and not paying much attention, so the only thing I can tell you is that I was simming the entire season and it crashed in the middle of the season. I'm also not completely convinced it was an FOF issue and not a Windows issue or a Matt-having-too-many-programs running issue.

To echo this, I haven't had this happen in FOF2K7 yet, but it happens once in a blue moon with FOF2K4, too, and it is always with the forward-info-to-Microsoft message. I've always assumed that it was because of my multitasking. This is my screen right now:





No surprise that things crash from time to time. :P

[kcchief19]

Sweet fancy Moses!

Granted, my does look like that when I'm under deadline, and I can definitely go systray for systray with ya.

[cuervo72]

Bah, at work I will often have:

Adobe Photoshop
iTunes
Outlook
IE
3-4 windows of Mozilla, most with multiple tabs
ws_ftp
Homesite
Excel
Interrogator

Sometimes also a Terminal Services Client, or telnet, or calculator, or word...

[DaddyTorgo]

3221 PM's SD?? So that's where all our DB space is being taken up, hmmm?

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

3221 PM's SD?? So that's where all our DB space is being taken up, hmmm?

I bet 4 of those unread ones are from me. He never responds to my PMs.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I bet 4 of those unread ones are from me. He never responds to my PMs.

of those 3221, what's the over/under on how many are from jbmagic?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

I bet 4 of those unread ones are from me. He never responds to my PMs.

I think all of unread ones are from jbmagic.

[Ben E Lou]

Dang! DT beat me to it.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I think all of unread ones are from jbmagic.

hurry sd please, why fbcb better than tcb?

[Ben E Lou]

Bump. Is it just me, or does it appear that retirement was eased up a bit in either 6.0c or 6.0d?

[wbatl1]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Bump. Is it just me, or does it appear that retirement was eased up a bit in either 6.0c or 6.0d?

Maybe as a partial result of the cap situation problem after big-bonus guys retiring???

But I do have the same feeling, completely without statistics, of course .

[Ben E Lou]

I won't have time to compare results in detail tonight, but preliminary checks indicate that QB, FB, CB and S careers now go a little longer.

[MizzouRah]

I think players that have great years, should have a better probability of coming back for one more year.

Marvin Harrison had a 1,000+ yard season, signed a big contract, and then retired (this was before patch D)... BUT in this case, he should have asked for a one year contract, played it, and then retired.

[MizzouRah]

Torry Holt, the same thing after his 3rd 1,000+ season... just flat out retires. I'm starting to see too many players retire after good years for no reason. Holt just played his 10th season, was only 33 years old, and was injury free.

[MizzouRah]

dola x2,

Shaun Alexander resigns a $33.22 mil contract for 5 years in 2008. Next year he retires - this after rushing for 1225 yards the year before. I don't like what I'm seeing. Too many good players doing this, imo.

[Front Office Midget]

I haven't seen that as much in 6.0d... but if that's the case, sad.

[Eaglesfan27]

I've been doing some tests on this and I'm not seeing as many guys retire while still very productive with careers that were started with 6.0d. However, the few stars that have retired I've noticed have undergone significant fading (about 8-12 points on average) but are still in the high 50's or so for their rating and still have had productive years. I don't mind that too much, as I see it as guys choosing to go out before they embarass themselves - like quite a few stars have done over the years.

[Ben E Lou]

What EF27 said.

Or, maybe the sky is falling.

[Eaglesfan27]

Inspired by work done by a few people including Skydog, I decided to attempt to look at predictors of imminent retirement in a bit more detail.
So, I took a look at many universes each over a 30 year history. I kept scouts of at least very good level for each of the specific positions I was looking at, and with those positions I randomly sampled 30 players at each position that were rated between 40-50 at their peak, another 30 at each position who were rated between 50-60 at their peak, another 30 at each position who were rated 60-70 at their peak. Finally, I looked at 30 from each position who were rated 70 and above at their peak.


There were a few flaws in this method. The most essential problem was that statistical margin of error was still fairly significant with each subgroup. I don't have the time right now to enlarge those subsamples, so I just pooled the data at each group and am presenting that for now:

Position	Avg yrs of exp that decline starts				Average yrs of exp before retirement			% of decline before retirement
QB	10.8				13.2			28.2
RB	6.4				7.9			26.7
FB	7.6				8.9			24.3
TE	7.8				9.4			27.3
WR	8.6				11.4			30.3
C	7.9				9.6			28.3
G	8.1				10.1			29.4
T	8.3				10.4			27.3
DE	7.9				9.4			31.3
DT	8.1				9.5			30.4
ILB	7.3				8.7			27.4
OLB	7.4				8.9			29.3
CB	7.1				8.4			28.6
S	8.3				10.5			29.7

This confirmed a few initutive thoughts I had. Players on average retire about 2 years after they start significant decline which I defined as 5 or more points off their current. The average player declines about 25-30% from their peak before retiring, however, I found this percentage was increased the higher the overall rating of the player was which makes sense. I'll probably have some other thoughts as well, but anyone else have any thoughts? Anyone else done any similar data collection? Would be kind of cool to meta-analyze a few of these types of studies.

[Eaglesfan27]

Forgot to mention that I had injuries at 200, but I threw out anyone who retired due to injury before their 5th year and replaced them with another random player.