Insight into development?

[Ben E Lou]

Beginning of preseason:




After four weeks of regular season:




I do have a mentor WR.

Discuss.

[Ben E Lou]

I've seen this sort of thing happen before, where a rating becomes unmasked during the season. I don't think I've seen it quite this pronounced, though. What's fascinating here is that while his Route Running has gone up so much, there has been *no* increase in his overall future potential. Does this mean that the scouted rating takes into account his "real" future? If so, then theoretically if we could determine the weightings for overall ratings, we could pre-unmask some guys, correct? Help me with an alternate explanation for RR being unmasked so far by over 70%, but overall remaining static. So far, I haven't come up with anything else.

--Ben

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

I've seen this sort of thing happen before, where a rating becomes unmasked during the season. I don't think I've seen it quite this pronounced, though. What's fascinating here is that while his Route Running has gone up so much, there has been *no* increase in his overall future potential. Does this mean that the scouted rating takes into account his "real" future? If so, then theoretically if we could determine the weightings for overall ratings, we could pre-unmask some guys, correct? Help me with an alternate explanation for RR being unmasked so far by over 70%, but overall remaining static. So far, I haven't come up with anything else.

--Ben

I assume, based on his third round status, that he was a post-draft boom?

If so, then perhaps he is not the best test case for the typical player. Perhaps (and I'm just speculating here) the post-draft boom process (whatever it is) is a separate mechanism that might have caused the unmasking that you are seeing.

So, maybe we can learn something from the fact that his overall did not change. But maybe whatever we learn can only apply to post-draft boomers.

Also, maybe it is as simple as the change in his overall rating not being recorded during the season, but only in the offseason. That might be something Jim put in so that two guys who are very close in rating don't keep getting pulled in and out of the depth chart as the AI keeps seeing their relative ability flip-flop viz a viz each other.

Progress to the offseason and see if his overall rating increases.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I assume, based on his third round status, that he was a post-draft boom?

Nope. 3rd round pick in the allocation draft. That's why his salary is so high.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

I assume, based on his third round status, that he was a post-draft boom?

If so, then perhaps he is not the best test case for the typical player. Perhaps (and I'm just speculating here) the post-draft boom process (whatever it is) is a separate mechanism that might have caused the unmasking that you are seeing.

So, maybe we can learn something from the fact that his overall did not change. But maybe whatever we learn can only apply to post-draft boomers.

Also, maybe it is as simple as the change in his overall rating not being recorded during the season, but only in the offseason. That might be something Jim put in so that two guys who are very close in rating don't keep getting pulled in and out of the depth chart as the AI keeps seeing their relative ability flip-flop viz a viz each other.

Progress to the offseason and see if his overall rating increases.

It's 2006. We drafted the first 12 WOOF rounds manually. The other possiblity that hit me is that maybe this is unique to the first year because the scouting algorithm hasn't had a full year to kick in. I know for a fact that overall rating unmaskings do happen during the regular season, though. I've seen a guy go up like 20 points during the regular season.

[Raiders Army]

Interesting that his Route Running and 3rd Down Catching increased beyond their max, but his Big Play Receiving did not. I think that because both of those ratings were already "maxed" out in terms of potential, that's why his overall potential did not increase.

[albionmoonlight]

Ah, I missed the allocation draft part.

You might be on to something, though, about the first year maybe not being the best test case for some of these issues.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Ah, I missed the allocation draft part.

You might be on to something, though, about the first year maybe not being the best test case for some of these issues.

Unless someone comes up with a better explanation, I *really* hope that's what's going on here.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Ah, I missed the allocation draft part.

You might be on to something, though, about the first year maybe not being the best test case for some of these issues.

Also, keep in mind that the allocation draft is done "after" where training camp would take place in a normal FOF schedule. So it's possible that much of the mask which would exist pre-draft was dissolved during the allocation draft because of the location within the FOF calendar.

This was one of the reasons why I focused on rookies in the WOOF Draft and why I was (and am still) steamed at Ben picking Ford three picks away from my selection in the 3rd round.

[gstelmack]

I think he'll turn out better than his future indicates. Especially going up that much current, I bet he turns in to one of those guys where you'll see his ratings go:

67/68
68/68
69/69
70/70
71/71

etc until they peak. You've got two pegged abilities already going up, it'll be interesting to see if any of the others creep up after being pegged.

[timmynausea]

In my experience these players continue to develop beyond their potential without any adjustment in the future rating until the current actually passes it. It seems to me that the scout comes up with a future number and sticks with that. So even though we can see that Ford has the potential to develop in several categories, the scout is showing a close to maxed out current/future. The scout will only "realize" Ford is better than projected when his current slides up to 69 and beyond, and it'll rate him 69/69 and then 70/70 and so on as the weeks go by.

Basically I think of it as your scout being wrong about this guy. We don't quite know how good he will be, but he is going to be better than projections. It is an interesting point, though, as logically his overall future rating should've been adjusted up. It just doesn't seem to work that way.

[QuikSand]

Kind of obvious, but here, the development in RR is particularly (a) surprising, and (b) valuable.

[gstelmack]

Adding another data point: I drafted a rookie CB who was 38/60 after TC (I need to go back and dig up his pre-TC numbers, but I believe he lost a couple of points of future, maybe -3 or -4 over TC). He was doing nicely over the season, starting quite a bit and getting up to 48/60 as the playoffs started.

Heading in to the Super Bowl, I notice he's a 49/49. He got the one last bit of experience, is now fully developed at LCB and RCB, and dropped that last 11 points of future.

Interesting that all season long his future held steady until he his experience filled out, then it dropped like a rock. During the playoffs no less.

[QuikSand]

Okay, yet another curious case of player development…


My Chesapeake Chili Dogs team drafted a nice run-stopping defensive tackle in mid-round one:



…then after a couple years in the league, he started to look more balanced:



…and by now, in FOF 2007 and fully developed, he isn’t really the player we thought we were getting at all:



So… in particular I’m curious about his development in pass rush technique. I honestly drafted him mostly looking for a guy who would be a run stopper first and foremost, and I was fine with him being a non-factor in the pass rush. However, over his development years, he not only grew there – he exploded, and now his pass-rushing skills are nominally his strong suit. Go figure.

Anyway… more food for thought in the mix on this intriguing subject.

[Dutch]

I have to wonder if Bryan Lents benefitted from the conversion process somehow.

Regardless, he had some killer combine scores (probably top 1, 2 or 3 in all categories except maybe Sol) that showed a lot of promise (boom candidate)--and if he's maxed out at RD, any future boom had to happen somewhere else.

Two excellent examples of FOF2k7 boom's. Has anyone ever seen bust's happen in the same way? But in reverse?

[QuikSand]

FWIW, in the final FOF 2004 stage, the same scout showed Lents as 76, 78 in the top two ratings. So most of that development had already unraveled. But it does seem that he is now even better-rated than before, whether that's scout error or something else I can't say.

[MIJB#19]

Lents ran a 4.88 40-dash, that just screams for a pass rush technique in the very good or even excellent regions (for a defensive tackle at least) in FOF 2004. Take that into account and the eventual rating isn't a total surprise.

I noticed pretty big ratings increases with my top DL players in both the IHOF and GEFL after conversion, Dutch could be right here.

[Ben E Lou]

Update on Ford after Week 6 of the regular season:




So, the route running bar added four more points in 2 weeks, and third down catching added a point as well. What's VERY interesting to note is that Ford is only at "E" positional experience, but is 69/69, but has a good bit of green. One thing I speculated from the start (but haven't really tested or heavily examined) is that a guy with a relatively high (cur/fut) but with low positional experience is probably better than the revealed future rating. It's certainly looking like that is going to be the case with Ford. Now that he's hit that original 68 potential in his current rating, it appears that both will start being revealed as higher than advertised.

Thoughts?

[adubroff]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

One thing I speculated from the start (but haven't really tested or heavily examined) is that a guy with a relatively high (cur/fut) but with low positional experience is probably better than the revealed future rating. It's certainly looking like that is going to be the case with Ford. Now that he's hit that original 68 potential in his current rating, it appears that both will start being revealed as higher than advertised.

Thoughts?

I think that might be coincidental. I think positional experience is just how much he's played the spot (or spots like it where he'd learn about that spot). I think I think current/potential being full or close to full and the guy still being relatively young leads to situations where the bars (despite looking red) are really not based on enough information from the scout and contain a lot of scouts error. I think as you play the guy, the error gets corrected.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

One thing I speculated from the start (but haven't really tested or heavily examined) is that a guy with a relatively high (cur/fut) but with low positional experience is probably better than the revealed future rating.

Nothing concrete to add but I do agree with this. I am a big fan of the percent/developed player. Also, I will add this from the help file:

Players are also rated for how fully developed they appear. This is a very important rating, as more developed players are much safer picks.

[Wessinmouse]

I was going to suggest that "volitility" played a role, but the second example would seem to negate that.

How exactly (or vaguely) does vol. come into play? (no pun intended)

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by Wessinmouse

I was going to suggest that "volitility" played a role, but the second example would seem to negate that.

How exactly (or vaguely) does vol. come into play? (no pun intended)

In FOF2004 volatilty caused a random increase/decrease of ratings, with players with higher volatilty having a higher chance to make such a 'boom/bust'. All of those happened right after the draft, it seems that the rating was meaningless during the rest of the season. It was easy to notice at the start of the second free agency period after the draft. I honestly doubt it works differntly in FOF2007, except that the ratings 'boom/bust' is sort of hidden and hard to notice.

[Ben E Lou]

After Week 10...



So, in the last 4 weeks, he's shown +2 to third down receiving, and +7 to route running.

Since the beginning of preseason:

Avoid Drops: +31/0
Getting Downfield: +9/0
Route Running: +33/+33
Third Down: +10/+10
Big Play Receiving: 0/0
Courage: +8/0
Adjust To Ball: +14/0
Punt Returns: +7/0
Kick Returns: +9/0
Endurance: +6/0

Overall: +16/+4

I still think it's worth noting that while his overall rating is at 72/72, he still has green, and he has a good bit of positional experience to be gained. (He has increased two "color levels" since the beginning of the preseason.) My guesses about this guy are:

1. He's still got 8-15 points in overall ratings that he can gain
2. When his Route Running is fully revealed, it's going to be in the 80s or 90s.
3. The unmasking will stop when positional experiences hits Level "A" (red).

[liquid_zen01]

Hey, you forgot to mention he got +5 in Special Teams too!

[korme]

I forget, do mentors have to be on the active roster to be effective?

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

I forget, do mentors have to be on the active roster to be effective?

They did in 2k4, not sure about the new version.

[Leonidas]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

In FOF2004 volatilty caused a random increase/decrease of ratings, with players with higher volatilty having a higher chance to make such a 'boom/bust'. All of those happened right after the draft, it seems that the rating was meaningless during the rest of the season. It was easy to notice at the start of the second free agency period after the draft. I honestly doubt it works differntly in FOF2007, except that the ratings 'boom/bust' is sort of hidden and hard to notice.

I does work somewhat differentlyt in 2K7 in that the big rating changes seem to happen during camp, not before. Also a lot of changes seem to happen between staff hiring and the beginning of FA.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by Leonidas

I does work somewhat differentlyt in 2K7 in that the big rating changes seem to happen during camp, not before. Also a lot of changes seem to happen between staff hiring and the beginning of FA.

This change is probably more likely due to when you change your scout, as you see his perception of your roster instead of your previous scout's.

[MIJB#19]

For the general discussion: In the WOOF mp league, I have a veteran quarterback who was rated 50/62 at the season start. At mid-season he has improved to 56/56, which makes you think he's fully developed, right? Wrong, a week later he has improved to 57/57. So unlike Dusty Ford, my quarterback hasn't hit the initial cealing yet, but somehow does seem to hit his hidden potential and then goes on to make more progress...

[Ben E Lou]

At the end of his first regular season...




So, over the course of one preseason and one regular season his scouted ratings grew:

OVERALL: +26/+14
Avoid Drops: +51/+0
Getting Downfield: +25/+5
Route Running: +53/+53
Third Down Catching: +10/+10 (at least)
Big-Play Receiving: +0/+0
Courage: +13/+0
Adjust To Ball: +24/+0
Punt Returns: +12/+1
Kick Returns: +15/+1
Endurance: +10/+0
Special teams: +5/+5 (at least)



Worth noting again...

Originally Posted by SkyDog, earlier in this thread

I still think it's worth noting that while his overall rating is at 72/72, he still has green, and he has a good bit of positional experience to be gained. (He has increased two "color levels" since the beginning of the preseason.) My guesses about this guy are:

1. He's still got 8-15 points in overall ratings that he can gain
2. When his Route Running is fully revealed, it's going to be in the 80s or 90s.
3. The unmasking will stop when positional experiences hits Level "A" (red).

There's nothing so far to indicate that this isn't accurate. He's still got two "color levels" of positional experience to go, suggesting that his potential may even be in the low 90s.

[Ben E Lou]

As far as his performance, he had a very solid year for a rookie WR: 64 catches, 1064 yards, 8 TDs, 4 drops, 9.09 yards per target, and 5 100-yard games.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Worth noting again...There's nothing so far to indicate that this isn't accurate. He's still got two "color levels" of positional experience to go, suggesting that his potential may even be in the low 90s.

Just to continue to back this up, I've got another example of a guy who looked like he had plenty of green, but hit his positional experience cap and immediately lost the remaining future.

I think positional experience vs the current/future ratio is a good indicator of whether or not a player will really reach their potential or fall short. I'm still curious to see how this plays up in a draft (and I REALLY wish I had a good way to grab the positional experience and dump it into DraftAnalyzer; I've got some ideas, but they'll take a while to germinate).

[sabotai]

Little tidbit Jim said in the draft IRC chat room on player development.

[12:46] [sabotai] Does FOF reflect OL taking longer to develop than other positions?
[12:46] [JimG] Yes.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Just to continue to back this up, I've got another example of a guy who looked like he had plenty of green, but hit his positional experience cap and immediately lost the remaining future.

I think positional experience vs the current/future ratio is a good indicator of whether or not a player will really reach their potential or fall short. I'm still curious to see how this plays up in a draft (and I REALLY wish I had a good way to grab the positional experience and dump it into DraftAnalyzer; I've got some ideas, but they'll take a while to germinate).

I'm agree. My BRH team has a couple of guys that illustrate this fairly well. A 4th round WR who was at 37/43 and displayed a "max" development which was still not quite 100% recently went to 37/37, losing the rest of his green. That was pretty obvious to me that that would occur. I also have a 2nd year center who boomed huge in 2k4, but was remasked moving to 2k7. He was just about out of green, but was two steps from being fully developed in the experience chart. He's been gaining ratings since then (was maybe at 53/53 or so, now at 57/57), and just recently went up to the next to last "step". I expect him to continue to climb (which isn't a shock given he'd already boomed once in 2k4, only to have been reverted).

[gstelmack]

I'm watching my RB, and he went from 53/53 -> 54/54 this last sim while showing only 8 (of 10) experience at RB and still has some green bars.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Beginning of preseason (year 1):

During preseason, year 2:



And he still only has "C" experience. 31 in route running, my black butt. Looks like he's really in the low-to-mid 90s in it.

[Anthony]

i don't think i've ever seen a red bar increase that much. that is literally insane.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Hell Atlantic

i don't think i've ever seen a red bar increase that much. that is literally insane.

I no longer have the details of it, but I had something similar happen to one of my 6.0d players. It was a red bar going from somewhere in the 20-40 range (fully red) to somewhere in the 65-95 range. Interesting stuff.

[bulletsponge]

i just noticed in one of my leagues i have a wr rated 36/49. but hes only developed at 5. meaning he still half way to full development.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by bulletsponge

i just noticed in one of my leagues i have a wr rated 36/49. but hes only developed at 5. meaning he still half way to full development.

Remember that the numbers that people used to replace the experience tags are relative. The scale may be arthmetic, logarithmic, or something else entirely. That's a big reason why I used the A-B-C tags, so I don't fall into the trap of thinking about them numerically.

[Ben E Lou]

UPDATE: Ford is showing 88/88 overall now (midway through his second season), and a 100 in Route Running.

[MartinD]

Not sure if this will add anything to this thread, but I have a receiver in one of my MP games that I've been tracking.

This is after his rookie training camp:



(Very good value for a guy at the bottom of the second round, particularly for a team in dire need of a starter-quality receiver.)

Dauber started all 16 games in the 2008 season (despite a minor injury early in the season) and finished with 86 catches for 847 yards and 3 TDs. (This was very much a pass-first team - our starting QB threw 672 passes for the year - so the 86 catches was good only for third on the team!)

This is his profile during staff hiring of the 2009 season:



On first glance, it appears that he's just had a solid year of normal development (i.e. converting green into red), but he appears to have improved beyond his original potential in a couple of areas (third down catching, kick and punt returns, special teams) - this appears a little bit strange (to me at least!) because these bars are generally pretty much set (i.e. the values shown as a rookie tend to remain unchanged until the guy starts on the age-related decline at the end of his career).

This suggests that there has been a mask to his original ratings (if only a few points' worth), but this mask does not appear to apply to all the ratings in the same way - his potential in the main pass-catching skills (top three bars) has dropped a few points.

I may be barking up the wrong tree with some of this analysis, but thought I'd throw this example out there to see what other people think.

Martin

(Edit: Forgot to add - this class of rookies was taken from a TCY export rather than being generated within FOF.)

[Ben E Lou]

Another player, different position, with very similar growth is on my team at IHOF. My realization of the similarity between the two is very recent. Discussion about him is here, and here's a current screen shot:





His run blocking started at 17/45, went to all red at 45/45, and jumped up four points in today's gameday sim. Both run blocking and pass blocking (like, it turns out, Ford's avoid drops and route running) have grown in current rating in concert. I can't help but assume run blocking is heading to somewhere in the 90s, maybe even 100.

[MalcPow]

What were his combines?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by MalcPow

What were his combines?

He was 5.2/5.7, #34 on the adjusted rating scale, but he didn't attend the combines.

[Ben E Lou]

Swamp Thing, you make my heart sing. In two more games, experience is still "F", but he's up to 57 run blocking, 56/87 pass blocking. There's little/no question about this now...

[Ben E Lou]

It looks like we're going to have to wait until next season to see what happens once he hits the max. He's now at 60/60 run blocking, 60/87 pass blocking, with just one game to go. Positional experience is up to "F," and his overall scouted rating is 70/74.

[Ben E Lou]

Johnson's run blocking bar is now up to 90. He's 90/88/87/100, all red, but only "B" positional experience at LT. I don't know how much just one level of positional experience can gain for him, but I'm finding myself hoping that he can become the first 100/100/100/100 player I've had. He seems like a lock for at least the low 90s in all four bars, though.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

Johnson's run blocking bar is now up to 90. He's 90/88/87/100, all red, but only "B" positional experience at LT. I don't know how much just one level of positional experience can gain for him, but I'm finding myself hoping that he can become the first 100/100/100/100 player I've had. He seems like a lock for at least the low 90s in all four bars, though.

He gets a big boost this week, staying at "B" experience: 94/92/87/100. Overall 92/92.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by SkyDog

He gets a big boost this week, staying at "B" experience: 94/92/87/100. Overall 92/92.

No change in Week 4.