Pass Blocking and Blocking Strength

[sabotai]

I started on a test to see how much an effect each has on the team's passing game. There are three things I will be looking at in this test.

1) Does Pass Blocking or Blocking Strength have an effect on a QB's Comp. %, and if so, how much of an effect.

2) Does Pass Blocking or Blocking Strength have an effect on the amount of sacks a team has in a season, and if so, how much of an effect.

3) Does Pass Blocking or Blocking Strength have an effect on the average amount of yards lost on a sack, and if so, how much of an effect.

I think that the first part of #2 is obvious, but you never know so I worded it appropriately. :D

For all of these tests, the QB's Sense Rush attribute will be set at a moderate value (4 in player file, will likely translate to a 40-50 value in the game.)

I'll post the results as I do them.

[sabotai]

Test Results

Offensive Linemen: Pass Blocking Low, Blocking Strength Low

After 10 Seasons (10 times simming the same season)

5272 Pass Attempts, 3236 Comp, 61.4% Comp%

386 Sacks, 2444 Yards lost, 6.33 Yards lose per sack
38.6 Sacks per season, 2.4125 sacks per game

[sabotai]

In order to help eliminate any of the questions, I jumped to the other extreme.

Offensive Linemen: Pass Blocking High, Blocking Strength High

After 10 Seasons

5360 Attempts, 3292 Comp., 61.4% Comp%

Well it doesn't get more obvious than that. Going deeper, the Comp% of the team with the linemen set to High/High was 0.03% higher than the linemen set to Low/Low. It's safe to say that offensive linemen don't effect a QB's completion percentage. I'll stop recording those stats now.

225 Sacks, 1398 Yards Lost, 6.21 Yards lose per sack
22.5 Sacks per season, 1.41 Sacks per game.

Again, because of the huge difference in the ratings, the 6.21 Yards Lose per sack compared to 6.33 Yards Lose per sack shows little difference.

Questions #1 and #3 results: No effect.

So now the rest of the test will focus only on the number of sacks. I'll do some more testing tomorrow.

[MIJB#19]

Well it doesn't get more obvious than that. Going deeper, the Comp% of the team with the linemen set to High/High was 0.03% higher than the linemen set to Low/Low. It's safe to say that offensive linemen don't effect a QB's completion percentage. I'll stop recording those stats now.That's more interesting than it seems. I mean, sacks don't directly contribute to the pass completion percentage, but "hurried into a bad throw" and "blocked at the line of scrimmage" seem to be pass rush stats and they should influence the completion percentage.

Now it would suggest that # of hurried passes and blocked passes are the same amount in both tests. Here's a theory: A good pass rush play is a hurried qb, excellent is a sack. Better OL is less hurried qb's, but also more sacks just being a hurried qb, meaning the hurried qb ammount stays the same.

Again, because of the huge difference in the ratings, the 6.21 Yards Lose per sack compared to 6.33 Yards Lose per sack shows little difference.I think that's a fair assumption.

[Buzzbee]

Good work Sabotai! I'm assuming injuries were turned off?

Also, was the AI handling the gameplan? If so, did the AI make any adjustments to the depth of passes based solely on the OL ratings? Or were the gameplans the same? With a better OL, the AI might have attempted more deep passes, skewing the results. Just a thought.

[sabotai]

That's more interesting than it seems. I mean, sacks don't directly contribute to the pass completion percentage, but "hurried into a bad throw" and "blocked at the line of scrimmage" seem to be pass rush stats and they should influence the completion percentage.

Now it would suggest that # of hurried passes and blocked passes are the same amount in both tests. Here's a theory: A good pass rush play is a hurried qb, excellent is a sack. Better OL is less hurried qb's, but also more sacks just being a hurried qb, meaning the hurried qb ammount stays the same.

I've been thinking the same. Since the game does not record how many times a QB is hurried in the team statistics screen, I have no idea how many times the QB was hurried on the team (which is why I looked at pass % to hopefully get that info indirectly). This is a quick test I'm doing and if and when I do a much more indepth test on OL and DL, I'll probably have more info on this.

I could just repeat the test (but make the changes I made to the OL league-wide instead of just one team) and count up all of the hurries made by defensive players. But that'd take some time to do (and I just got Fight Night Round 2 :p)

Buzzbee, yes, injuries were off and I used the same gameplan for my team in both tests .

[Icy]

Excellet work sabotai, you gave me ideas for a couple of tests i'm going to run this weekend. Of course will post the results for all to coment them.

[KWhit]

I've been thinking the same. Since the game does not record how many times a QB is hurried in the team statistics screen, I have no idea how many times the QB was hurried on the team (which is why I looked at pass % to hopefully get that info indirectly). This is a quick test I'm doing and if and when I do a much more indepth test on OL and DL, I'll probably have more info on this.

I could just repeat the test (but make the changes I made to the OL league-wide instead of just one team) and count up all of the hurries made by defensive players. But that'd take some time to do (and I just got Fight Night Round 2 :p)

Buzzbee, yes, injuries were off and I used the same gameplan for my team in both tests .How are you changing the players' ratings?

[sovereignstar]

How are you changing the players' ratings?

I'm assuming that he's editing a csv, making a fdt with it, then importing it into the game before each test.

[dawgfan]

Good stuff sab. Have you considered running modifications to this test splitting Pass Blocking strength to a high value and Blocking Strength to a low value (and vice versa) to try and tease out what effect each one has individually in this area? I may have missed it, but I haven't seen anything yet that definitively assesses exactly what Blocking Strength governs in terms of OL performance.

[jbmagic]

will certain coach rating have an affect on it too.

[sabotai]

will certain coach rating have an affect on it too.

I doubt it, but it's possible. But you can't edit coaches like you can players before you start a new game, so it'd be very hard to test.

[sabotai]

I'm assuming that he's editing a csv, making a fdt with it, then importing it into the game before each test.

Yup.

Have you considered running modifications to this test splitting Pass Blocking strength to a high value and Blocking Strength to a low value (and vice versa) to try and tease out what effect each one has individually in this area?

Yeah, that's what I'm doing next. Would have done it tonight but I went out.

[sabotai]

I'm running the tests right now. I'm having some very interesting results. I did not expect to see this.

[Buzzbee]

Yeah, that's what I'm doing next. Would have done it tonight but I went out.
Priorities man! Priorities!!

[sabotai]

Recap the sack numbers

Pass Block very high, Blocking Strength very high: 225 sacks, 22.5 sacks per season, 1.41 sacks per game
Pass Block very low, Blocking Strength very low: 386 sacks, 38.6 sacks per season, 2.4125 sacks per game

There was 161 more sacks when the ratings go from max to min and about 1 sack per game difference

Here are the results of when I simmed 10 seasons with OL having very high Pass Blocking (90+) and very low Blocking Strength (<10)

248 sacks, 24.8 sacks per season, 1.55 sacks per game.

Only 23 more sacks total, only 2.3 more sacks per season and 0.14 more sacks per game. Blocking Strength went from as high as it could to as low as it could and it barely made a dent.

Here are the results of when I simmed 10 seasons with OL having very low Pass Blocking (<10) and very high Blocking Strength (90+)

437 sacks, 43.7 sacks per season, 2.73125 sacks per game

The result was more sacks when both were very low. 51 more sacks, 5.1 more sacks per season. About 0.3 more sacks per game.

After doing tests with FOF over the years, I know that there is a lot of randomness to the game. These differences could easily be attributed to that randomness.

Based on the tests I just ran, it seems as if Blocking Strength has no effect on the number of sacks a team gets.

[dawgfan]

Interesting - blocking strength obviously doesn't help pass blocking much, and other than a slight increase in carries per game (and thus total rushing yards per game), it didn't seem to make any difference in the running game.

Whatever it is that this rating is governing, it seems to be a subtle effect, without a direct connection to either of these obvious areas.

Perhaps another study is needed comparing various blocking strength attributes vs. various pass rush strength and pass rush technique attributes on the DL side of things, just to confirm that there isn't any effect on pass blocking. Not that I'm asking sab to do this - he's already contributed plenty to this discussion.

Another possibility is blocking strength has some effect on stamina; perhaps it works in concert with endurance, or maybe endurance is more of a cypher for injury likelihood.

[Buzzbee]

Ok, based on your results in the Blocking Strength and the Running Game thread, Blocking Strength seemed to have little effect on the running game. Now, based on this thread it doesn't seem to have much impact on completion percentage or sacks. So, if it doesn't really have an impact on these, what impact does it have?

Another scenario to test might be to leave the Pass Blocking High and see if the Blocking Strength has a cumulative effect. In other words, Blocking strength serves to enhance Pass Blocking (and maybe even Run Blocking). A low Blocking Stregth adds very little value to Pass Blocking, but a high BS makes Pass Blocking more effective. Might also be the case for Run Blocking.

Just a thought.

[sabotai]

I did some more tests (that might answer your thought Buzzbee)

For all 3 tests here, Pass Blocking was set to moderate (OL had between 40-50 for Pass Blocking)

Blocking Strength very low: 312 Sacks, 1.95 sacks per game
Blocking Strength moderate: 336 sacks, 2.1 sacks per game
Blocking Strength very high: 314 sacks, 1.97 sacks per game

In all three test, again, I had Pass Block set in the middle of the two values for the previous tests. Is it a surprise now that the sack numbers seem to also fall in the middle of the numbers before.

Sack numbers in all tests with Pass Block set to very low: 386, 437
Sack numbers in all tests with Pass Block set to moderate: 312, 338, 314
Sack numbers in all tests with Pass Block set to very high: 225, 248

Do I need to draw a graph? :)

Now...

Sack numbers in all tests with Blocking Strength set to very low: 312, 386, 248
Sack numbers in all tests with Blocking Strength set to moderate: 336,
Sack numbers in all tests with Blocking Strength set to very high: 314, 225, 437

The numbers are all over the place.

Edit: The assumption thus far has seemed to be that Pass Blocking matched up with Pass Rush Technique and Blocking Strength matched up with Pass Rush Strength. Since in my test league, all defensive players have the same rating for both technique and strength, that seems to not be the case.

[Buzzbee]

Seems to indicate the main factor in allowing sacks is Pass Blocking.

Just to make sure, the stats are all for 16 game regular seasons, with no playoff stats. Correct? I don't think FOF tracks playoff stats anyway, but just want to be sure we are eliminating as many variables as possible.

Along those lines, the AI is not managing gameplans, correct? While it seems unlikely, the AI might randomly be changing gameplans, throwing more variables into the equation.

[Celeval]

Some more tests.

These done with:
- Game-generated universe (full draft, completely scout-done)
- No X-Factor
- CPU rosters/game plans
- No Personality/Chemistry
- No Injuries

The conditional averages here are calculated by making 5 separate full-season tests from the same saved game/starting point, dropping the highest and lowest value in each category, and averaging the three remaining values. The Hurries category is computed by summing the hurries of the top ten leaders.

Baseline (no changes)
Rush Yards: 62,473
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.15
Pass Yards: 110,217
Completion Percentage: 56.7%
Yards/Completion: 11.57
Yards/Attempt: 6.59
Sacks: 1,007
Sack Yardage: 6,327
Top 10 Hurries: 331

Control (no player changes, all coach/scout attributes maxed out at 100-Excellent in all categories)
Rush Yards: 62,599
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.19
Pass Yards: 113,315
Completion Percentage: 57.8%
Yards/Completion: 11.7
Yards/Attempt: 6.82
Sacks: 992
Sack Yardage: 6,189
Top 10 Hurries: 318

No Blocking Strength (all players to 0 Blocking Strength, no changes to run/pass blocking)
Rush Yards: 62,569
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.23
Pass Yards: 114,081
Completion Percentage: 57.5%
Yards/Completion: 11.67
Yards/Attempt: 6.74
Sacks: 967
Sack Yardage: 6,056
Top 10 Hurries: 332

High Blocking Strength (all players to 100 Blocking Strength, no changes to run/pass blocking)
Rush Yards: 62,589
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.21
Pass Yards: 112,210
Completion Percentage: 57.8%
Yards/Completion: 11.6
Yards/Attempt: 6.74
Sacks: 1,010
Sack Yardage: 6,361
Top 10 Hurries: 317

No Blockers (all players to 0 Run Block, Pass Block, Blocking Strength)
Rush Yards: 59,477
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.05
Pass Yards: 108,235
Completion Percentage: 56.6%
Yards/Completion: 11.57
Yards/Attempt: 6.58
Sacks: 1,377
Sack Yardage: 8,712
Top 10 Hurries: 452

Strong Blockers (all players to 0 Run Block, Pass Block, 100 Blocking Strength)
Rush Yards: 59,783
Rush Avg/Carry: 4.06
Pass Yards: 108,514
Completion Percentage: 56.7%
Yards/Completion: 11.63
Yards/Attempt: 6.63
Sacks: 1,385
Sack Yardage: 8,789
Top 10 Hurries: 416

[sabotai]

Just to make sure, the stats are all for 16 game regular seasons, with no playoff stats. Correct? I don't think FOF tracks playoff stats anyway, but just want to be sure we are eliminating as many variables as possible.

Along those lines, the AI is not managing gameplans, correct? While it seems unlikely, the AI might randomly be changing gameplans, throwing more variables into the equation.

I'm taking the stats right off the Team Statistics screen and no, it does not record playoff stats (I don't think it does).

The offense's gameplan is the same for each test. I can't speak for the defense's though

EDIT: And thanks for those tests Cel. :)

[Buzzbee]

Yes, excellent work Cel. It seems pretty clear that blocking strength doesn't seem to have much effect on any of these categories. The numbers for No Blocking Strength and High Blocking Strength are eerily close, as were No Blockers and Strong Blockers.

Looks like this myth has been busted. Blocking strength isn't a factor in sacks allowed, sack yardage, YPC, YPA or completion %.

Makes me wonder if Pass Rush Strength matters. It seems like it would result in more sacks/hurries/blocks, but will that myth be busted too?

Again, thank you for your efforts guys, and for sharing your results!

[KWhit]

Are all of these tests done with injures off? I wonder if blocking strength is used to wear down the opponent and cause injuries.

Another thought: Maybe blocking strength makes your opponents get tired faster. Maybe a better test would be to have all starters maxed out and have the backups be scrubs, so we could tell if the backups are getting into the game more often vs teams with high blocking strength.

[Celeval]

Yes, injuries off - hard to tell with backups and such, it's an awful lot harder to set up a test like that. :) I'm not saying BS has no effect, I'm thinking that whatever effect it has is a good bit subtler than we may have thought.

[Warhammer]

Has anyone done a study to see what effect good run blocking and pass blocking does for you?

[jbmagic]

Has anyone done a study to see what effect good run blocking and pass blocking does for you?


Run block help your running back get thru the hole.

Pass block help protect your qb from getting sack.

[MIJB#19]

Sabotai,

Are you going to run the earlier test again with high pass protection + low strength and with low pass protection + high strength?

[sabotai]

Has anyone done a study to see what effect good run blocking and pass blocking does for you?

In tests I have done (but not posted since I didn't actually finish them yet), better Run Blocking will increase two things. 1) The number of times he has a Key Block Opp. and 2) The amount of times he has a Key Block.

To throw out some made up numbers to illustrate. A blocker with 0 in Run Block may get 10% of the the KBO (the last stat on the Blocking Stats screen) and convert 25% of them. A blocker with 100 in Run Block Block could get 18% of the KBO and convert 37% of them using the same gameplan. (Remember, these are just made up numbers not from an actual test I ran. Just making them up to illustrate the effect).

And from the results I have done in this thread, Pass Blocking seems to have a direct, linear effect on the of sacks a team gets.

[Loki]

Has anyone checked to see what effect blocking strength has on short yardage runs?

I imagine 3rd and 1 or 2 comes up often enough where it would be important to look at.

[Buzzbee]

In tests I have done (but not posted since I didn't actually finish them yet), better Run Blocking will increase two things. 1) The number of times he has a Key Block Opp. and 2) The amount of times he has a Key Block.

To throw out some made up numbers to illustrate. A blocker with 0 in Run Block may get 10% of the the KBO (the last stat on the Blocking Stats screen) and convert 25% of them. A blocker with 100 in Run Block Block could get 18% of the KBO and convert 37% of them using the same gameplan. (Remember, these are just made up numbers not from an actual test I ran. Just making them up to illustrate the effect).

And from the results I have done in this thread, Pass Blocking seems to have a direct, linear effect on the of sacks a team gets.
So having a stud offensive line (like Vicksburg :D ) would likely result in a more even distribution of KRO and a higher percentage of converting them into KRB, as opposed to having one stud on a crappy line where the stud would get a large % of the KRO? So basically we could expect that an equally crappy OL would get a somewhat even distribution of KRO? But what if we run to the right 100%, will the LT get 0 KRO, or will it simply result in fewer KRO fot the LT?

In other words, do we have to at least run near the lineman for him to get the KRO, or is it simply a matter of overall probability?

All these answers are just breeding more questions!

[sabotai]

Each and every run attempt results in an OL, FB or TE (and only one of them) getting a KBO. All things being equal, an OL with an even distribution of talent will result in an even distribution of KBO. I would imagine run direction would be taken into consideration (as well as formation for the FB and TE) when the game determines who gets the KBO.

I have not directly tested this out, but in the gameplan I used to test this and the previous tests (run block and block strength), I've ran to the left more than the right and the LT received more KBO than the RT in just about every case. So yes, run direction will effect how many KBO an OL gets. But if you used that same gameplan, and upped one of the OL's Run Blocking, he would get more KBO than he did before.

I might, however, throw together a test to look at KBO distribution. But not now. I'm done testing OL for the time being and next week I'm moving to something else.

Loki, as for your question, that would be one of the few things that I have not looked at and would be time consuming to test (having to locate and record every 3rd and short in the game log). It'd be easier if I coded a game log parser in the past, but I have not so it'd take a long time to check. But it's an interesting idea and I may run a quick (read: semi-unreliable) test just to see at some point.

[Icy]

Weren't primelord developing a log parser to study QB's? i have asked a few times but we haven't heard news for a while when it was almost finished.

[Loki]

I played a couple other sims that seemed to follow a certain pattern when it came to ratings/stats.

- Some of the ratings seemed to have no appreciable effect on long-term stats, but did show up and make a difference on individual "plays".

- Some of the ratings had little effect on individual plays, but were the driving factor in lonog-term stats.

I would assume that FOF has some ratings in each category. Block strength might be one of the play-type ratings. (Along with stamina, hard hitting.....)

[flere-imsaho]

This is a wild, wild guess, but maybe "Blocking Strength" would be used to calculate how "completely" a block was accomplished. For instance, the difference between the RT knocking the LDE off balance enough for the RB to get another 3 yards before the LDE recovered and the RT completely annihilating the LDE so that the RB got sprung into the secondary.

[Loki]

I bet it's only used in short yardage runs.

[jbmagic]

or maybe its blocking strength vs pass rushing strength for calculations

[dawgfan]

This is a wild, wild guess, but maybe "Blocking Strength" would be used to calculate how "completely" a block was accomplished. For instance, the difference between the RT knocking the LDE off balance enough for the RB to get another 3 yards before the LDE recovered and the RT completely annihilating the LDE so that the RB got sprung into the secondary.

By that theory, such an effect would suggest that yards per carry on rushes would increase with higher blocking strength ratings, but sab's data doesn't seem to show an increase in that stat.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I think it is a subtle effect. Whenever the game log says he "knocked him on his ass" for the defense or offensive player, this is the result of an occasional strength check between the two opposing players, which results in a big play (gain or loss).

I think your run or pass block ratings (or pass rush technique for D) are by far the most important, with a bonus here and there for high strength ratings.

Now, if Jim would just tell us we wouldn't have to guess.

[flere-imsaho]

Now, if Jim would just tell us we wouldn't have to guess.

Where's the fun in that? ;)

[sabotai]

I think it is a subtle effect. Whenever the game log says he "knocked him on his ass" for the defense or offensive player, this is the result of an occasional strength check between the two opposing players, which results in a big play (gain or loss).

I think your run or pass block ratings (or pass rush technique for D) are by far the most important, with a bonus here and there for high strength ratings.

Now, if Jim would just tell us we wouldn't have to guess.That might be true. It could have to do with the occasional big run chance. The effect might not show up on season long averages. Maybe it would in some other statistical function.

Yeah, I think primelord was working on a parcer for situation QB stats. Maybe he could help us with these tests.

[hitmanwa]

I ran a couple of seasons this morning with PR Tech 9 and PR Strength 1 and then another with the opposite settings. Th results were...


Strength 9 and Tech 1
Sacks Hurries
DE 275.5 730
DT 206.5 455
ILB 46 53
OLB 73 86

Tech 9 and Strength 1
Sacks Hurries
DE 406 1241
DT 221.5 714
ILB 27.5 76
OLB 62.5 120


This is an accumulation of all the players in the game. I'll run a few more seasons this afternoon.

[hitmanwa]

Here are some 5 year averages. Maybe most already know this but I found it interesting.

-------9 Strength - 1 Tech---------------9 Tech. - 1 Strength
-------Sacks---Hurries---Totals----------Sacks---Hurries---Totals
DE-----265.8---678.8----944.6-----DE---393.7---1190.2----1583.9
DT-----167.2---436.6----603.8-----DT---229.6---704-------933.6
ILB-----34.1----49.2-----83.3------ILB---29.7----66.8------96.5
OLB----55.8----91-------146.8-----OLB--83.8----134.6-----218.4

[dawgfan]

I ran a couple of seasons this morning with PR Tech 9 and PR Strength 1 and then another with the opposite settings.

Can you clarify exactly what you did in your study? Did you change all DL and LB to have PR Tech = 9 and PR Strength = 1 (and then the opposite)? Was this run against any particular adjustment in OL ratings, or with the default set?

[hitmanwa]

Yes, sorry. I set all DTs, DEs, and LBs potential to 5 then in 1 set I set Tech to 9 and Strength to 1. In the other set all Strength was 9 and Tech to 1 then ran the seasons accordingly. I was also thinking of running a progrssion analysis on few seasons as well. That might be more telling than this.

[dawgfan]

It may also be worthwhile to add an additional control to the study by setting al OL to 5 in pass blocking and blocking strength.

Since we haven't seen any evidence yet of what blocking strength affects, there's been speculation that perhaps blocking strength aids in pass blocking against pass rush strength and isn't effective against pass rush technique.

Besides all that, it's certainly interesting to note that pass rush technique seems to carry more weight than pass rush strength. If similar results were to occur against a controlled set of OL ratings, I think we could make this conclusion definitive.

[hitmanwa]

Ok, here are the averages for another 5 years with all OL stats set to 5. I also maxed everyone out at 100% so there shouldn't be any or very little progression through the year.

Tech set at 9 and Strength set to 1
------Sacks-----Hurries
DE---476.25-----1364
DT---270--------746
ILB---43.75------56
OLB---102.75----161

Strength set at 9 and Tech set to 1
DE-----305.5-----733
DT-----184.25----450.5
ILB-----38.25-----40.5
OLB-----86--------126

One other thing I've noticed is if you have a WLB with good Tech or Strength the AI likes to blitz to the outside and with a strong SLB it blitzes the inside. Any idea why?

1 other quick note that may tie in to some of the above posts. I ran 1 file alternating Pass Blocking and Blocking Strength for each player at each position just to see who the computer plugged in. 99% of the time it took the guy with the high Pass Blocking. Afterwards I ran several other tests with the following results.

9 Tech/1 Strength vs 9 BS/1 PB averaged 400 sacks.
9 Tech/1 Strength vs 9 PB/1 BS averaged 320 sacks.
9 Strength/1 Tech vs 9 BS/1 PB averaged 311 sacks.
9 Strength/1 Tech vs 9PB/1 BS averaged 200 sacks.

Seems that Def Pass Tech and Offensive Pass Blocking are the deciding factors for Pass Rushing/Defense.

[VarlosZ]

I notice that the (very helpful) tests on the importance of Blocking strength and Pass Rush Strength I've seen in this forum -- which seem to show that Blocking Strength and Pass Rush Strength have no effect on a player's ability to block or rush -- all leave the Technique ratings set to high or medium while varying the Strength ratings.

Since it seems very unlikely that the game would be designed so that a lineman's strength would have no bearing on his production, I would propose that one of the following is true:

1) That high Blocking or Pass Rush Strength makes up (somewhat) for poor Blocking or Pass Rush Technique, but becomes dramatically less important as Technique skill goes up. It would be simple to set up a test for this idea.

2) That high Strength makes it more likely that a player will meet or exceed his Technique potential, or that high Strength helps a player to reach his Technique potential more quickly. This would be much harder to test.