What are the important combines for each position group?

[Ben E Lou]

This is based on a large sampling (more than 40 draft classes from both SP and MP), so I would think that a good bit of the noise is removed. I just did a simple correlation coefficient through Excel to determine the correlation between each combine and the maximum current rating that a player achieved during his career. Based on some more detailed looking at the data and running it through the MalcPow filters, I'm confident that this is quite accurate. There may be a stray case or two where one of the "also important" combines is actually the "most important" (or they're actually the same), but overall, I would think this would be helpful.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="847"><colgroup><col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:3840;width:79pt" width="105"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:5229;width:107pt" width="143"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:10386;width:213pt" width="284"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:9179;width:188pt" width="251"> <col style="width:48pt" width="64"> </colgroup><tbody><tr style="height:49.5pt" height="66"> <td class="xl68" style="height:49.5pt;width:79pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" height="66" width="105">POSITION</td> <td class="xl69" style="border-left:none;width:107pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="143">MOST IMPORTANT</td> <td class="xl69" style="border-left:none;width:213pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="284">ALSO IMPORTANT</td> <td class="xl70" style="border-left:none;width:188pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="251">LEAST IMPORTANT</td> <td style="width:48pt" width="64">
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">QB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (10)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Solecismic (28), Agility (7.80)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Dash</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">RB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Broad Jump (114)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.65), Agility (7.35), PosDrl (17)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">FB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">PosDrl (22)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.78), Bench (20), Broad Jump (104)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">TE</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Broad Jump (102)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.78), Bench (22), Agil(7.75)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">WR</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (4.51)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Agility (7.20), PosDrl (42)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">C</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (5.31)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (25), Agility (8.00)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">G</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (27)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (5.27), Agility (7.90)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">OT</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (28)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (5.27) , Agility (7.80), Broad Jump (84)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">P</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (4.97)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (10)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Agility</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">K</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (9)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Solecismic (23), Broad Jump (104)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Agility</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">DE</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (27)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Agility (7.60), Dash (4.85)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">DT</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.80)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (28)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">ILB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.60)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (21), Broad Jump (107)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Dash</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">OLB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.40)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Broad Jump (108), Bench (18), PosDrl (22)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">CB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (12)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.52), Agility (7.20), PosDrl (37)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl71" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">S</td> <td class="xl72" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.35)</td> <td class="xl72" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.59), Bench (15), PosDrl (37)</td> <td class="xl73" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
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[aston217]

Definitely not surprising to see agility in there for so many of the defensive positions. The game still seems to weigh Run Defense really heavily, including for safeties. Probably a similar thing going on with TEs and Broad Jump (Run Blocking) and RBs and Broad Jump (Endurance).

I don't think I would recommend going for run-stopping safeties necessarily, though (etc).

FBs & position drill was an interesting one.

[Ben E Lou]

Definitely not surprising to see agility in there for so many of the defensive positions. The game still seems to weigh Run Defense really heavily, including for safeties. Probably a similar thing going on with TEs and Broad Jump (Run Blocking) and RBs and Broad Jump (Endurance).

I don't think I would recommend going for run-stopping safeties necessarily, though (etc).

FBs & position drill was an interesting one.In most cases, the "most important" doesn't have a much stronger correlation coefficient than the "also important" ones. On safeties, for example, it's .55 for agility, and .50 for dash/bench. Just thought for newbies it would be good to highlight the highest correlation. LB, P, and WR are the only positions where the difference between the highest and second-highest correlation is more than .1.

[MIJB#19]

Does this mean these combine scores (and the corresponding bars, if still existing) are a tell of good players, telling us the corresponding bars have more weight towards the overall skill bar or is the truth somewhere in the middle?

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

This chart is immensely helpful. Thank you!

[BishopMVP]

Hmm... On QB's and Bench, I remember weight training for QB's being super important for their early development. I wonder in FOF if a higher bench is just tied to being more developed, and thus more likely to get playing time from the AI. (Although the multiplayer data points help guard against this.)

[Ben E Lou]

Hmm... On QB's and Bench, I remember weight training for QB's being super important for their early development. I wonder in FOF if a higher bench is just tied to being more developed, and thus more likely to get playing time from the AI. (Although the multiplayer data points help guard against this.)Just checked. There's basically zero correlation between bench and % developed. The 0.02 correlation coefficient of my data set is very likely just a plain ol' 0 when the noise is removed. From doing some draft class imports, it's clear that %developed is heavily tied to height and weight. I would imagine age is also a factor. My guess is that there are no other factors tied to it.

[GridGlory]

Enjoying this & thanks! Of course some factors are more important that the current rating accounts for. Such as a very high 40 time for QBs. But that's another discussion.

[BishopMVP]

Just checked. There's basically zero correlation between bench and % developed. The 0.02 correlation coefficient of my data set is very likely just a plain ol' 0 when the noise is removed. From doing some draft class imports, it's clear that %developed is heavily tied to height and weight. I would imagine age is also a factor. My guess is that there are no other factors tied to it.I guess Weight was the more important thing in TCY, and I just assumed bench would be tied to strength.

I do find the larger question of how to balance predictable development with just the right amount of variance interesting. And its nice to know these correlations are out there - when playing a single-player career, the small sample sizes can make some things feel like dumb luck. I feel I have a handle on drafting pretty well, if not quite MalcPow level, between the combines and Greg's DraftAnalyzer, but player development seems to be more of a crap shoot, versus some earlier FOF's where it was very linear barring injury.

[biedrins]

From my own investigations, % development is based on some inscrutable combination of height and weight with a modifier for position. There's a pattern to it, but it's not a case of, say, being close to an ideal weight, because IIRC when I had a bunch of guys with the same height and different weights it just cycled through the values for development every 40lbs or so (so a guy would have the same development at 180/220/260/300/340/380/420 and so on)

[Ben E Lou]

... % development is based on some inscrutable combination of height and weight with a modifier for position. There's a pattern to it, but it's not a case of, say, being close to an ideal weight, because IIRC when I had a bunch of guys with the same height and different weights it just cycled through the values for development every 40lbs or so (so a guy would have the same development at 180/220/260/300/340/380/420 and so on)This is basically what I saw. I didn't change out the ages, but when I mess around with weights for 6'2" QBs for example, it's...

200lbs: 9% (To be clear, I generated 10 QBs who were 6'2", 200 lbs. The game assigned all of them as 9% developed.)
201 lbs: 26% (Same thing...10 guys 6'2", 201 lbs...every one of them 26% developed)
202 lbs: 43%
203 lbs: 21%
204 lbs: 38%
205 lbs: 16%
206 lbs: 33%
207 lbs: 11%
208 lbs: 28%
209 lbs: 45%
210 lbs: 23%
211 lbs: 40%
212 lbs: 18%

Not sure if it would change with age, but MalcPow mentioned to me that he thinks it does.

[Pyser]

does % developed really mean anything?

sure, when its under 15% or so, that's something to take into account. but beyond that, isn't it a bit unreliable?

[aston217]

I didn't know % developed was that specifically tied to height/weight. That's neat!

% developed factors into my decision-making to an extent. There's nothing that's too reliable. For me, a low % developed means the player should have a higher bureau grade, but didn't simply because he was generated with low development. If all the other signs check out, that tilts in the player's favor. Not a huge factor, but it's something I consider whenever I ask myself, "Is it plausible that this player is as good as his bars make him look?" Average combine, 4.5 grade, 45% developed -- maybe not. Average combine, 4.5 grade, 15% developed -- maybe there's something there.

[Ben E Lou]

OK. I've updated the first post to add the bottom-tier constraints that I've observed in FOF7. A few of these are clearly different from FOF2K7, but most are identical. A few key things to understand about these numbers.


1. These don't mean "any player better than all of these will be useful." For example, the WR key constraints are dash<=4.51, agility<=7.20, and posdrl>=42. However, there will be WRs at 4.45/7.00/50 who are scrubs.

2. However, these DO mean "any player worse than any one of these will virtually never be a 50/50 player." I posted an example of this for QBs in MalcPow's thread this morning.

Bench press of 10 or higher (4656 game-generated FOF7 QBs examined):

5.67% made it to 50/50 or better (264 out of 4656)
3.09% made it to 60/60 or better (144 out of 4656)
1.74% made it to 70/70 or better (81 out of 4656)

But when the Bench is 9 or lower, but not zero (4672 game-generated FOF7 QBs examined):

.30% made it to 50/50 or better (14 out of 4672)
.06% made it to 60/60 or better (3 out of 4672)
0 made it to 70/70 or better (0 out of 4672)

Basically, so few guys make it to 50/50 or 60/60 that don't hit even one of these constraints that it may just be scouting error or VSOL that gets them above those numbers.

3. In nearly all cases, the constraint is also the most common combine value, and often by a very wide margin. For example, the QB agility constraint value is 7.80. In my current data, there are 1,642 QBs with an agility score of 7.80. The next-highest value is the lowest possible: 8.40. That only occurs 202 times. Below that, there are a bunch of values that show up 140-170ish times. So despite there being 148 possible values (from 6.93 to 8.40), more than one out of six non-zero results are 7.80. This is one of the more extreme cases, but pretty much all of the constraints work like this.

4. Because these constraints exist and occur with such frequency, some of our existing mathematical ways of examining combine data aren't worth very much. Stated simply, in a world where an agility score of 7.81 for QB is just about a kiss of death, 7.80 is workable, but the average is 7.87, there are "above average" QBs with agility scores in the 7.81 to 7.86 range that I would never, ever want to draft.

[aston217]

Interesting, Ben, where do you get these numbers from? If you re-did Malcpow's study (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=72313), would you be able to release your numbers? A few questions/comments:

Do they still reflect different degrees of "constraint"? For example, the 7.80 agility constraint on OTs was a kiss of death, being a line at 425 (20). Whereas QBs and 28 sole, that line was at 525 (60).
It gets complicated when combines are reflected by more than one bar. For example, PH being split two or three ways (sometimes among static bars). Going off Malcpow numbers again, a 14 bench for example, technically only means there's 0% chance of PH and BnR both being >= 60. If PH is 0, maybe BnR could be higher? I don't know, it's not strictly in the data...
ILB bench at 21 and OLB bench at 18 certainly didn't look like hard boundaries in Malcpow's data set. Even if they were, that would mean boundaries at 575 (80) and 550 (70), respectively.
Did LB position drill change from 27 to 22? That's a huge deal, if so...
I see where you might be getting 5.31 and 8.00 on Cs from Malcpow's thread, but I don't think there's enough data there to be sure. And I don't think any of the OL positions exhibited meaningful bench press constraints.
There weren't any K/P numbers in his thread either, so that's intriguing :)

[Nemesis]

Interesting, Ben, where do you get these numbers from? If you re-did Malcpow's study (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=89290), would you be able to release your numbers? A few questions/comments:

Do they still reflect different degrees of "constraint"? For example, the 7.80 agility constraint on OTs was a kiss of death, being a line at 425 (20). Whereas QBs and 28 sole, that line was at 525 (60).
It gets complicated when combines are reflected by more than one bar. For example, PH being split two or three ways (sometimes among static bars). Going off Malcpow numbers again, a 14 bench for example, technically only means there's 0% chance of PH and BnR both being >= 60. If PH is 0, maybe BnR could be higher? I don't know, it's not strictly in the data...
ILB bench at 21 and OLB bench at 18 certainly didn't look like hard boundaries in Malcpow's data set. Even if they were, that would mean boundaries at 575 (80) and 550 (70), respectively.
Did LB position drill change from 27 to 22? That's a huge deal, if so...
I see where you might be getting 5.31 and 8.00 on Cs from Malcpow's thread, but I don't think there's enough data there to be sure. And I don't think any of the OL positions exhibited meaningful bench press constraints.
There weren't any K/P numbers in his thread either, so that's intriguing :)


That Malcpow's study link is this thread. Did you mean Malcpow's Combine Benchmarks (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=72313)?

[Subby]

OK. I've updated the first post to add the bottom-tier constraints that I've observed in FOF7. A few of these are clearly different from FOF2K7, but most are identical. A few key things to understand about these numbers.
What do you have for DE bench? 27?

[gstelmack]

4. Because these constraints exist and occur with such frequency, some of our existing mathematical ways of examining combine data aren't worth very much. Stated simply, in a world where an agility score of 7.81 for QB is just about a kiss of death, 7.80 is workable, but the average is 7.87, there are "above average" QBs with agility scores in the 7.81 to 7.86 range that I would never, ever want to draft.

It would be relatively straightforward to add a a penalty for below-threshold combine numbers to Draft Analyzer, user-settable. So a 7.81 combine QB gets a -50 (or whatever the user wants) added to their total. If that would be useful. I could probably even color the rows.

[aston217]

^ yeah, that would help a lot, I think.

I don't play around with weights, but in draftman (http://www.simgamingnetwork.com/osfl/utilities/draftman/#) I color below-constraint combines (according to Malcpow numbers), as far as I can find them, as green. Quick at a glance visual cue to let me know a guy has a bad score, rather than having to think, "OK...7.87...that's black, but it shouldn't be."

[Ben E Lou]

Interesting, Ben, where do you get these numbers from? If you re-did Malcpow's study (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showthread.php?t=72313), would you be able to release your numbers? A few questions/comments:

Do they still reflect different degrees of "constraint"? For example, the 7.80 agility constraint on OTs was a kiss of death, being a line at 425 (20). Whereas QBs and 28 sole, that line was at 525 (60).
It gets complicated when combines are reflected by more than one bar. For example, PH being split two or three ways (sometimes among static bars). Going off Malcpow numbers again, a 14 bench for example, technically only means there's 0% chance of PH and BnR both being >= 60. If PH is 0, maybe BnR could be higher? I don't know, it's not strictly in the data...
ILB bench at 21 and OLB bench at 18 certainly didn't look like hard boundaries in Malcpow's data set. Even if they were, that would mean boundaries at 575 (80) and 550 (70), respectively.
Did LB position drill change from 27 to 22? That's a huge deal, if so...
I see where you might be getting 5.31 and 8.00 on Cs from Malcpow's thread, but I don't think there's enough data there to be sure. And I don't think any of the OL positions exhibited meaningful bench press constraints.
There weren't any K/P numbers in his thread either, so that's intriguing :)

I don't have time to get into all of these details. Bottom line: none of this information came from the MalcPow thread. It supercedes it.

[Ben E Lou]

What do you have for DE bench? 27?Yes. Fixed.

[corbes]

It would be relatively straightforward to add a a penalty for below-threshold combine numbers to Draft Analyzer, user-settable. So a 7.81 combine QB gets a -50 (or whatever the user wants) added to their total. If that would be useful. I could probably even color the rows.

Either way would be helpful. I've been using my own rough estimate of the constraints for a few FOOL drafts now and essentially begin Analyzer by marking players with any one below-threshold combine number with an "X" rating for "do not draft." A way of saving time with that process--either with a user-settable rating penalty or an identifying color--would be helpful...

[gstelmack]

Draft Analyzer pushed with a new weight to apply a penalty for below-threshold combines and coloring of those combines, may have just saved me from a huge mistake in the 4th round of the FOOL draft...

[corbes]

And colored chemistry groups... You are the wind beneath my wings

[Ben E Lou]

There may be a stray case or two where one of the "also important" combines is actually the "most important" (or they're actually the same)Beginning the process of looking at the correlation coefficients on a larger dataset now. Having looked at QBs, it appears that there won't be any major differences, but that the quoted statement is correct. On a larger, cleaner dataset, it appears that Sole/Bench/Agility are of equal value for QBs. If there is one that is "most important", it's Sole. But they're so close in a sampling of over 12,000 QBs that trying to make the distinction would be a waste of time. I'll check the others and report if anything changes, but I don't see it happening.

[Ben E Lou]

Added Agil to TE. The overall correlation is quite a bit lower than Bench/Broad/Dash, but I just noticed that guys worse than 7.75 virtually *never* pan out. Agil isn't crucial for them to make it into the 70s, but they'll basically never hit the 50s without a 7.75. So I suppose the play there is to view 7.75 as a constraint, but don't be too concerned if it's not much above that.

[IrishGuy65]

I should read these forums more often. Now I see why, in recent drafts, people have jumped me in getting guys who normally would be around a long time in the past. I used to be able to wait until the 4th round to get a quality starter for my team on the defensive line, now they are all gone because you have people looking at the same things that I've been looking at for years. A lot of this stuff worked great for me pre FOF7...

[gstelmack]

TE Agil threshold added to Draft Analyzer.

[gstelmack]

PlayerTracker now supports reporting the thresholds in the UI and the Draft Class report. I'll be interested to see the FOOL 2014 draft class once Ex1 is past - after 3 seasons, the first draft class definitely has a couple of below-threshold players at the top, but I want to see what they look like after that fourth season of reporting. That seems to be a key point, I'm seeing a fair number of players who may "peak" in their 2nd or 3rd seasons, but I'm beginning to wonder how much FOF is lying to us about their real CUR value early on. Of course it will be difficult to tell that versus players who are "1 hit wonders", where maybe guys below the threshold can be that great rookie/2nd year player, but don't last much longer. So maybe instead of lying about CUR, FOF is correct, but instead models flame outs that aren't VSOD-related.

[gstelmack]

To give a specific example, I'm curious about this guy. Clearly his Pass Rush Strength matches his below-threshold combine, but everything else is pretty high. He went from 38/70 to a peak of 69/69, but showed 66/66 at the end of his 3rd season. Will he decline quickly, or is he simply the occasional exception to Ben's rule (part of the 0.3%)?

http://www.gstelmack.com/LanceWalsh.png

[Ben E Lou]

Heh. That's actually the one constraint that I debated going into long detail over, but decided not to so that I wouldn't cloud the issue. DT bench press is the "softest" of all the constraints posted above.

Here are the facts about DT bench press:

The percentages of 50+ players at 25, 26, and 27 are nearly identical: 1.49%, 1.41$, 1.52%.
But once you hit 28 and up, there's a dramatic increase: 5.69%, 7.51%, and it keeps increasing as the bench increases.
The samples are roughly the same size: 2,558 DTs combined with 25/26/27 vs. 2407 with 28. (Like I said, there is almost always a BIG player creation bias toward the bottom of the constraints.)
So few decent players at 23 and below that it's probably just VSOL or coach-related.So in short, yes, there's a somewhat-significant chance that a low-bench DT will make it into the 50s or 60s. (No idea what happens after that; we'll see with the guy in FOOL.) But it's roughly four times less likely than if he hits the 28 constraint, and we're talking less than once every three seasons, and zero instances of the guy making it to 70.

[Ben E Lou]

And Combine Checker does a good job reflecting this:

FOF7 Combine Checker. (http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/combinechecker.php?positiongroup=12&dash=487&solecismic=29&bench=25&agil=716&jump=112&drill=0) (Link reflects that guy's combines.)

Note that there are only two guys under the constraints in each database showing as similar, and they aren't great matches. (Anything over .5 is just so-so at best.)

[gstelmack]

I do think part of the key with this particular player is that everything else is so high, with 2 red and 2 blue combines. That gives you 3 near-max bars, 2 average, and the one really bad bar. In most other cases, the other combines are rarely going to be that high to compensate for the very low pass rush strength.

[aston217]

To give a specific example, I'm curious about this guy. Clearly his Pass Rush Strength matches his below-threshold combine, but everything else is pretty high.

http://www.gstelmack.com/LanceWalsh.png

Unless I'm not understanding this correctly, Ben's looking at "what kinds of combines do 50+ (or whatever number) OVR players generated by FOF7 typically have".

If the combine correlations haven't been changed in FOF7, then a low bench score in a DT or in a C will tell you exactly what you expect and see: low strength bars.

Their inclusion on this list, then, might just be reflecting "Players with 50+ OVR rarely have poor strength bars." Or, "Players with poor OVR rarely have good strength bars."

So broadly, this is useful, especially in earlier rounds where you might be looking at a player and trying to decide if he's that stud OVR guy you hope.

But a lack of strength bars doesn't mean a lack in other areas, even if their OVR rarely gets up there. Your guy might be on the extreme side, but there are useful players with low strength bars (do these bars even do much?), just as there are useful TEs with low run blocking, useful DTs with low run stopping, etc. Look at the rest of the player to decide if he might be one of them or not.

[RedKingGold]

Added Agil to TE. The overall correlation is quite a bit lower than Bench/Broad/Dash, but I just noticed that guys worse than 7.75 virtually *never* pan out. Agil isn't crucial for them to make it into the 70s, but they'll basically never hit the 50s without a 7.75. So I suppose the play there is to view 7.75 as a constraint, but don't be too concerned if it's not much above that.

Almost on cue, it'll be interesting to follow the career of this guy in FOOL:

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/conscriptor/show_player.php?in_game_id=6766

[Ben E Lou]

Interesting case there, and one that makes me appreciate the player creation module in this game even more. My big draft class database now has over 14,000 TEs, yet there's really not a player quite like him. 10'6" is insane for TE broad jump and has the highest correlation to success for that position of any combine. (10'8" is still the max for TEs. Only 17 of those 14,000+ TEs achieved 10'6" or better.) In all those TEs, there's never been one worse than 7.75 but with a Brj in that stratosphere. Combine checker doesn't have constraint barriers yet when checking for matches, so most of the matches it's finding are 7.75 or better, and none are particularly good matches: FOF7 Combine Checker. (http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/combinechecker.php?dash=465&solecismic=20&positiongroup=4&bench=27&agil=781&jump=126&drill=37)

For more in the "this is a really weird one" category, there are 194 TEs in the db with raw scores of 6.3 or better. Not a single one of them has a single combine score that is worse than *any* of the four constraints above. This guy is really unique.

[Ben E Lou]

Just noticed a typo that made its way into Draft Analyzer: CB agility was at 7.35. Should be 7.20.

[gstelmack]

Fixed.

[Ruckuz]

Bench (10) Solecismic (28), Agility (7.80)
what do the numbers mean? Min values to look for?

[Ben E Lou]

Bench (10) Solecismic (28), Agility (7.80)
what do the numbers mean? Min values to look for?
See post #14 in this thread for an explanation.

Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - What are the important combines for each position group? (http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/showpost.php?p=2983616&postcount=14)

[Sharkn20]

Any diferences between the diferents combines correlations? Or this nice study is based on a 100 combine correlation??

[gstelmack]

I believe the current interpretation of combine correlation is not that it affects the range of combine values for a given player talent level, but rather that it spreads them out more, flattening the bell curve if you will. So the average stays the same, but the standard deviation increases.

[OldSchool]

Fantastic info, thanks Ben.

[garion333]

Ben, without making the OP confusing is there any way you can post the correlations you found for the individual attributes?

I'd be curious to know what the dropoff is between, say, Dash in a WR to Agility.

[Ben E Lou]

It's more laziness than confusion in that I don't want to have to get into explaining correlation coefficients and tables don't post well here, so the effort to post it isn't something that I really want to deal with.

Here are the numbers for WRs.
Cor_Sole Cor_Bench Cor_Brdj Cor_PosDrl Cor_Agil Cor_Dash
0.326331738 0.353612529 0.209346083 0.411168029 0.493956585 0.629523465

[Ben E Lou]

To give a specific example, I'm curious about this guy. Clearly his Pass Rush Strength matches his below-threshold combine, but everything else is pretty high. He went from 38/70 to a peak of 69/69, but showed 66/66 at the end of his 3rd season. Will he decline quickly, or is he simply the occasional exception to Ben's rule (part of the 0.3%)?

http://www.gstelmack.com/LanceWalsh.pngI've got him at 69/69 now in year 6. And as my database of draftees grows, it becomes more and more clear what an anomaly this dude is. I've got 1,333 DTs (300+ draft classes) with 25 bench press. Only 2 of them made it to 60/60. 0 made it to 65/65. None. Here are some numbers for DTs right below and a little above the 28 magic number.
POS COUNT BENCH AVG 50+ 55+ 60+ 65+ 70+ 75+
DT 832 21 9.8 0.6% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 726 22 12.2 1.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 944 23 12.6 0.8% 0.2% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 1343 24 14.1 0.9% 0.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 1333 25 16.2 1.3% 0.6% 0.2% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 1286 26 17.6 1.5% 0.8% 0.4% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 1003 27 18.5 1.7% 0.5% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
DT 3539 28 23.2 5.7% 3.1% 1.4% 0.7% 0.5% 0.3%
DT 955 29 27.2 8.7% 6.0% 3.0% 1.7% 1.3% 0.7%
DT 921 30 28.1 9.6% 5.5% 3.3% 2.1% 1.4% 0.5%
DT 941 31 30.0 13.0% 7.8% 4.5% 3.0% 1.9% 1.1%

AVG=avg peakcur
50+/60+/etc. = percentage of players achieving that cur rating

In other words, I'm still sticking with 28 as a pretty hard constraint there for drafting. Roughly once every four seasons there's a DT with a bench under 27 who makes it to 50. It's really not worth bothering with them unless he's some freak like the guy that you bring up.

[garion333]

It's more laziness than confusion in that I don't want to have to get into explaining correlation coefficients and tables don't post well here, so the effort to post it isn't something that I really want to deal with.

Here are the numbers for WRs.
Cor_Sole Cor_Bench Cor_Brdj Cor_PosDrl Cor_Agil Cor_Dash
0.326331738 0.353612529 0.209346083 0.411168029 0.493956585 0.629523465


This is awesome. I'm not a big math guy (since college ended), but I do understand the basics of correlation having helped my gf with her MBA math classes recently. So, this makes sense to me.

This is my small petition to get the rest of the data.

[Ben E Lou]

I actually ended up needing it for a little project I'm working on, so the effort to post it is negligible now. I never finished going back through and comparing to the original post, so if someone wants to do that, be my guest.

posgrp pos sole bench brdj posspec agil dash dev adjgrd
1 QB 0.435 0.428 0.329 0.246 0.415 0.191 0.295 0.726
2 RB 0.411 0.388 0.495 0.428 0.427 0.460 0.111 0.756
3 FB 0.280 0.467 0.502 0.484 0.313 0.400 0.208 0.772
4 TE 0.338 0.524 0.582 0.448 0.456 0.549 0.158 0.781
5 WR 0.326 0.354 0.209 0.411 0.494 0.630 0.147 0.796
6 C 0.022 0.581 0.447 0.000 0.527 0.642 0.157 0.783
7 G 0.011 0.588 0.372 0.000 0.402 0.575 0.170 0.819
8 T 0.022 0.544 0.394 0.000 0.478 0.514 0.185 0.822
9 P 0.178 0.443 0.027 0.000 0.039 0.775 0.108 0.848
10 K 0.419 0.514 0.522 0.000 0.018 0.243 0.178 0.762
11 DE 0.217 0.591 0.361 0.000 0.548 0.457 0.172 0.826
12 DT 0.182 0.581 0.336 0.000 0.594 0.351 0.166 0.818
13 ILB 0.255 0.400 0.440 0.382 0.624 0.333 0.198 0.808
14 OLB 0.250 0.382 0.473 0.393 0.604 0.373 0.198 0.826
15 CB 0.247 0.570 0.111 0.498 0.419 0.559 0.203 0.833
16 S 0.277 0.518 0.101 0.469 0.575 0.476 0.188 0.817

[gstelmack]

Given those correlations, do I need to add the Adjusted Grade as a factor in Draft Analyzer?

[Ben E Lou]

I'm not sure. The correlation is always so high that I am not sure how useful it is especially when you factor in that it is often closely correlated with bars.

[garion333]

Thanks, Ben. I can finally draft punters properly!

[Sharkn20]

Thanks, Ben. I can finally draft punters properly!

:lol::lol::lol:

[sachmo71]

is 11.4 broad jump right for running back?

[garion333]

It's 114, not 11.4

114 inches = 9 feet, 6 inches

[sachmo71]

ah crap! thanks garion!

[garion333]

Ben, based on the numbers you gave later, here are a few things that seem out of whack from the OP. It should be:

FB
Most Important: Broad Jump (104)
Also: PosDrl (22), Bench (20)
Least: Solecismic

RB
Least: Bench

ILB
Least: Sole


There are a couple Also's I'd probably remove, but that's more of a judgment call.

Worth noting with RBs that everything has a decent correlation while nothing really stands out.

[Sef0r]

So I've got a situation in the APFL league.
I have 1.3 and no doubt right now that the first 2 QBs will be gone (teams without QBs have traded for 1.1 and 1.2).

The 2 highlighted players are the ones I'm struggling with. Hundley has the combines but not the bars (sorry I don't have screenshot of the bars).

Hundley has high sense rush, low timing, and the various passing bars are around the 40 mark.

Grayson has high bars, similar to Mariota - same sense rush as Hundley, high timing and high passing bars around the 80 mark.

Both interviewed "very underrated". Normally I would go with the high combine guy seeing as both have the same sense rush, and I've been lead to believe a very low timing bar is a good thing.

Thoughts?

[GridGlory]

Thoughts?

A 53 Sol?? I think I'm in love!

[jzicc]

go with the RB ( I already told you this) ;0)

[Ben E Lou]

Winston went to Columbia and Mariota to UNLV?

[Sef0r]

Winston went to Columbia and Mariota to UNLV?

The draft class was game generated, it was just the names that were adjusted to match the current draft class. It also just happened to be that the generated class produced at least 2 super rated QBs to match Winston and Mariota.

Be that's besides the point...where is your suggestions? LOL

[Sef0r]

And here are the 2 QBs bars.
My OC and AC have primary focus on QBs...

[jzicc]

And here are the 2 QBs bars.
My OC and AC have primary focus on QBs...
what's your scouting and interview for HC and OC?

[Sef0r]

what's your scouting and interview for HC and OC?

OC = Scout (85), Interview (15)
HC = Scout (75), Interview (50)

I've attached an example of a similar player (took me 20+ regens to get a similar QB to Hundley) and I simmed until the completion of his 5th seasons 10 times and for the most part he ends up where his bars suggested. Of the 10 sims, 3 of those were hit by the VSOD, dropping him to 20/30-ish rating. The examples below were obviously NOT when he BUSTED.

Interestingly enough, his ratings stayed at about 60/65 after 5 seasons.

[Sef0r]

So with all things being equal, assumng no VSOD hits either QB here is another way of looking at it - see the projected bars purely based on current scouted bars staying put.

[garion333]

You forgot to tell us a critical piece of the puzzle: Combine Correlation.

[Sef0r]

I don't understand...sorry I'm not new so I probably should...but I don't :)

[jzicc]

50 is combine corr.

____
Sefor -- my scouting is about the same
my interviewing is much better 63/60 (HC/OC) -- and I see the same bars as you - one is underrated and one is Hard to Read ---

[Nemesis]

A 53 Sol?? I think I'm in love!

I drafted a 48 sole QB and he turned out to be shitty. Don't get too excited. ;)

Just a hunch, but Hundley is probably better.

[Laconic1]

I've been lead to believe a very low timing bar is a good thing.


can you expand on that? why would low timing be a good thing?

just curious.

[Sef0r]

can you expand on that? why would low timing be a good thing?

just curious.

I read a comment somewhere, can't remember where, that mentioned this. I then went looking at all the QBs in the leagues I'm in and checked the top performers and for the most part the ones with very low timing are right up there.

The following QBs graded top 10 in CCFL and FOOL, I only picked the ones with low/no timing.

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=26683

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=35079

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=24165

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/playercard.php?playerid=7434

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/playercard.php?playerid=11541

[Nemesis]

I read a comment somewhere, can't remember where, that mentioned this. I then went looking at all the QBs in the leagues I'm in and checked the top performers and for the most part the ones with very low timing are right up there.

The following QBs graded top 10 in CCFL and FOOL, I only picked the ones with low/no timing.

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=26683

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=35079

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=24165

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/playercard.php?playerid=7434

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fool/ben/playercard.php?playerid=11541

Have you noticed RB's with low Elusiveness fit this mold as well?

[Sef0r]

Have you noticed RB's with low Elusiveness fit this mold as well?

hmmm interested enough to have a look and yes, most of the players in the top 10 in performance last season (CCFL and FOOL) have a low ELU rating.

The most interesting is this player...

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=30927

[Nemesis]

hmmm interested enough to have a look and yes, most of the players in the top 10 in performance last season (CCFL and FOOL) have a low ELU rating.

The most interesting is this player...

http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/ccfl/ben/playercard.php?playerid=30927

Yeah, Hole Recognition is one of the bigger influences on YPA rushing. :)

EDIT: and not having to deal with the run-stuffs from high elusiveness also helps.

[corbes]

not having to deal with the run-stuffs from high elusiveness also helps.

LeSean McCoy (http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12827934/buffalo-bills-running-back-lesean-mccoy-discusses-race-chip-kelly-rex-ryan) says he lets his numbers speak for themselves. Also, he thinks you're racist.

[Nemesis]

LeSean McCoy (http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/12827934/buffalo-bills-running-back-lesean-mccoy-discusses-race-chip-kelly-rex-ryan) says he lets his numbers speak for themselves. Also, he thinks you're racist.

Demarco Murray laughs and disagrees.

[Firefly]

I'm not sure. The correlation is always so high that I am not sure how useful it is especially when you factor in that it is often closely correlated with bars.

Isn't grade more closely correlated to bars than adjusted grade, though?

[Julio Riddols]

If this choice were one to be made on the 39 combine setting then Grayson would have been the pick hands down.

[Tures]

What's Hundley's intelligence? I've read somewhere that when Solecismic + Intelligence + Sense Rush (?) are high, he is a pick machine.
So if his intelligence is low, he shouldn't throw many interceptions

[revrew]

What's Hundley's intelligence? I've read somewhere that when Solecismic + Intelligence + Sense Rush (?) are high, he is a pick machine.
So if his intelligence is low, he shouldn't throw many interceptions

Intelligence low is a good thing, but your equation isn't quite right.

Solecismic = Intelligence + Hidden Avoid Pick rating.

So a high Sole is good, even better with a low intelligence, because it means the avoid pick rating is very good.

Worst case is high intel + low Sole score, because it means Avoid Pick rating is low, and the guy is and interception factory.

[mac88]

This is based on a large sampling (more than 40 draft classes from both SP and MP), so I would think that a good bit of the noise is removed. I just did a simple correlation coefficient through Excel to determine the correlation between each combine and the maximum current rating that a player achieved during his career. Based on some more detailed looking at the data and running it through the MalcPow filters, I'm confident that this is quite accurate. There may be a stray case or two where one of the "also important" combines is actually the "most important" (or they're actually the same), but overall, I would think this would be helpful.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="847"><colgroup><col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:3840;width:79pt" width="105"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:5229;width:107pt" width="143"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:10386;width:213pt" width="284"> <col style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:9179;width:188pt" width="251"> <col style="width:48pt" width="64"> </colgroup><tbody><tr style="height:49.5pt" height="66"> <td class="xl68" style="height:49.5pt;width:79pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" height="66" width="105">POSITION</td> <td class="xl69" style="border-left:none;width:107pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="143">MOST IMPORTANT</td> <td class="xl69" style="border-left:none;width:213pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="284">ALSO IMPORTANT</td> <td class="xl70" style="border-left:none;width:188pt;font-size:11.0pt; color:white;font-weight:700;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style:none; text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:black;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" align="center" width="251">LEAST IMPORTANT</td> <td style="width:48pt" width="64">
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">QB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (10)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Solecismic (28), Agility (7.80)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Dash</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">RB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Broad Jump (114)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.65), Agility (7.35), PosDrl (17)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">FB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">PosDrl (22)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.78), Bench (20), Broad Jump (104)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">TE</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Broad Jump (102)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.78), Bench (22), Agil(7.75)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">WR</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (4.51)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Agility (7.20), PosDrl (42)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">C</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (5.31)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (25), Agility (8.00)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">G</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (27)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (5.27), Agility (7.90)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">OT</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (28)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (5.27) , Agility (7.80), Broad Jump (84)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">P</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Dash (4.97)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (10)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Agility</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">K</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (9)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Solecismic (23), Broad Jump (104)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Agility</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">DE</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (27)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Agility (7.60), Dash (4.85)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">DT</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.80)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (28)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">ILB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.60)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Bench (21), Broad Jump (107)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Dash</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">OLB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.40)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Broad Jump (108), Bench (18), PosDrl (22)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Solecismic</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl66" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">CB</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-stretch: normal" width="143">Bench (12)</td> <td class="xl65" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.52), Agility (7.20), PosDrl (37)</td> <td class="xl67" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="mso-height-source:userset;height:25.5pt" height="34"> <td class="xl71" style="height:25.5pt;border-top:none; width:79pt;font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none; text-underline-style:none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri; border:.5pt solid windowtext;background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none; font-stretch: normal" height="34" width="105">S</td> <td class="xl72" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:107pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="143">Agility (7.35)</td> <td class="xl72" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:213pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="284">Dash (4.59), Bench (15), PosDrl (37)</td> <td class="xl73" style="border-top:none;border-left:none;width:188pt; font-size:11.0pt;color:black;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;text-underline-style: none;text-line-through:none;font-family:Calibri;border:.5pt solid windowtext; background:ivory;mso-pattern:black none;font-stretch: normal" width="251">Broad Jump</td> <td>
</td> </tr> <tr style="height:15.0pt" height="20"> <td style="height:15.0pt" height="20">
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> <td>
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>

hi everyone, I just stumbled upon this table - is it still relevant with FOF8?

cheers

[TeamBills59]

hi everyone, I just stumbled upon this table - is it still relevant with FOF8?

cheers

I'm wondering this myself. I have read some people that say it is and some that say it isn't.

[Ushikawa]

No

[TeamBills59]

No

No they aren't relevant? If that's true I'm surprised the maker of Front Office Football didn't say the important combines changed for the positions.

[MIJB#19]

The randomness factor for combine scores setting (introduced in FOF8) makes the exact numbers less relevant, but relative figures still can be a sign of how good or bad a player is.

[Sharkn20]

FOF8 is all about bars, unless you have combines accuracy at 100, they are meaningless.

[TeamBills59]

Thanks for the help. Sharkn20 you really feel like the combines are completely meaningless? There must be confusion about this topic because I see a lot of different types of answers.

I kind of like MIJB's advice of using them as a relative measure.

[Sharkn20]

Thanks for the help. Sharkn20 you really feel like the combines are completely meaningless? There must be confusion about this topic because I see a lot of different types of answers.

I kind of like MIJB's advice of using them as a relative measure.

I got to the point where I ignore them when they are in the static bars, you can use them as a reference to see if the bar makes sense. But with good scouting bars I trust more the opinion of my Coaching Staff, like a lot more.

[garion333]

The problem is not everyone is going to have good scouting.

Combines are absolutely not meaningless and saying as such is hurtful to the community at large.

Ignoring combines is ONE way to draft. Get good scouts and then make judgement calls based on those.

But even then the combines are a useful tool to compare to what you are seeing.

Combines are fuzzier than they used to be, which means the margins of what's good/bad and inbetween is no longer a firm, hard rule. Sometimes you will get WRs who have a 4.6 40 and they're perfectly fine players. Other times you get a guy with a 4.3 40 and he sucks. Just like in real life.

Doesn't make the combines worthless, but if you DO manage to get the best scouts it does minimize the impact of combines because you're generally seeing the bars as close to true as you can.

But not everyone, especially in mp, is able to get the best scouts, especially when the best scouts are NEVER let go by the people who have them.

[Sharkn20]

The problem is not everyone is going to have good scouting.

Combines are absolutely not meaningless and saying as such is hurtful to the community at large.

Ignoring combines is ONE way to draft. Get good scouts and then make judgement calls based on those.

But even then the combines are a useful tool to compare to what you are seeing.

Combines are fuzzier than they used to be, which means the margins of what's good/bad and inbetween is no longer a firm, hard rule. Sometimes you will get WRs who have a 4.6 40 and they're perfectly fine players. Other times you get a guy with a 4.3 40 and he sucks. Just like in real life.

Doesn't make the combines worthless, but if you DO manage to get the best scouts it does minimize the impact of combines because you're generally seeing the bars as close to true as you can.

But not everyone, especially in mp, is able to get the best scouts, especially when the best scouts are NEVER let go by the people who have them.

That's what I said that if you have the big Scouting bars, combines are meaningless... Otherwise I just use them to see how they compare to the bars that are not static, and relate them to the ones that are static to make some decisions, but bars are King.

[tzach]

Thanks for the help. Sharkn20 you really feel like the combines are completely meaningless? There must be confusion about this topic because I see a lot of different types of answers.

I kind of like MIJB's advice of using them as a relative measure.


don't ignore combines... high bars and poor combines (specially those related to static bars) = good recipe for busts

[TeamBills59]

Thanks. Speaking of scouting ratings I find it odd that offensive and defensive coordinators are more important than head coaches. I came to this conclusion because head coach and assistant are mostly for interviews and the offensive and defensive coordinators are for scouting.

[Dolphin]

Lets be honest here, if a person has to keep databases and research every minute detail to figure out how the game works, something is really wrong with the game. If the bars hold no value, you scouts hold not value, and the combine scores hold no value, what is the point?

[tzach]

if you want more certainty, just turn the combine correlation to 100.

[TeamBills59]

That's what I said that if you have the big Scouting bars, combines are meaningless... Otherwise I just use them to see how they compare to the bars that are not static, and relate them to the ones that are static to make some decisions, but bars are King.

There are 2 different bars, static and nonstatic? I've never seen 2 different ones.

[Front Office Midget]

Lets be honest here, if a person has to keep databases and research every minute detail to figure out how the game works, something is really wrong with the game. If the bars hold no value, you scouts hold not value, and the combine scores hold no value, what is the point?

If you want combines to be everything, set it to 100 and draft by combines. IF you want bars to be everything, set it to 0 and draft by bars.

Uncertainty is there to simulate the uncertainty that every staff feels on NFL draft day.

[QuikSand]

There are 2 different bars, static and nonstatic? I've never seen 2 different ones.

Do some digging on the term here for more background, but "static bars" is a global reference to certain skills that, in FOF, are basically always fully developed. Easiest example to see is with defensive coverage skills... man-to-man and zone coverage frequently show up as something like 21/54, right? But check out bump-and-run coverage... with very few slight exceptions, this bar will be fully complete in every player, even a freshly minted rookie, like 41/41. Every position has at least one, sometimes several, of these ratings that are just different than the rest. This community has taken to calling them "static bars" to reflect that they don't really evolve over time... that guy with 21/54 zone coverage is probably going to develop over his first few seasons from 21/54 to 24/50 to 33/44 to 39/39, as a fairly common example. The guy who started out 41/41 might hover slightly around that level, but probably won't move much there... 41/41 to 42/42 to 42/42 to 40/40, frex.

So, take a look in game, and you can quickly see which ratings are like this. Running backs have three IIRC, and so forth. There's a good deal of evidence suggesting that these ratings are themselves useful indicators of what draftees are more "real" than others. Two guys with fairly comparable bars and fairly comparable combines... but one DB happens to have much higher projections in bump coverage and punishing hitter... then makes him a better bet to develop than the other guy, all else equal.

[JustinSmith94]

Every position has at least one, sometimes several, of these ratings that are just different than the rest.

Is there somewhere I can find the list of all these static bars?

[Squirrel]

But check out bump-and-run coverage... with very few slight exceptions, this bar will be fully complete in every player, even a freshly minted rookie, like 41/41.

This is interesting Quik because this isn't what I thought static bars means.

For me I thought it meant the bars where the correlation between the draft prospect's bar and the actual player's bar is particularly high. I think I mean the future bar but I suppose I mean the current bar as well as I think I'm right in saying that players with high statics tend to have high current, relative to the % dev.

Am I missing something, do you think?

[Sharkn20]

Is there somewhere I can find the list of all these static bars?

In Draft Analizer the green ones.

[QuikSand]

This is interesting Quik because this isn't what I thought static bars means.

For me I thought it meant the bars where the correlation between the draft prospect's bar and the actual player's bar is particularly high. I think I mean the future bar but I suppose I mean the current bar as well as I think I'm right in saying that players with high statics tend to have high current, relative to the % dev.

Am I missing something, do you think?

I honestly haven't been able to absorb your middle statement, but it's possible that the strongest correlations you're describing line up (not coincidentally) with the bars that i'm describing (the always-fully-developed ratings).

Basically, these are the specific skill ratings you can more or less take to the bank, give or take some scout error and the very occasional boom/bust. When you see a RB with Breakaway Speed that looks like it's between 80 and 100, it basically will be 80/80 (or maybe better) there, right away. Same guy with an apparent 80-100 in, say, Blitz Pickup, could be 12/80 or 40/80 or many other variations.

[Sharkn20]

I honestly haven't been able to absorb your middle statement, but it's possible that the strongest correlations you're describing line up (not coincidentally) with the bars that i'm describing (the always-fully-developed ratings).

Basically, these are the specific skill ratings you can more or less take to the bank, give or take some scout error and the very occasional boom/bust. When you see a RB with Breakaway Speed that looks like it's between 80 and 100, it basically will be 80/80 (or maybe better) there, right away. Same guy with an apparent 80-100 in, say, Blitz Pickup, could be 12/80 or 40/80 or many other variations.

By this statement, masked bars still apply??

[TeamBills59]

Do some digging on the term here for more background, but "static bars" is a global reference to certain skills that, in FOF, are basically always fully developed. Easiest example to see is with defensive coverage skills... man-to-man and zone coverage frequently show up as something like 21/54, right? But check out bump-and-run coverage... with very few slight exceptions, this bar will be fully complete in every player, even a freshly minted rookie, like 41/41. Every position has at least one, sometimes several, of these ratings that are just different than the rest. This community has taken to calling them "static bars" to reflect that they don't really evolve over time... that guy with 21/54 zone coverage is probably going to develop over his first few seasons from 21/54 to 24/50 to 33/44 to 39/39, as a fairly common example. The guy who started out 41/41 might hover slightly around that level, but probably won't move much there... 41/41 to 42/42 to 42/42 to 40/40, frex.

So, take a look in game, and you can quickly see which ratings are like this. Running backs have three IIRC, and so forth. There's a good deal of evidence suggesting that these ratings are themselves useful indicators of what draftees are more "real" than others. Two guys with fairly comparable bars and fairly comparable combines... but one DB happens to have much higher projections in bump coverage and punishing hitter... then makes him a better bet to develop than the other guy, all else equal.

That is really interesting thanks.

[QuikSand]

By this statement, masked bars still apply??

I'm wandering beyond my own expertise here, but my sense is that overall player masking still exists in the game - meaning some players are just one more full clicks better (or worse) than they appear in their pre-draft scouting. I think most people believe that strong static bars is an indicator of a given player being "masked" to appear worse than he will eventually reveal himself to be, but it's far from a sure thing.

[Squirrel]

I honestly haven't been able to absorb your middle statement, but it's possible that the strongest correlations you're describing line up (not coincidentally) with the bars that i'm describing (the always-fully-developed ratings).

Basically, these are the specific skill ratings you can more or less take to the bank, give or take some scout error and the very occasional boom/bust. When you see a RB with Breakaway Speed that looks like it's between 80 and 100, it basically will be 80/80 (or maybe better) there, right away. Same guy with an apparent 80-100 in, say, Blitz Pickup, could be 12/80 or 40/80 or many other variations.

Ah ok. Yep we’re saying the same thing.

[Galvarino]

Hi,

I have just found this table relating to the combines and since i am new to the game wondered if it still applies in FOF8 and if so just how much emphasis i should place on the combine results opposed to the bars?

I have just started my 1st career in SP other than a fast sim to get to grips with the basics of the game, the combine correlation is set to default (50) so i have been trying to match good bars from scouting (my scouts are pretty poor so the bars are not likely to be very accurate) with combines below these thresholds, along with high static bars listed in another thread i found.

So far though it seems to be any half decent players i find is more down to pure luck than anything else, but i hope that's due to my lack of experience and a small sample size which will improve over time.

Also could i ask if the combines have any relevance after the draft/1st season as i didn't note any down but i think they changed for all players before the start of the new season in the quick sim i did?

[MIJB#19]

Hi,

I have just found this table relating to the combines and since i am new to the game wondered if it still applies in FOF8 and if so just how much emphasis i should place on the combine results opposed to the bars?

I have just started my 1st career in SP other than a fast sim to get to grips with the basics of the game, the combine correlation is set to default (50) so i have been trying to match good bars from scouting (my scouts are pretty poor so the bars are not likely to be very accurate) with combines below these thresholds, along with high static bars listed in another thread i found.

So far though it seems to be any half decent players i find is more down to pure luck than anything else, but i hope that's due to my lack of experience and a small sample size which will improve over time.

Also could i ask if the combines have any relevance after the draft/1st season as i didn't note any down but i think they changed for all players before the start of the new season in the quick sim i did?There is no reason to think the relationship isn't still there between ratings and combine scores, but as you mentioned already, the combine correlation setting determines how much more off the combine scores will be from being a clear tell or a randomly generated good score. The manual suggests that a setting of 50 will be similar to what it used to be in previous FOF version(s).

(as far as I know) all non-rookie combine scores are 'measured' at the start of the new season, which means for all the veteran players, these will be based on their start of off-season ratings (which is pretty much the same thing as the end of the previous season). After training camp and pre-season week 2, the randomness factors will possibly alter the ratings and as a result the combine scores (which won't be remeasured) will be slightly more off than they already were due to the randomness factor and the combine correlation setting.

[Galvarino]

Ok thank you, that's as i thought the veteran players combines were a product of the bar ratings at the beginning of each season.

Would that also mean they may give you an indication of the future ratings changes of a vet player over the course of the season, or is it all down to randomness and the combine correlation and i don't need to pay so much attention to them only, those of rookies for drafting and signing undrafted F/A's?

[finkellll]

The combine score for vets are reflected in their bars from what I can tell. I did some testing to see if there was anything "hidden" in the combine scores and all I found was good vet combines = good bars. I would only consider looking at them for free agents over 30, but for single player I just assume they will dip a bit in training camp instead of doing the math to see if they are safe to sign or not.

I think it was said earlier in this thread that the thresholds are a soft limit in 8 at best, and you can generally ignore the limits and still be fine. You will still get better rookies by staying with good combines in general, but it isn't a hard and fast rule.

[QuikSand]

Ok thank you, that's as i thought the veteran players combines were a product of the bar ratings at the beginning of each season.

Would that also mean they may give you an indication of the future ratings changes of a vet player over the course of the season, or is it all down to randomness and the combine correlation and i don't need to pay so much attention to them only, those of rookies for drafting and signing undrafted F/A's?

Short version, imo: pay attention during the draft, learn what good/bad combines mean, and use that as an important but not exclusive part of evaluating rookie players... then after that you should mostly ignore them

Slightly longer: after the rookie season they'll bump around, but the only thing that really seems to matter is sometimes a player gets a mid-career volatility change (good or bad) and that typically gets reaffirmed in the following year's combine results... a 5th year guy suddenly jumps from 40/40 to 55/55 and the next year he's faster, stronger, everything - by then you basically realized he was better, but the combines are a verification after the fact (would be kinda cool if it worked the other direction imo)

Much longer: understanding combines is complicated, either annoyingly so, or enjoyably so, and that might determine in part whether this is the game for you (not meant as a slight)... but in general, assume there's some set of numbers beneath everything that affect a "dice roll" in the game that determines the things we see... this particular wide receiver is coded to have, let's say, really really good speed... so the game rolls dice to generate a true rating for him in the most directly associated skill, "big play receiving," and rolls dice again in generating his 40 yard dash time of, say, 4.40. Now, after lots of research and testing, some FOFers have uncovered that not only superior speed receivers can potentially generate a 4.40... occasionally some guys who really don't have that great a core rating might do that, too. Some of those guys might only have a BPR rating of, say, 55. But what we are hoping for is that his underlying skill/speed was so high that it generated a 90 or 95 or 100. The game isn't transparent here... some guys are going to miss. But that is what makes it fun, to many of us. Most players have terrible drafts off the bat, and have to improve a lot. There's a lot here to help you, but there aren't any simple "cheat codes." Use combines, they help, they are part of the puzzle, but like I'm trying to illustrate above - they are imperfect, but design.

My tip/though - if you really want to improve at the game in the short run, set your single player settings to a very high combine correlation. That way, the connections between the combines (like 40 dash time) and the associated ratings (like big play receiving) will feel more apparent and predictable. Over time, you will likely want to lessen that value, as you'll probably prefer more of a challenge.

[MIJB#19]

Ok thank you, that's as i thought the veteran players combines were a product of the bar ratings at the beginning of each season.

Would that also mean they may give you an indication of the future ratings changes of a vet player over the course of the season, or is it all down to randomness and the combine correlation and i don't need to pay so much attention to them only, those of rookies for drafting and signing undrafted F/A's?I'm trying to go with a shorter answer than QS:
I do believe that the combine scores of 'veterans' are calculated in the same was as rookies. So if a combine score is based on potential for rookies (and we perceive it does, but the game manual isn't specific about it), then it works the same way for veterans.

That in mind, after pre-season week2 is ran, the combines scores of all the players in the league are less valuable because ratings will have been randomly changed and the combine scores were based on the bars before the randomness.

[MIJB#19]

To add to all the above, the combine scores are based on a players position (group) at the start of the season. After position changing a player, his combine scores in the next season can have drastic changes if you look at them from the player perspective. But that's not how you should read it, the combine scores are relative to the ratings and the position group. For example, if you position change a DE to DT (and we assume there is no loss of ratings), you will see that the player will become something like 0.25-0.3 seconds slower in his 40-yard dash.

[Galvarino]

Thanks for all of the great advice.

I have to say that so far i am loving the game, the sheer depth and complexity of it provide the sort of challenge i really enjoy in my games, IMO its easily the best and most realistic football GM game i have played, which leaves me hoping Jim will continue with and release FOF9 when he is ready to, and that i found the game a number of years earlier!

The more i read and research in the many forums available the deeper i am becoming immersed, and can't wait to reach a point where i feel competent and comfortable enough to start tinkering with game plans and playbooks and then possibly creating my own tools for drafting etc.

[MIJB#19]

Looking through the FOF help files, specifically the "Annual Scouting Combine" article, I noticed some discrepancies of combine scores that have always been known to be linked to specific bars, that are in FOF8 suggested to not (or no longer?) be related.

Specifically, agility for quarterbacks used to be a tell on his sense rush ability, but the help file says sense rush is (now) linked with solecismic score (together with avoid interceptions and read defense), while agility is linked to short and screen passing.

Not having FOF7 om this laptop makes it hard to research where and when this changes, but it does make me wonder what else has changed?