A Comparison between FOF and NFL stats
 

*Earmuffs* Wow that is some fucking great shit. Seriously that is interesting I might try it but I can no longer stand playing that game.

:)

noop

I'm guessing this is the original FOF? Not FOF2K4? :confused:

Question: If the QB's are going down at a regular enough rate (on 200) to avoid the 4k yd passing issue, how many players at other positions survive long enough to play 14-16 games a year regularly?

Hmmm, if you take Dan Marino out of the NFL stats, things start looking really good as far as comparisons go.

I'm guessing this is FOF2K4, with regards to injury settings..something that I haven't really fiddled around with myself.

This is FOF2004. And for the most part, there are a lot of 4000 yard passers, but everyone seems to go down to injury eventually (at least created players). Not many players survive 16 games every year. I've had a lot of guys last about 10 years playing 16 each year, but then they just get killed by injury. I also have seen guys have 3 or 4 great years, get hurt, then play sparingly b/c of recurring injuries, but be great in the times they get to play.

I lost my 53 year career due to an out of memory error, but you definitely need to play another couple decades before comparing stats. They'll start falling in line a bit closer. In either case, Jim as already stated he made more changes to the stat engine for 5.0c, so....

Dola,

This is the one thing I'm still interested in knowing if it has been addressed in 5.0c or not. Once a player goes down with an injury longer than 10 weeks, he'll never play in more than 6-10 games in a season again, even if his career goes on for another 5 or 6 years.

I suspect this "super-prone" injury rating would be the culprit in any career record discrepancies.

I guess I don't pay much close detail to stat discrepancies or the like, and to be honest...I can't find many bugs with that 5.0b release. I'm sure there are - I just haven't really been looking for them, to be honest. Still, that 53 year career thing might prove to be a bit disconcerting, as I've thoroughly enjoyed the 20 years invested so far with 3 different franchises.

The differences here are a lot more obvious than the career passing leaders. So far I've found that FOF does a poor job doing running success. The top rushers in FOF have played every game in their career, but they seemed to get replaced easier later in their career. I have not seen any injuries with them, they just get replaced during their last 3 or 4 years and are backups. This process seems to happen earlier in FOF than in the real world. I'm not sure if this is due to the logicv Jim implemented that was supposed to put high potential ahead of older veterans. No matter what, the discrepancies I am seeing are pretty large. The average FOF RB's career (top 5) is 11 years, while in the NFL it is ~13-14. Those 2 years would put the numbers closer, but not quite to NFL level (expect for TD's, not sure whats up there)

Don't get me wrong, I love to play the game, and I never checked the stats until just now. Their being out of "line" don't really bother me, I just felt like checking my guys against the NFL to see how they stacked up. I just thought I would share my findings with the board to get their read on things.

And yes, if SD sees this, it doesn't matter if they match up exactly, just food for thought (i.e. tweaking the running game a bit, or at least the pass/run balance or something).

And on the super-injury thing, I've notice a lot of guys who get hurt for a long time end up being hurt more often. I've also noticed some guys can get over it, but its harder to do. I'd prefer if it wasn't like that ( it decimated some of my teams), but I live with it.

The injury system really does concern me. As I've said before if a guy tears his ACL in a freak off season basketball game, he will either A) retire from it, either now or in a subsequent season from reinjuring the ACL, or B) continue playing. He does not magically become prone to every type of injury in the book such as plantar fasciitis, torn rotator cuffs, hamstrings, etc. The current injury system has no basis in reality. The end result is the same players get injured year in and year out (and likewise, another set of players play every game year in and year out) and that cannot be good for statistic output. At the very least the system should be moderated, if not totally overhauled.

No one has really taken the time to compare rushing stats, and they very well may be more out of line than the passing stats. I wish I had my long career to do some stat checking :(. I'll have to look it up again, but I think Jim mentioned more tweaks in ine rushing game as well though.

This is the final look at career stats, mainly because profootball-reference.com only lists offensive career stats. Well, it seems that the FOF receptions records fall just a bit short of the NFL records... and by a bit I mean a lot. Granted, Jerry Rice is a freak of nature (a la Dan Marino), but even 2nd place is off. None of the guys have been injured, so that is not the problem. It just seems there are a lot of options per team for each QB to throw too, so no one player racks up the stats. The most concerning thing is the TD's, which are off by quite a bit. The average top 5 FOF receiver has 12 years, the average NFL receiver has ~15-16 years. Most of the active FOF players should retire in a year or 2.

Where is the "FOF Children Slapped" column?

Thats a defensive stat, or thats what Dean Houston cried in court.

Now its about time to look at the season stats. There aren't huge differences in yards and completions when you take out the run and gun Raiders and Dan Marino. The numbers here are pretty good. According to profootball-reference, there have been 49 (or 50, I may have missed 1) 4,00 yard passing seasons. FOF reporter only goes out to the top 20 performances, so I can't see if those numbers line up. However, the top 20 in FOF end with #20 passing for 4316 yards. There have been 22 passers in the NFL who have passed for at least that many yards, so passing yards line up fairly well. The top 20 in completions in FOF end with 356 completions, while 20 NFL passers have at least that many completions in a season.

However, the huge discrepancy is in TD passes a season. For some reason, FOF tops out at 35 a year (or at least in every season I've simmed). Don't know if this is by design or what, but it makes the career records be off. by a bit. 47 NFL players have thrown 30 TD's, compared with 27 in my FOF league, this should be looked at.

The running game is fairly in line with what has been going on in the NFL. With the exception of mr. Gaddy's 461 carries, the carries are pretty much in line with the NFL. There haven't been a lot of 2000 yard seasons in my career yet, but there could be. I think this correlates to the slightly low ypc that the top carrying RB's get in FOF. I think most of the 2000 yard NFL rushers had high ypc, while in FOF they don't. As for TD's, well... its TD's, their always an anomoly in this game. I may have to check scoring overall just to see if everything matches up.

The top 20 ends with 359 carries in the FOF league, while 37 NFL players have carried the ball at least that much in the season. The top 20 ends with 1572 yards in FOF, while 37 NFL players have rushed for that much in a season. The top 20 ends with 13 TD's in FOF, while at least 50 NFL players have run for that many.

With the career records... consider that the NFL has about 35 years of history, while we're going off of 16. I greatly appreciate the work, Easy Mac, as it does certainly point out some issues. But after 35 years, the numbers would look moderately, if not much, closer to the NFL ones.

Actually more than that. Jim Brown is on the leader board. He played in the late 50's-mid 60's, did he not?

Whoa...and Don Hutson. 40's?

The NFL is about 85 years old. I would say about 45-55 of those are statistically relevant here.

Have I mentioned how much I love receptions, because there is far less to analyze, since it matches up fairly well. Both FOF and NFL have their anomoly year (Harrison and Tanner), and the rest of the receptions fall into place. FOF is a little high on the recieving yards, but they fall back into place around the 5th spot. TD's are again a little low, and adds to the idea that TD's are more spread out in FOF.

The top 20 receivers in FOF have at least 103 catches, while in the NFL 29 players have that many or more. The top 20 in receiving yards ends at 1475, while in the NFL 27 players have that many. The top 30 in receiving TD's for FOF ends with 11, while at least 50 NFL players have caught 13.

Yeah, I was going to mention that in another post, but I accidentally deleted it like halfway through typing it and just didn't feel like doing it.

I think the fact that the NFL is older influences seasonal numbers more than career numbers, at least in terms of the top of the top. There's more chance for a rare greatness for a season after 60 some odd years than 16, while a great career is very hard to come by.

I don't know if the rushing game in FOF will ever equal on a consistent basis the NFL records, merely because of the way FOF handles rushing.

True for the most part, but by the same logic, over a long period of time more players would "get lucky" and never get a serious injury. I say that because I assume what you're seeing (generally lower career stats than real life) is at least partially a product of the recurring injury issues.

See post above. Didn't cthomer have a guy rush for almost 30,000 yards?

Yup...

dat boy ran so good.... :)

I was listening to a local radio show the other day and something really hit me when they started discussing the "decreasing role of Quaterbacks in the NFL" and then went on the cite Brady and Delhomme being unspectacular but consistent.

FOF seems to be headed in the other direction. It's all but impossible to win with a mediocre, or even a Brady type QB in FOF despite how good the rest of your team it. In my opinion to much depends on one position. I didn't own FOF4, but one thing I really didn't like jumping straight from FOF2001 to FOF2004 was that formations are now solely dependent on QB's. That's just one visible example, but I'm willing to be alot of hidden variables have either been moved or added to the QB position between the two versions.

I don't think I've ever seen a computer team have a runner like that. I think its easier to pump up numbers with your own team than it is to get a computer team to have high numbers.

I would say the lower numbers are due to injury. I would start a career on 100 injury setting, but I've been doing this one since November 24, so who knows how long that one would take me.

Every year except the last were AI set game plans.

Is there anything you do like? :rolleyes:

I've always been a big fan of perfection :)

There's got to be a bug or something with that Langen guy. I have a 35 year career and have seen at most 3 or 4 2000 yard seasons total in that time, one guy having 9 of them is just nuts.

A question for those that play FOF4 and FOF2004 - has Jim fixed the issue with punting averages and the decision-making with regard to whether to go for it on 4th down, to punt or to kick a FG depending on field position, score and the game clock?

I'm hoping if/when he puts out TCY2 that this will have been fixed...

Punting averages seem OK - the leaders around 44-45, the worst around 37-38.

One thing I've noticed, I don't know if anyone else has, is that clock management does seem a little off. Teams that say, trail by 2 points and have the ball at the opponent's 20 with 1:30 remaining will use their timeouts - it just gives the other team time to score after the FG. (The team on defense in that situation would of course use their own otherwise - but this way they can keep them for their own last drive.)

having three or four 2000 yard rushing seasons in your 35 year career looks good to me, it's basically what the NFL has in its 80 year history.
As for Zach Langen, he started at RB for 14 straight seasons (wow) and NEVER had under 1872 yards in a season : of course this is "nuts" and unthinkable as far as realism. But knowing FOF quite a bit, I believe this is the single greatest performance I've ever seen by a player, regardless of the position. I don't know if Ben tweaked his gameplan for runs, runs, and runs at will but if he didn't, then just WOW.

In all of my years in the Real49ersFootball career, I have had just one 2000 yard season, and it came from a Hall of Fame RB of mine, J.R Smedley. Of course, my gameplans have always been West-Coast oriented and I favour the short passing game and not much of a "pounding" all around running game, which is why i've sedlom had any "off the charts" runners on my teams.

One question on Zach Langen : how did your teams, as a whole, fared during his career. Did these teams win some SuperBowls ? Were they perennial contenders with him in the backfield ?

Yeah. Let me chime in here. As a rule, I have no problem with any text sim that creates once-in-a-blue-moon players who perform waaayyyyy above anything we've ever seen. Let's not forget, Jerry Rice is 400 catches, nearly 8,000 yards, and over 60 TD's ahead of the competition. If in the hundreds of years of FOF careers we've collectively played, there is ONE guy who rushes for 30,000 yards, in my opinion that is a good thing, not a bad thing. It definitely adds personality to a game when you know that a true-blue superstar can be created--but very rarely. Just as these seemingly-superhuman guys will show up in real life, they should should up at some point in text sims. Every sport has its "unbreakable" records. Two that come to mind in recent memory are Henderson's stolen bases and Rice's receiving records. Both are freaks of nature--and so in Langen. Now, if we had a 20,000 yard rusher retiring every 10-15 years, I'd be raising a stink. ;)

Bottom line: there should be "once-in-a-generation" players--guys that challenge the "normal" range of career records (say, 12,000-15,000 receiving yards for example)--but also "once-in-a-lifetime" players--no more than one or two guys in a position group over 100 years or so that far surpass the "normal" range of career records.


(BTW, DK, this wasn't my guy, but cthomer's, and he used AI game plans.)

Yep. After early failures with game-planning myself, I had completely given it up by the time Langen rolled around. ONLY in the last season, when I became obsessed with him hitting 30,000 yards did I crank up the gameplan a notch. The AI handled it all up until the last season of his career.

Based on what I've seen in, gosh I guess 65-75 seaons worth of play across 3 or 4 careers, I'd wager the rushing TD's are low because the AI game-planning seems to be a pass-happy run-hater, especially inside the 3 yd line. And/or it seems that defenses are keyed extremely well on runs down close, so if you can't run it in on 1st or 2nd down from the 2, then you end up throwing more short TD's & get fewer rushing TD's in the bargain.

The more I play, the more I find that calling my own plays at least a good portion of the time is the only way I really enjoy it. Whether it's been particularly entertaining to anyone or not, I really think I've come to understand (what I perceive as) the strengths & weaknesses of 2k4 a lot better because of my Misfit Toys dynasty.

Anyway, talking about the QB's & their performance curves, injury proneness, etc., if anyone examining these things might be looking to watch for something else, see if the injuries are having logical effects. What I'm talking about is something from my MT dynasty that I'd never noticed particularly before but I'm now wondering if it's common. My QB, Darrell Kelsay is a 75-95 red bar stud in a bunch of categories, including his various passing distances. He's also a serious scrambler. He blows his ACL & misses something like 36 weeks. When he returns, he can still run better than most QB's but suddenly he can't throw a pass downfield to save his life. Maybe it was age, maybe the game is so sophisticated that it's factoring some loss of strength in his lower body robbing him of distance, but what it felt like was that he was "punished" for the injury by having some skills dropped sharply, and it happened to be randomly instead of logically chosen categories.

If there's more injuries, then there should also be more injury effects. And if that's the case at all positions, then you end up with RB's & WR's with not only fewer games played but also more games played with diminished skills.

I agree with your point Skydog, but I think that once (hopefully) the injuries are tweaked a bit and players aren't starting every game for many years as many are currently, we'll be able to more accurately judge who the superstars are. A lot of it also depends on the individual team of course. Langen's team must have had a pretty sorry passing game for him to run over 500 times in several of his seasons, that is massively, massively higher than anything I've seen before, I think 430-440 is the most carries I've seen from a player on an AI team.

Certainly. Different points entirely.

I'll take the bait, by the way. I'll quicksim a bunch of seasons at 200 injuries and report in (probably by tomorrow morning at the latest).

After six seasons, a few data points.... (I'll leave the analysis/real life comparisons to y'all. I'm kinda busy today, but quick-simming is easy to do.)

3 QB's have played 96 games. 9 have played >80 games.
4 RB's have played 96 games. 15 have played >80 games.

A 4th-year RB is third all-time in rushing, with 6,401 yards. (Portis and Tomlinson are 1-2, but this kid is only 490 yards off the lead).

I'm going to report on 50 seasons of quicksimming then.

Quick update....after 35 seasons....

82 >=4,000 yard passers (2.34 per year)

Dola--

Kinda cool. A former 7th-round draft choice QB, now at beginning of year 14, is about 4,300 yards, 300 completions and 32 TD's away from breaking all of Matt Newton's records.

Not the case at all. Here's the only screenshot I have on hand, but this was pretty much the case the whole time Langen and Wulfeck were together. My offensive was just unstoppable.

dola. It's cleary not just a run dominated team:


Looking at there 3rd year together, Langen had 528 attempts for 2,524. Still, my QB threw 440 times for 3,884 yards and a 30/3 TD/INT ratio.