FOF2004: Route Running

[oykib]

I should probably check the Strategy archives before posting this... but...

What's the deal with the Route Running rating?

After reading some of Quiksand's stuff on FOF2k4 and reading the FOF4 Groupthink, I tried some experiments with putting lousy route runners to make sure that the ball is thrown to my playmakers.

What does everyone else try? Recently, I signed a SE to go opposite my 76/76 FL. I picked a guy that had high Avoid Drops, Getting downfield, Big Play Recieving, Courage, and Adjust to Ball while being awful (~20) at Route Running. My FL put up his best year since a few years a go when we were a bad team that was always playing catch-up.

Also, he started slow. But he was the best reciever in the conference in the last half of the season-- after I had changed the lineup to take my nearly mxed-out FB off the field during passing situations.

[QuikSand]

I heartily subscribe to this philosophy. I generally think that the RR rating turns into "how likely is it that the QB will throw to this receiver?" So, the last thing I want is a receiver with modest skills but a high RR rating -- I don't want my offense to work hard to get the ball to a guy who can't do much with it.

I seek out complementary receivers with low RR ratings, and also look for this in my players at FB -- which seems to focus the passing game more on the guys who have playmaking potential. (I think a "productive" fullback is generally a bad thing to have in an FOF offense)

[Icy]

I noticed this too, i don't underestand the QB logic at FOF, they should throw more passes to the best receiver no mather if he is SE, FB, FL or TE but they usually send more passes to the wrong one. The only way i have find to control this a bit is playing with the pass distance, of course if you choose short passes you will send more to your FB or TE but this not usually works. I haven't figured yet how to get my QB to throw mostly of the passes to the guy i want to lead my pass offense.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally posted by QuikSand (I think a "productive" fullback is generally a bad thing to have in an FOF offense)

Interesting.

I'm not disputing this because of the "generally" qualifier, but it's interesting to me becauseI've had the most productive offense in the league for the past decade ... keyed by a dominant fullback, surrounded by typically mediocre (or worse) RB's.

I wonder ... does calling my own plays about 1/3 of the time really make such a big difference?

[QuikSand]

Icy, I'd think of it this way: the QB is back in the pocket, and looking to make a pass. His instinct should be to throw to one of te designated receivers on the play who is "open" - whatever that means. The receivers who have good skills in "route running" are the ones who are going to come up in the simulation as being "open" most often - so, in a sense, they are the best receivers (as you suggest). If your "best" receiver (the guy with wonderful hands, or whatever other skill you want to value) is double covered and not available to receive a pass, then he's not the best target for the pass, is he?

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by JonInMiddleGA
I'm not disputing this because of the "generally" qualifier, but it's interesting to me becauseI've had the most productive offense in the league for the past decade ... keyed by a dominant fullback, surrounded by typically mediocre (or worse) RB's.

I wonder ... does calling my own plays about 1/3 of the time really make such a big difference?

My first axiom of FOF testing is this: Having a successful team in FOF does not necessarily mean that any particular element of what your team does is especially wise. This is because it's just too easy for the human gamer to outmanage the team compared to the competition - and unless you shackle yourself with ridiculous hoiise rules, you'll be successful almost no matter what. So, in this case, it's certainly posible that your great offense would be FAR better if you just dumped the star FB for a player who doesn't catch many passes - and you'd see many of those passes going instead to RBs with bamebreaking ability, or receivers downfield for bigger plays. Just a thought, of course.


As for calling your own plays - I don't have any empirical evidence, but I have to think that's a huge advantage. The computer teams can't even sign the right players - how can they be expected to actually call plays effectively? Plus, if you don't call plays, you presumably are being handicapped by the skills of your coach - not so if you call your own, eliminating an obvious possible handicap built into the game otherwise.


Of course, I don't have any stake in how you or anyone else plays the game - just making observatiosn about whether overall results can translate to any particular sense of component effectiveness. I say not.

[Icy]

You could be right QuickSand, i will need to pay more atention to route running than i was paying until now. This means that to have a dominating receiver one of the most important skills is the route running, else no mather how good are his other attributes as probably he won't get lots of passes as he will be covered mostly of the time.

JonInMiddleGA, you said it, if you call your plays you make a big diference on choosing the formations etc, for example if you're mostly choosing sinlge back formations for pass, of course you won't have your FB getting a lot of passes during the game as he is out of the field. About your dominationg FB, if you choose all the run plays to be executed by your FB, of course he will make great numbers if he is good enought. I have seen that as in real NFL, no matter how good is your FB but the IA will choose mostly RB running plays above FB running plays. If you choose your plays thats another thing.

[Icy]

I really would like more disscusions like this one about translating NFL tactics and players rattings to FOF as sometimes i'm confussed about the more needed rattings for each position at FOF, i really miss Morgado's analysys

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Icy
You could be right QuickSand, i will need to pay more atention to route running than i was paying until now. This means that to have a dominating receiver one of the most important skills is the route running, else no mather how good are his other attributes as probably he won't get lots of passes as he will be covered mostly of the time.

Also, don't dismiss the value of a quality receiver who, when he does get the ball thrown his way, is reliable to catch it, not drop it, and make something happen when he does. There'ss nothign wrong with a guy who gets a season-long stat line like this:

16 games started, 500 pass plays
70 targeted passes
50 receptions
700 yards receiving
7 TDs

This guy won't go to the pro bowl, but this is a very helpful player to have on your team. I think the aggressive focus on gross stats for receivers belies the fact that a lot of them help the team with much less obvious production.

Maybe a good number to watch for your receivers is the yards per attempt when they are the targets. For this guy above, that would be a 10.0 -- if your QB averaged 10 yards per pass attempt, he'd be on an express bus to Canton. This is a very productive receiver, even though he might not make tons and tons of plays - he's probably better for your team than the other guy who has this stat line:

16 games started, 500 pass plays
160 targeted passes
80 receptions
1000 yards receiving
10 TDs

Another pretty good player, and he hit the obvious milestone mark -- but his YPA are only about 6.25 -- much less than the other guy. Since he had more yards and TDs, he'll get more credit for purposes of salary demands and all-pro recognition -- but he simply isn't making as much of his chances as our other guy.

I'll take the first guy over the second one, any time.

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Icy
I really would like more disscusions like this one about translating NFL tactics and players rattings to FOF as sometimes i'm confussed about the more needed rattings for each position at FOF, i really miss Morgado's analysys

You might be surprised how much useful information there is in the game's help files, and the accompanying articles.

[QuikSand]

I tossed up some more discussion about these concepts over in the strategy forum for what it's worth.

Receiver Efficiency Rating

[Icy]

Nice QuickSand, going to read there

[oykib]

This is what brought this on:

Front Office Football 2004 
2009 Summary for New Jersey Jets
   
Record: 13-3
Winning Pct.: .812
   
New Jersey Jets         Team      Rank  
Rushes                  536       2           
Rushing Yards           2423      3           
Yards Per Carry         4.52      3           
Pass Attempts           436       32          
Completions             287       31          
Passing Yards           3107      29          
Yards Per Attempt       7.12      16          
3rd Down Conversions    48.1      2           
Points Per Game         27.4      1           
Turnovers               9         1           
Turnover Margin         +22       1           
   
Opponents               Team      Rank  
Rushes                  386       5           
Rushing Yards           1609      10          
Yards Per Carry         4.16      17          
Pass Attempts           590       30          
Completions             327       17 (T)      
Passing Yards           3805      17          
Yards Per Attempt       6.44      3           
3rd Down Conversions    42.1      19          
Points Per Game         18.3      4           
Turnovers               31        3           
   
Week  Team  Versus        Oppnt  
1     17    NED           20      
2     27    ATL           17      
3     28    KCY           7       
4     39    JAX           33      
5     27    at HOU        24      
7     17    IND           24      
8     28    at NED        23      
9     16    at TEN        13      
10    35    BUF           10      
11    22    at MIA        17      
12    31    at TBY        28      
13    19    at PIT        24      
14    38    NOS           10      
15    31    at BUF        6       
16    33    at CAR        13      
17    31    MIA           24      
   
Passing             Pos   Att   Comp  Yards Y/Att TD    Int  
5 Ward              QB    433   284   3088  7.13  30    6       
**Team              ---   436   287   3107  7.12  30    6       
   
Rushing             Pos   Att   Yards Y/Att TD  
40 Benson           RB    294   1313  4.46  7       
42 Webster          RB    146   626   4.28  6       
5 Ward              QB    66    376   5.69  3       
**Team              ---   536   2423  4.52  17      
   
Receiving           Pos   Targ  Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC   TD  
87 McCallum         WR    108   69    1006  14.5  177   11      
81 Butler           TE    90    61    654   10.7  182   6       
46 Bagette          FB    60    44    322   7.3   169   3       
40 Benson           RB    49    36    297   8.2   143   4       
89 Andersen         WR    37    23    264   11.4  36    1       
42 Webster          RB    36    22    145   6.5   69    1       
80 Mead             WR    26    17    236   13.8  32    2       
**Team              ---   436   287   3107  10.8  832   30      
   
Defense             Pos   Tack  Asst  Sack  Hurr  Ints  Defn  
96 Kingry           OLB   86    27    1.0   5     1     10      
94 Sallee           ILB   78    26    3.0   1     0     7       
39 Williams         S     77    29    2.0   0     6     16      
35 Hanks            S     77    17    0.0   0     7     18      
93 Fox              ILB   62    15    1.5   1     0     6       
38 Small            CB    42    12    1.0   0     2     10      
49 Giannetti        CB    39    14    0.0   0     3     15      
21 Kirk             CB    33    8     0.0   1     1     10      
76 Doty             DE    31    18    6.0   9     0     0       
54 Lynn             OLB   30    8     1.0   1     1     1       
74 Barrett          DE    28    9     8.0   23    1     0       
90 McDaniel         OLB   27    16    0.0   1     0     3       
30 Mathis           CB    27    11    0.0   0     2     1       
99 Dawkins          DT    22    17    3.0   6     0     0       
24 Morrison         CB    19    5     0.0   0     0     0       
45 Bryja            S     18    0     0.0   0     0     1       
**Team              ---   767   243   31.0  55    25    100     


These were my stats for my last season. McCallum is my Flanker with great ratings. He 's been making an incredible salary for the past three seasons. But he's been putting up 700 yard seasons.

Through the first eight games he was getting only three to five passes thrown his way per game. After I took my Fullback off the field in passing situations and Anderson (the SE with the low RR) came back he saw six to ten passes per game. You can see the numbers bump that happened in the second half of the season (he only had ~350 yards recieving after the first eight games).

Also, my QB was incredibly efficient. He had a rating of 103.7. But early in the season his YPA were in the mid sixes. By the end of the season they had gone above seven. You can see the difference in our record in the final eight games also. We put up much better numbers offensively.

[Chubby]

Originally posted by QuikSand
(I think a "productive" fullback is generally a bad thing to have in an FOF offense)

Play him at starting HB That's what Im doing, results to follow the completion of my season.

[Peregrine]

This is a really interesting topic. I think I stumbled on its application last season by accident. I had two top WRs at flanker and split end. I had to trade the SE despite his major talent because his salary was absolutely killing me. In his place I signed a free agent who had some skills, but was bad at route running. Before my two WRs would get about 1200 yards each, but they were obviously keeping each other in check, in terms of number of catches, yardage, etc. After I put in the new SE, my good flanker started busting out, ended up with 1200 yards and 14 TDs even though he missed 4 games. Unfortunately the guy I traded had a league record 1950+ yards, playing for a terrible team that was always behind.

[Bee]

Originally posted by QuikSand
I heartily subscribe to this philosophy. I generally think that the RR rating turns into "how likely is it that the QB will throw to this receiver?" So, the last thing I want is a receiver with modest skills but a high RR rating -- I don't want my offense to work hard to get the ball to a guy who can't do much with it.

I seek out complementary receivers with low RR ratings, and also look for this in my players at FB -- which seems to focus the passing game more on the guys who have playmaking potential. (I think a "productive" fullback is generally a bad thing to have in an FOF offense)

This has been my philosophy in the past as well, but I've been thinking of perhaps trying to design a gameplan focused around a dominating fullback. I think in a traditional gameplan the dominating FB detracts quite a bit from the overall offense, but I'm curious to see what happens when the FB becomes the focus of the offense. It could end up being a horrible offense that really isn't productive, but I'm not totally convinced without trying it out. Has anyone else tried anything along these lines?

[Chubby]

Originally posted by Bee
This has been my philosophy in the past as well, but I've been thinking of perhaps trying to design a gameplan focused around a dominating fullback. I think in a traditional gameplan the dominating FB detracts quite a bit from the overall offense, but I'm curious to see what happens when the FB becomes the focus of the offense. It could end up being a horrible offense that really isn't productive, but I'm not totally convinced without trying it out. Has anyone else tried anything along these lines?

My stud FB I just drafted with the 32nd overall has helped my O a TON. He is almost maxed out across the board (was like this after training camp) and I start him at HB (all my HB suck, too much money). We went 12-4 and won the SB (again )

His stats:
G: 16
GS : 13
Att: 193
Yds Rush: 782
Avg: 4.0
Long: 21
TD: 7
Rec: 29
Yds Rec: 194
Avg: 6.6
YAC: 116
Long: 16
TD: 1

[QuikSand]

Originally posted by Chubby
My stud FB I just drafted with the 32nd overall has helped my O a TON.

His stats:
G: 16
GS : 13
Att: 193
Yds Rush: 782
Avg: 4.0
Long: 21
TD: 7
Rec: 29
Yds Rec: 194
Avg: 6.6
YAC: 116
Long: 16
TD: 1

Again - it's not obvious that this guy is helping your team. What if 150 of those carries could have gone to a halfback who would have gotten 4.5 yards per carry with them... your team would have been a good deal better off. What if those 40 passes had been thrown downfield to wideouts, gaining 400 yards instead of 194? Again, the team is better off.

Gross stats don't tell the whole story - there's an opportunity cost involved. (I'm not trying to disparage you or your player - just trying to illuminate the issue a bit)

[Chubby]

Originally posted by QuikSand
Again - it's not obvious that this guy is helping your team. What if 150 of those carries could have gone to a halfback who would have gotten 4.5 yards per carry with them... your team would have been a good deal better off. What if those 40 passes had been thrown downfield to wideouts, gaining 400 yards instead of 194? Again, the team is better off.

Gross stats don't tell the whole story - there's an opportunity cost involved. (I'm not trying to disparage you or your player - just trying to illuminate the issue a bit)

I see your point. However...

Season 2: 15-1 (haven't played playoffs yet)

G: 16
GS: 16
Att: 274 (12)
Rush Yds: 1440 (2)
Avg: 5.2 (3)
Long: 60 (7)
TD: 14 (1)
Catch: 39
Rec Yds: 323
Avg: 8.2
YAC: 221
Long: 39
TD: 3
Drop: 1


Now of course you could argue (well what if those carries went to a HB who averaged 6.0 per carry) but I pay peanuts for him AND I drafted another decent FB in the draft before this season. The only loss was a 16-20 game at Miami.

Team Stats:
Offense
Rushes: 538 (1)
Rush Yds: 2719 (1)
Yds Per Carry: 5.05 (1)
Pass Attempts: 436 (32)
Completions: 289 (28)
Pass Yds: 2983 (31)
Yds Per Att: 6.84 (14T)
3rd Down Conv: 44.1 (10)
Pts Per Game: 25.8 (1)
Turnovers: 6 (1)
Turnover Margin: 16 (1T)

Defense
Rushes: 375 (2)
Rush Yds: 1247 (1)
Yds Per Carry: 3.32 (1)
Pass Attempts: 552 (23)
Completions: 296 (4T)
Passing Yards: 3280 (4)
Yds Per Attempt: 5.94 (1)
3rd Down Conv: 37.3 (4)
Pts Per Game: 11.1 (1)
Turnovers: 22 (13T)

This is by far my best team I've ever had and will probably be my soon-to-be 12th SB winner. All games were simmed.

[Chubby]

Dola -

WOW! We won the SB 22-17 with a missed xp and missed 2 pt conversion on our part. My never gets hurt QB got knocked out in the 2nd quarter and my D returned 2 picks for TD's, one of which for 95 yards!

[Leonidas]

I have to say RR is probably the most important attribute for a received in FOF, and I maintain that mirrors real life.

If you did an honest assessment of a guy like Steve Largent based on FOF ratings, he'd have about 90-100 for RR and at least 80 or higher for hands, then the rest of his numbers would by in the 20-40 range, yet he is one of the all time greats. If you played any real organized football as a QB or receiver you'r know route running may be the most underrated aspect of a receiver's game, and always has been. The NFL has been loaded with 4.3/4.4 burner guys that never really panned out.

Think of the great receivers of all time and most of them, if not all of them were great route runners. Charlie Joyner was no burner, Largent, Michael Irvin, Don Maynard, John Stallworth, Art Monk, Drew Pearson just to name a few. Even Jerry Rice was never known as a world class speed guy. He is a guy who runs great routes who was just "fast enough" to break a lot of long ones. Yes, there was Lance Alworth, but on top of his marvelous speed was a guy who ran sharp routes.

Then for using FB's, I find a FB who runs great routes and has good hands is invaluable, if you are inclined to call your own plays. There is nothing like an "old reliable" out of the backfield for those 3rd and 2,3, and 4 yard plays to catch a dink out of the backfield. They are also great down near the goal line. I've seen my offense turn around in the red zone just by adding a good FB. I had a team go from 39% to 47% in the red zone because of a new FB. Granted, I call about half my plays, mostly in clutch situations. If I didn't make the calls then maybe I'd just go with a blocking FB. I can understand the angst of the FB getting all the attention. But I really like having a relatively cheap player who can get those medium to short yardage plays when you need them the most.