A look back at week 1

[jcompton-Orlando]

or create in next draft much more better players on positions that do not work (RB's and TE"s) both positions are needed for a good run off.

David et al probably have more to say about this, but based on my experiences in the FWL, raising RB stats isn't gonna help. Plenty of runners have had 85+ across the board and spun their wheels.

[velcro]

I'm currently on a long trip in Canada, when I get home in a week or so I'll work out a comparison between that stats used by the default NFL League and the stats we now have. Then we should know where the faults may lie.

[Mark-skyhawks]

Well I had a bit of spare time and researched the average yards in the NFLE NFL and FWL so here they are

League                      Average       Ranking
FWL                            5.7         TOP 10 RB's
FWL                            3.9         TOP 11-20 RB's
OVERALL FWL              4.8         TOP 20 RB's
NFLE                           4.5         TOP 10 RB's
NFL(preseason)             7.1         TOP 10 RB's

So as you can see the difference between the FWL and the NFLE is that the top 10 RB's in the FWL stats are better than the stats of the NFLE (Not using the NFL as it is preseason)
BUT the top 11-20 RB's in the FWL are down by 0.6 of a Yard .

SO OVERALL
By these stats the FWL RB's Average are better than NFLE average which gives no explanation for poor overall yards.

[Marco_Frankfurt]

It is no secret that every 3 or so seasons there has something done to the player values or the league stats get down.

Maybe we had less discussion if we would not talk only about defense reductions 

I think most of our problems are in the lines (many sacks and low running):
I propose:
OL all values +1
DL SP,AC,AG each -2

This alone should even out some things and sounds overall a lot better to all GMs

Regarding the high completion percentages, I am a bit helpless. At least for Rodgers these are
not only 'save' passes at HB or so but also to WR1, Montreals defense on the other side is very well
build especially at DB (fast etc). So I dont know what to think of this statistical oddity.
Maybe he just is that good.

[Paul-London]

I think what you said there sounds good

Its weird, on one hand SOME teams seem to run the ball quite well, others pass the ball well but cant run it.

But if you look at http://www.fwl.org.uk/sseason.htm#O19

Some of the defenses for stopping the run are just stupid.  We need to get that back to normal.  There were a couple of games i had to re-run because so often the starting HB had 15 carries for -35 yards which was ridiculous.

Things were fine i think in Season 14, not so great last year but this year are even worse and its taking a long time simulating games.  If a team has stats such as HB1 15 carries for -30 yards i do rerun the games, i hate rerunning games but stats like that are just stupid.

So even though some of the scores might look 'okay' i have to rerun a lot of the games which takes time.  Still weird as i say as some passing stats are very good, just some of the rushing defenses are totally unrealistic

[Mario ADK]

I´d add something here:

At least for Austria it is the LBs that shut down the opponents run, not the DLs.
If that is the case throughout the league we should think about lowering the LBs, especially ST.....

[Paul-London]

Well its very funny if you go back say 5 seasons and see some of the stats there, most teams didnt have LB's with 80 SP, nowadays we have most teams with 2-4 LB's with 80+ speed each

[Mario ADK]

maybe that is the key?
i think LBs ST is a key as well.... RBs cannot run flat "through" a LB due to the LBs strengh....

[Marco_Frankfurt]

I think the best way will be a flat reduction of the whole defense (as we did before and worked quit well)

I still think the D-Line needs more then just a -1 on some attributes

And I still do not like that IN,DI und EN are also globally reduced

However from a practical point of view the flat reduction of every defense rating by the same amount is done the easiest.

[Niki]

Well its very funny if you go back say 5 seasons and see some of the stats there, most teams didnt have LB's with 80 SP, nowadays we have most teams with 2-4 LB's with 80+ speed each

well I think we now are to much focused on the increase of the def skills, unrealistic stats are not only from this season! we already have a couple of years unrealistic QB rating's. the worse QB rating in the FWL would make the QB a more then good QB in the NFL. I think in general that the problem is that all skills are getting to high + that all players have equal potatials (def 95 and off 99)

1) normal skills vs potentials: if I am correct is that the skills we see what the players normal level is, while the potential is what he can reach (during a game), thinking about it I think the potentials are connected with teh mood. The mood will influenced by the teams results. which explain why some teams keep winning and some keep losing while the year after it is visa versa.
2) all skills are to high, while a couple of years back we were happy with a QB with one skill in the 90, now we need atleast 3. same with WR and the oliners, to be more correct at all positions.

I think it is a combination between to high potentials and the total increase of all skills:

my solution:
1) decrease all skills with 20% it is fair for everyone, in percentage all players are at 80%
2) drecrease all potentials: off 90 and def 85. In this way we avoid to have the same problems in teh future
3) draftees have to be worse then in teh past. this years draft was ok for the league. we still need to change some things I think: not so many good QB's, WR and Oliners and more LB (we almost are very short in young LB with some future) TE's (1 a year that can start within 1 or 2 years is to low, TE's are used to block in the rush attack so without strong TE's it will have effect on the rush attack)

well this was my idea about why the rushing game is not working

[Mario ADK]

i think that small steps are much better. reduce a little and see how fwl develops.

don´t rush into something.....

[velcro]

Based on the just posted statistical look between the season 1 roster and now, we can see that some positions - especially QB and along both Lines has shot up by more that 100 ponts. WR, DB and LB have gone up by half of that.

HBs are small risers, but FBs are big risers.......

 Look ing at these stats I think we would need to make some pretty big changes to get the league back to producing more realistic stats.

Anyone any other thoughts?

cheers
Ross

[Niki]

nice work Ross!

It think that all positions have been raised is normal (especially keepig in mind that we increase the values of our rookies)

Note referring to HB and FB risers, we can switch them so at the end the avg rise is avg?

the compairment is great and shows the increase and the differences between increase, but the only question I have was season 1 a normal season by stats? (ross if it is not, I can do (with same guideline info) the compairment of which season it was)

[velcro]

Niki the other comparison I want to do is against the NFL league that comes with the game, but until I get back from Canada I don't have the data. That will actually be a more interesting exercise as that is a realistic league.

As was pointed out in an earlier post, the FWL has always had high sacks low interceptions. I think the number if fumbles is pretty low as well - if you discount a certain London QB ;-).

This exercise was to show what happens as the league progresses through the years. My own thought is that too many players have too long a career, so go through too many training camps.  The average NFL career is a little over 4 yearsand we have many players who are way over that. In fact most camps rounds 5-8 don't make the rosters.

[Marco_Frankfurt]

First of all great work done, thank you !

But I dont think the problem are too many training camps, this would be valid
if the starters are all 10 year veterans, but they are not.

Again, the key against too many sacks, almost no running game and the too many blocked punts
are the SP, AC, AG of the DL if we take them done by 2-3 points it should help a lot.

That we have an overall increase in the league is also no wonder, because in the first
season the players were terrible in many cases. I think a better season would be 2002
(after the first defense reduction) back then we had 6 1000 yard rushers
after 2 season without one. The league was allready some seasons old so we have a good mix
of veterans and our own rookies.

By the way we had to make the rookies better (bye ourselves), because the Game creates
terrible rookies.

[Mario ADK]

blocked punts? i do not see a problem at all!

ADK had about let us say 1 blocked punt every season on off and def. is it different with other teams?

[Marco_Frankfurt]

maybe you remember in the eraly days we had too many blocked punts !

season
1999     95
2000     82
2001     18 (dont remember if we did reduce defneces here allready)
2002     2   ! (big first defense reduction)

2009    1
2010    7
2011    13
2012    3 after 2 weeks

So it may become a problem again, maybe not as big as in the early days, because the Ps are now overall
better, however it is increasing again.

I dont know the NFL numbers but I dont see there every week a blocked punt (= 14 for our league)

[Marco_Frankfurt]

If somebody has a lot of time, here

http://www.afl.atfreeweb.com/AFL/vpnfl_description_by_henley.htm

is a description of a FBRro league that made a lot of changes to keep it realistic
Very detailed and researched changes !

Interesting to read but too much for us I fear

[Paul-London]

blocked punts? i do not see a problem at all!

ADK had about let us say 1 blocked punt every season on off and def. is it different with other teams?

Blocked punts isnt a major problem yet but so far the number seems to be rising, its not a huge problem as in defenses/rushing attack but could get out of hand, those early years with loads of blocked punts by Bruce, Emtman and others was sooooooooo unrealistic it was funny

[Mario ADK]

i really like blocked punts and blocked kicks as they can turn the games momentum around.
as i said i think we do not have too many....

i just hope that all these discussion that could/should be done end when Paul announces the changes. PLEEEEEEEEeeeaaaaaaaaaaaassssee!!!!!

This discussion last for much too long now.....

5 days to go for week 3.....