Is there a reason why there are so many more odd things that happen in Sandbox than in the actual NFL? Things that happen once a season are happening once a week, penalties are over the top, turnovers look like a madden sim, etc.
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Is there a reason why there are so many more odd things that happen in Sandbox than in the actual NFL? Things that happen once a season are happening once a week, penalties are over the top, turnovers look like a madden sim, etc.
I was wondering myself, I'm sure the algorithms line up with the percentages.
Yet, it does seem like an episode of a Playmakers, where the writers try to get everything that "might happen" into every episode.
Yet the games I've played out so far are still unique in different ways.
I took over a team with Lamar Jackson and no O-Line a couple of weeks ago.
Because of that, and Deandre Hopkins tough year in AZ last year, D-Hop usually drops half the passes that are thrown to him in most every game.
As a result of that I basically set Lamar to run 40% of the time.
Even that is no great thing. he might run 20 for 200yds and 3TD or 20 for 78yds and 3 Turnovers, either of which will probably end in a loss.
Bottom line is I guess it's like every GM, we put a team together that we believe should play and perform very well, 30+ GM's in the NFL probable feel that way every year.
However, most won't even compete for their division at the end of the year, and only one will be truly happy with the final outcome.
The thing that happens to me way to much AND it seems like every game...sometimes a few times a game...I have corner back who is OFFSIDES. Thats extremely frustrating. However, this is simulation and you have to expect some weird stuff to go down. This is my 1st year in this league and I am excited to see the realism improve season to season...
I would guess that may very well point to the inherited problem in the algorithm....
Why every game?
Do teams not work to fix problems week to week?
Address issues and make improvements?
Or even get worse because the players rebel against the coaches?
Facts are, the absolute best coaching staffs use the Regular season to get prepared for the playoffs, work on flaws and improve performance, and most of the good ones have a number of game plan contingencies for second half adjustments as needed.
But if the algorithm doesn't allow for improvement, then Lamar And D-Hop will continue to play this season for me like two Street Free Agents who won't be on the team next year, even though I am sure they both went in the first three rounds when originally drafted.
And your DB will continue to line up Offsides like it's never happened before, as if his Position Coach has never delt with the issue in any practice after any game where it has happened, even though it has happened in every game...
But in the real world, their are more first round picks that flame out of the NFL and do not receive a second contract with their original team, then first round picks that do get that second contract and become the fulfillment of the great hope of the organization.
So, yeah, we could blame the algorithm, or recognize that in this alternative reality, players don't appear to learn from their mistakes or improve on their circumstances until after the season is complete. If there is ever any improvement at all, from year to year, quite possibly, they may even get worse.
I guess the moral of the story is, that this is not your father's Oldsmobile.
But it may just be his Pontiac, My only guess is that it is either not so easy, or was not considered that the algorithm must spread its percentages over each game while also at the same time spreading its percentages across a season.
Then again, maybe the algorithm does exactly that, and we are just not happy with the outcome of a phenomenal algorithm.
"Inventors and their Inventions need time to see the greatness to its end of their capabilities".
~ Author Unknown ~
Its not a given your team will be coached up and get better! What if you suck as a coach? Change your calls to adjust to your strong parts and the weak parts of your opponents. i try every week to take away what my opponent likes to do! If they have a star he will go off. That does not mean he will shut you down. The NFL today is Offense driven . You need only make a couple of stope to win as long s you can score !
The "street free agents" do WAY too well.......there is no incentive for fixing your lineups to replace weekly injured players. SFA should NOT be returning kicks for 88 yard TD's, nor punts for TDs, nor making INT's, nor third in the league for rushing, nor having a QB rating of 147.3. This has to be fixed!
Yes. I agree regarding street free agents. There are way to many FREE AGENTS in the top of leaderboards. How do you not resign a street Free agent that has 5 interceptions?
That is a good point.
Perhaps a street free agent should be signable and nameable.
Yet, I feel like back in the day there were some guys that would pop up and have great games or even great parts to a season and either catch on or disappear.
Even today, its not unheard of for a guy to pop up with 100+ Rushing or Receiving in some random game or stretch of only to fall right back off.
Or a Taylor Heineke to pop up from grad school and win a playoff game.
After all Kurt Warner was Bagging Groceries.
And the Cowboys are always finding these ex con dope head types that make a good run for a year or three on the defensive side of the ball.
Alex Smith was on the scrap heap in SF until Jim showed up, put in the RPO and Alex had like four or five great games before the league could adjust, and then Alex hit the bench and was traded to KC where Andy made a really good QB out of him.
After all there are always a few great sixth round picks that make noise before anyone knows who they are.
As for a Street Free Agent DB with 5 INT's, He is going to get thrown at, He might grab a few picks because he is out of position, before there is enough film on him to expose why he wasn't on anybody's opening day roster.
One thing that I'll note is that all street free agents for a team are lumped together on the stats. So if a team starts an entire defensive backfield of free agents, then the stats will look like one free agent has 5 interceptions when that's not the case. The same is true for other positions like WR and TE. So the free agents may not be as good as they look on the stats sheet because they're reported en masse.
I will make a few comments about free agents in Sandbox.
- The stats for free agents mimic low attempt players in the NFL, on the theory that hundreds of players every year in the NFL start the season as free agents but end up playing. Many NFL teams start a player some time during the season that was sitting on their couch opening weekend.
- Free agents will occasionally make some big plays or have good games. Umberto listed some good NFL examples.
- If you look in any Sandbox league, most FA with significant snaps aren’t doing great. QB ratings in the 60s or below. WR dropping 10% of their passes. Etc.
- Kevin mentions a great point that all FA at a given position on a given team are lumped together.
- But looking at the big picture, FA are performing a little better than they should. Over the next couple weeks I will likely tone down their average performance by another notch.
I use to be in a sim league very similar to this, all the player stats were individualized no matter if it was Tom Brady or Joe Blow off the street. The sim went off of the pervious years real NFL stats. The stats for a sim year would not be exact as the real NFL year but it would be fairly close. For example if you have Tom Brady at QB in real life he throws for 5,000 yards, in the sim the following year it would be close to that, but if you have nothing but lower level WR'S on your sim team he would not get close to that.
I believe the same thing is going on here and it takes into account each offensive lineman TE and HB in exactly the same way. If I understand correctly, the whole offensive line can take a hit if you play one really bad Guard, that the line has co compensate for, and that will cause issues with QB and RB production across the board.
I believe that is the case, or maybe I'm just reading to much into it.
I wonder if we are going to see a different Pat, now that Hill is gone, I believe the cheetah ran down a lot of passes that no other WR would even come close to.
Not that they were all bad passes, just many passes were thrown to where Pat hoped only the cheetah could get to.
when a player get injured for the season can we put him on injured reserve list and pick up a free agent in that postion like the NFL has and do we get to keep that player untill we need to drop player to make the 53 man roster
According to the developer if a free agent scores 5 TDS in real life in the sim they just get bundled together with all your other WR's, in the sim i used to be in that didn't happen. If he caught 5 TD'S in real life HE would catch somewhere around that in the sim, not the whole WR core.
I get that SFA can produce. I get that anything and everything can and has happened. The issue I have is the frequency. In Browns1 there's a team whose SFA has 10 sacks and 6ints. Even if you're combining their defensive SFA stats on the year, those sack and int numbers are better than some other teams as a whole. There's also a SFA doing outperforming Baker Mayfield at QB, not that Baker is Joe Montana, but still.
My main concern lies outside of SFA, however. I can have a pressure rate of 50% and get 2 sacks and my opponent will have a pressure rate of 20% and get 4 or 5 sacks. The turnover rate seems to be tremendous as well. It becomes too difficult to gameplan when you can't determine why you're getting sacked without being pressured, or you throw a pick every time you get in the redzone, or you're fumbling 3+ times a game. Safeties have been high. Special teams impacts have been over the top since we can't gameplan one way or the other for it. Defensively we can only gameplan against the pass.
The penatlies seem inconsistent too. I've had more penalties called on Eric Stokes in one game than he's had called on him his entire NFL career. There have been a large amount of personal foul calls, too, which is significant since they are tacked on at the end of a play. I regularly have DE's getting called for defensive holding and corners called for neutral zone infractions.
CAN these things happen? Absolutely. Should they be the norm? Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong, I love playing, especially in my Dolphins1 league since it's so active. These are just some things that need tweaking imo.
Just saw I was challenged and I was sacked 8 times, threw 3 ints, and fumbled 4 times... in one game? We had similar pressure percentages but I never got to him once. Explain to me how Jimmy G is better at evading a sack than Justin Fields. His receivers aren't better, his line isn't better, yet somehow I'm the only one struggling? This is what's infuriating. There is so little consistency that it makes everything a joke. If SFA are going to outperform NFL starters and my team play is going to be so hit or miss why should we even bother? What is the point of setting up a gameplan and lineup, or even drafting if players aren't going to perform realistically? You don't want to give ratings, which I'm all for, but then you don't want to make the players realistic. The only difference between SFA and starters at this point is that starters have a name. Everything else seems entirely randomized.
Yeah that would be cool, maybe a ten man practice squad or something like that.
Plus, another good option would be a three, six, nine, twelve and full season Injury Reserve.
We know when a guy is going to be out. It would be nice to pick up a guy from the practice squad.
But, I guess that is the whole point of the SFA.
They are that guy that would come from your own practice squad or a pick up from off waivers.
So, the SFA make sense.
I believe the issue maybe we have so many abandoned teams with so many SFA playing at so many positions, it goes against our normal understanding of what we can accept.
So far, in league play, Ben Worthlessburger has 8 INT and 13 LOST fumbles. It's a lot more just plain fumbles, mind you....but he's LOST 13 fumbles. However the stats get compiled in the stats column? Is woefully inept, as this isn't accurately reflected. LMAO
So I checked Pro Football Reference, and according to them, he had 11 total fumbles all year, losing 6.....all year.
Checked the game logs, and he's responsible for 8 lost fumbles so far. (He sucked) Lol
I think it is a by-product of the challenge option, Seems he's way worse in there. I think he's a turnover machine. I have Matthews, Norwell, Meinerz, Glowinksi, and Hurst.
A quick look up on Madden shows that Meinerz and Hurst are rated in the low 70's Glowinksi is a 77.
What I assume is your Left side, Matthews and Norwell, are rated in the 81 and 82, which is not bad, however,
I believe that the weaker right side will pull the left side down and probably give you an average of mid 70's across the line.
Now, that is just Madden ratings and the guys who run this game use a lot more then Madden.
So, If these guys are rated even lower in the other sources, (For instance Quintin Nelson is rated 26 points lower on PFF (69.1) then on Madden (95)), that are being used for ratings, you will definitely need to upgrade in the offseason.
Also, I believe they take all kinds of other things into consideration that they don't really identify to us.
My only questions are, Why Burger?
Did you draft him?
[Burger is a 74 on Madden and a 53 on PFF]
. Overall .
My starting QB was Watson, but he didn't play last year for obvious reasons (degenerate). So I picked up Rapistberger to fill in, also have Taylor Heinicke, lol. Had to use him 1 game, that was enough. Was in between a rock and a hard spot. So it's a throw away season for me basically, plus I have anywhere between 7 to 12 players out during any given week, so there's also that. It is what it is.
This week is a light injury list for me, 3 CBs (Peters, Gardner-Johnson, Echols), 1 RT (Conklin), the aforementioned QB (Watson), 1 DE (Lawson). But 2 or 3 of those that I can start, aren't worth it because they are usually hurt also, Wr Samuels being one such player.
Also, my right side OL USED to be Brandin Brooks and Jack Conklin, but injuries.
Like I said, a throw away season.
Quick Question....
Is there anyway to minimize the amount of penalties your team receives? Like if we use players who are less penalized throughout the year? I am top the leaderboards on penalties and it is NOT a list you want to be high on....
I hear if you have Brady you'll cut your penalties in half
Anyone else getting sacked 10 times a game, 4 times on the first 4 plays? Make it make sense.
QB - Justin Fields - 2nd fastest QB in the league
LT - Elgton Jenkins - 11th tackle on PFF
LG - Chris Lindstrom - 6th guard on PFF
C - Conner McGovern - 9th center on PFF
RG - Michael Onwenu - 3rd guard on PFF
RT - Braden Smith - 13th tackle on PFF
Perhaps the problem is Justin.
His stats were not very good last year.
Regardless of how fast he is, dude was way over matched play after play.
Not sure what his sack percentage was last year, because I just couldn't take watching the ineptitude.
Perhaps next year, fields will be better.
Also, in my own personal opinion, Young QB's need a run game, even in an alternate reality.
Reality is, I can't offer you much help, I just got here.
Quick suggestion that is probably not a quick code update.
How about, instead of a SFA, program the computer to add a random real player at that position who is not signed to a team in that league?
Basically, the equivalent of picking up a real guy from waivers, another team's practice squad, own practice squad, the carousel or the couch.
Teams are constantly bringing guys in mid-season to fill holes and give opportunities when injuries occur.
My guess is you have already considered that as a step down the road.
You have what looks like a few hundred unused available players in each league.
Or let us pick up guys from the free agent list for $1 during the season and release our own guys to injury reserve?
Probably too much to make happen right now.
I like the idea of the random guy that the computer assigns, because then I can click on that guy and look up his real stats and ratings, even if I don't yet get to pick who is assigned to my team to fill a hole.
I understand that that is exactly what a SFA is, I'm just saying that having the real name and face of a specific player might help the GM's psychology.
I also am guessing that you realize that too.
Or another idea, expand our rosters to match what the NFL has available when including the practice squad.
Just the random thoughts of an outsider.
I just played a challenge game where Rothlisberger fumbled 4 times.....in a little over 1 quarter of 1 game. Lmao. He fumbled a total of 11 times all of last year.
Dude, my team, CCA, sacks the hell outta teams and forces plenty of turnovers. Ask dj's left nut, leader of Challenge. I sacked Dak 10 times and forced I think 6 turnovers last time we played and am 3-1 against him, lol.
Did you pay attention to whos sacking you? Its not a DE or LB, lol.
I have several D gameplans I use for certain teams. I'm all about Defense. Don't care the NFL is all Offense.
You gotta change **** up!