I’m going to try and keep feeding this blog with information. I’ll probably redesign it a bit in the near future, but I’d also like to push more info in the form of written items.
So yesterday we discussed personnel, formations & playcalling and such. I went ahead and did a lot of work on what I thought was my actual “first” game in the NinFL last night. It isn’t quite done yet, as the score is tied with about 30 seconds left in the game and the Bills kicking off to the Raiders (an end-of-game Bills kickoff has NEVER gone wrong, after all…).
Above you’ll see my scoresheet thus far. This was with me calling offensive plays for both teams, using all of the things I mentioned in yesterday’s post.
Upon doing some initial analysis, it was easy to see that this wasn’t a good model. Most glaring is the fact that the Bills were at best at 50/50 run/pass team. In this game, Tyrod Taylor attempted 45 passes (never hit 40 once in 2016), to only 30 rushing attempts. Additionally, most Bills fans are aware that Taylor rarely eclipses 300 yards, and at this point in the game, he’s at 291. In 2016, he did accomplish a 300 yard passing game in the 2nd-to-last game of the season against Miami. Suffice it to say though, this doesn’t give me a good feeling that 1 game in, I’ve already set Taylor’s career record for attempts in a game.
Clearly it’s not a bad thing to have a banner day. But we’re looking for realism, and to me, this isn’t realism.
My plan is to finish out this game and see who wins, but I’m going to scrap this one too. The best course forward is to use Replay Game’s coordinator functions to dial in the right balance of play calls based on each team’s tendencies in real life. I have to figure out how to meld in personnel choices – I may go back to my original thought of using a 6 sided die to determine the sets.
But my advice in this:
- Play – get the game in your hands
- Learn – Figure out the things that aren’t optimal, and
- Adjust – See if you can find workarounds that will improve upon them.
- Repeat, repeat, and repeat.
It’s all about having fun, while trying to accomplish goals that bring you joy. Go to it!
Tenacious Sports 