FOF Myths and Legends

[MRL17]

I recently had a couple drafts and draft chat is where I do most of my interacting with my fellow GMs. Draft chat is always filled with smack talk and hazing, but you also hear the FOF myths and urban legends that no one really knows if they are true or not.

I thought maybe we could make a list of these possible truths, and see how people feel about them. Feel free to add any strategy that is of questionable validity, these are just the major ones I've come across (and can remember )

Fact or Fairy Tale?

- Pass Rushers on the left side (LDE/LDT) are more important than those on the right.

- Affinities on backup QBs effect the starter's performance.

- Red flag players hurt your team's chemistry and/or cohesion.

- Blitzing reduces your pass rush %

- Keeping RB/FB/TE in to block increases sacks and hurries against your QB

- The more fans in the stands, the greater the home field advantage boost.

- Team leaders are more effective when their position is the natural leader for that position group (i.e. Center on the offensive line, MLB on the defensive front)

- Time spent in a certain area in camp reduces penalties on that group. (i.e. extra time in passing offense reduces penalties on passing plays)

- Time spent in camp carries over with players from year to year (if you keep putting extra time into pass offense every year, those players will get progressively better each year. Or, if you keep taking time out of an area, the affected players get progressively worse)

- Changing your gameplans from week to week rather than using the exact same ones gives you an "unpredictability bonus."

- The effect of Elusiveness

- The effect of Read Defense

- The effect of Play Diagnosis

- The effect of Punishing Hitter.

Anyway, I put this list together for fun and discussion. Feel free to add any other myths you know of, or shed some light on one if these topics if you have some "real" information on them.

[TheFoosballWizard]

I'll just respond with what my understanding of each possible "myth" is

LDE/LDT More important for pass rushing: FACT

Affinities on backup QBs effect start performance: MYTH

Red Flag Players hurt chemistry cohesion: UNSURE. Possibly just a small effect?

Blitzing reduces pass rush % I'd say MYTH if you mean overall PR %. Individual players will have lower ones since the blitzers will be getting pressures that they might have gotten.

Keeping TE/FB/RB in to block increases sacks and hurries MYTH. I keep my TE/FB in a lot with low sense rush QBs and there has been a marked decrease in sacks and hurries. I also improved my QB's o-line, so I don't think it's totally responsible, but I doubt it increases sacks/hurries.

More fans = Bigger Home Field Advantage My guess is MYTH.

Team leaders are more effective with natural position Smells like MYTH.

Time spent in certain areas in camp reduces penalties I'm guessing FACT. It makes sense that it would work that way and there seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence to support more penalties for units with less time spent on them in camp. However, the HC can have a large effect on this too.

Time spent in camp carries over This really seems like a MYTH

Changing gameplans week to week gives you unpredictability bonus If you mean other owners will have a harder time game planning against you, FACT. I believe it's much more effective switching an offensive gameplan than a defensive one, though. It also tends to be better to play to your strengths unless you really need to get a big edge on good owner/team.

Varying reports on Elusiveness, Read Defense, PH and PD. I don't really know that I can go either way on PH and PD, but I feel like we have a pretty good grasp on how effective Elusiveness and RD are.

[aston217]

Love this thread mike. Every draft I hear some interesting stuff, and get a few quizzical looks from other owners, as in "WTF are you talking about."

I'll chime in with my thoughts--

- Pass Rushers on the left side (LDE/LDT) are more important than those on the right.
Wait -- if anything, wouldn't the right side be more important? 34 WLB, and 43 RDE go against the left tackle. I think these guys roll up the biggest stats, but you really want pass rushers everywhere to maximize. Who gets assigned stats may be based on position bias. However, I'm not sure a team's overall pass rush strength on a play is really position-biased.

- Blitzing reduces your pass rush %
?? Weird. I don't think blitzing is a simple, "do more and it has more of ___ effect" kind of thing. There are a lot of things that go into it - personnel matchups, when you blitz, what formations you blitz out of, etc. It could be you need to find the right balance based on what you do on defense - and that it can either help, or hurt.

- Keeping RB/FB/TE in to block increases sacks and hurries against your QB
Similar to blitzing I don't think there's an easy answer here. We discussed this and I told you my thinking was keeping guys in to block helps out your pass blocking, but it also helps out the opposing secondary by giving them less guys to cover. I also don't know if keeping in to block is only useful when blitzes occur. I don't know.

- More fans = Bigger Home Field Advantage
I think this would be hard to pin down. Good teams have more fans in their seats.

- Time spent in a certain area in camp reduces penalties on that group. (i.e. extra time in passing offense reduces penalties on passing plays)
This is interesting, because I am growing increasingly positive that reduced time in STs jacks up your holding penalties on your kick returns and punt returns, which let me tell, you, SUCKS BAWLS.

- Time spent in camp carries over with players from year to year (if you keep putting extra time into pass offense every year, those players will get progressively better each year. Or, if you keep taking time out of an area, the affected players get progressively worse)
I'm pretty doubtful of this. Seems like it would be far easier to implement as a one-off, an far more balanced that way. From a programming standpoint, what are you going to do? Keep track of players and give them cumulative individual bonuses for every TC they go through?

- The varying reports on the effects of Elusiveness, Read Defense, Play Diagnosis, and Punishing Hitter.
I'll just talk about Read Defense, but I think it figures heavily into how effectively QBs play vs double coverage. As in, a 100 RD QB takes less penalty vs double coverage, while a 0 RD QB takes a high penalty when faced with DC. This may or may not have much to do with how often they throw into or away, but is more about their overall effectiveness vs DC.

[TheFoosballWizard]

Originally Posted by aston217

- The varying reports on the effects of Elusiveness, Read Defense, Play Diagnosis, and Punishing Hitter.
I'll just talk about Read Defense, but I think it figures heavily into how effectively QBs play vs double coverage. As in, a 100 RD QB takes less penalty vs double coverage, while a 0 RD QB takes a high penalty when faced with DC. This may or may not have much to do with how often they throw into or away, but is more about their overall effectiveness vs DC.

That's interesting, I was always under the impression that they didn't throw into double coverage as much. Maybe you're right on this one, though! Something to consider...

[MRL17]

Originally Posted by TheFoosballWizard

Team leaders are more effective with natural position Smells like MYTH.

This was one that I started. I saw that on Greta's list of best team leaders, Safeties, MLBs, Centers, and QBs seemed to get more weight than other players with similar leadership and personality scores.

[TheFoosballWizard]

Originally Posted by MRL17

This was one that I started. I saw that on Greta's list of best team leaders, Safeties, MLBs, Centers, and QBs seemed to get more weight than other players with similar leadership and personality scores.

Ohhh I misunderstood that one. I thought it was implying that if someone was a MLB their affinities for other ILBs were "better." I can buy this version, not a myth!

[Firefly]

Affinities on backup QBs effect the starter's performance.

I'm going with TRUTH, if you mean starters' performance, as in the starters affected by the affinities. But it would be easy to test it out.

Team leaders are more effective when their position is the natural leader for that position group (i.e. Center on the offensive line, MLB on the defensive front)

I think this is a myth no matter how you spin it. Unit leaders are chosen according to leadership and experience, and affinity strength depends on personality. I don't know what else is there that's meaningful.

[TheFoosballWizard]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I'm going with TRUTH, if you mean starters' performance, as in the starters affected by the affinities. But it would be easy to test it out.


I think this is a myth no matter how you spin it. Unit leaders are chosen according to leadership and experience, and affinity strength depends on personality. I don't know what else is there that's meaningful.

I think he means that the players that TEND to have high leadership scores are the ones at the "natural" leader positions, like C, MLB, S etc.

[Firefly]

Oh. Well, looking at the FA pool in a few leagues, there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Al kinds of different players up there.

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by MRL17

This was one that I started. I saw that on Greta's list of best team leaders, Safeties, MLBs, Centers, and QBs seemed to get more weight than other players with similar leadership and personality scores.

Always thought this was a combo of Leadership/Winner, personality not having anything to do with the Greta portion of it, only in the strength of the actual relationship with other players.

I could be wrong on this though, just eyeball observation by me.

[Nemesis]

Originally Posted by TheFoosballWizard

Blitzing reduces pass rush % I'd say MYTH if you mean overall PR %. Individual players will have lower ones since the blitzers will be getting pressures that they might have gotten.

I get slight decreases, and had done lots of testing on it in the past. Screenshots are long gone. I, along with others have noticed the trend. But again, it could be 'increased blitzing to a certain point' may not reduce PR%. Or maybe the extremes I went to (like 100% in certain spots that are frequent) could have driven it down.

The answer to this 'could' be entirely subjective.

[TheFoosballWizard]

Originally Posted by Nemesis

I get slight decreases, and had done lots of testing on it in the past. Screenshots are long gone. I, along with others have noticed the trend. But again, it could be 'increased blitzing to a certain point' may not reduce PR%. Or maybe the extremes I went to (like 100% in certain spots that are frequent) could have driven it down.

The answer to this 'could' be entirely subjective.

I've never done much blitzing, so I'd trust your opinion over mine in this instance!

[MRL17]

Originally Posted by Firefly

I think this is a myth no matter how you spin it. Unit leaders are chosen according to leadership and experience, and affinity strength depends on personality. I don't know what else is there that's meaningful.

What I mean to say is that team leaders have a greater leadership effect when the leader happens to be playing a certain position. For instance, if your O-line leader was a guard who had very high leadership scores and was well liked by the other linemen, he may end up having an even greater net effect on your line if you moved him to center.

Best team leaders just came up on Greta in the RNFL.... 7 QBs, and 3 ILBs. And many of those leaders had just 80ish in leadership and lower other scores. But my Backfield leader with 100 leadership, 97 personality, and 68 WW doesn't make the list.

[TheFoosballWizard]

Originally Posted by MRL17

What I mean to say is that team leaders have a greater leadership effect when the leader happens to be playing a certain position. For instance, if your O-line leader was a guard who had very high leadership scores and was well liked by the other linemen, he may end up having an even greater net effect on your line if you moved him to center.

Best team leaders just came up on Greta in the RNFL.... 7 QBs, and 3 ILBs. And many of those leaders had just 80ish in leadership and lower other scores. But my Backfield leader with 100 leadership, 97 personality, and 68 WW doesn't make the list.

Man, that's weird.... I guess leadership/affinities are slightly more complex than a lot of us thought they were.

[aston217]

Interesting stuff, mike. No centers?

I still would say it is tough to know based on this if the various tiebreakers or biases used for the leaders list reflect any real in-game differences, or if it's just some simple window dressing code thrown in for the sake of generating a list.

Doesn't hurt to play around with the idea, though.