Bars / scores

[irabowman]

OK I was shocked today when Shark asked what my intell score is. Rob said it was very low 13. When I read this I thought man didn't see that blew that part. Then I find out apparently that is a good thing lower the # the better. Thus my question, what other bars or scores do you want to be low?

Reason I ask s figured you wanted everything high, but apparently not. I am really trying to apply myself more this season and learn a lot of the deeper stuff, I was unaware existed.

[Guest]

The general rule for finding out a QB's hidden avoid interceptions bar is as follows:

Solescmic Score = Avoid Interceptions + Intelligence

therefore

The lower the QB's intelligence (which increases the time it takes for the QB to learn new formations) the better the QB will be at avoiding interceptions.

The only other thing that I can think of that you want to be low is volatility which affects how much a players ratings fluctuate.

[Aston]

It's mostly just intelligence.

If you think of a player as a set of numbers, the game looks at all those numbers -- which include his bars, and his attributes (such as intel) -- and produces combines based on these. One of those combines is the "Sole" score; kind of the Wonderlic in FOF.

The sole score is based partly on intel, and partly on other factors for some position groups:

QB: intel, Avoid Interceptions, Read Defense (to an extent?)
RB, FB: intel, Hole Recognition
WR/TE: intel and RR
K: kick accuracy
P: directional punting?...
Defenders: play diagnosis

So let's illustrate this with a WR example. How good a rookie draft class WR's Sole score is, is due to three things:

- his intelligence
- his RR bar
- a little bit of random dice (i.e, of course two players with X intel and Y RR don't always have the exact same sole score. That's how the dice comes into play.)

As a GM scouting a draft prospect, we can know his intelligence. And we can see his Sole. So let's say his intelligence is very high, and his Sole is average. This tells us, "it's likely his RR score is not very good. If it were good, his sole would have to be higher -- as we'd expect for a guy with both great RR, and great intel."

Then let's say his intelligence is very low, and his sole score is average. This tells us, "I guess his RR might be OK (depending on the sole). If his RR were so bad, coupled with his bad intelligence, you'd expect a lower sole score than this, right? Usually?"

So it's a little more nuanced than you just want the intel score to be low. Not necessarily. But it can be a good sign for these reasons. And a high intel score is good for other things on its own. Smarter players are likelier to become mentors sooner, while dumb players are likely to never be one. I think I've also read smarter players develop faster.

Hopefully that gives you an idea of how I understand this to work.

[Sharkn20]

You might want high volatility in lower rounds to try to find a gem out there. I always do it and I had solid back ups or starters in the past

[irabowman]

Thanks guys, your helping me understand the game a little better.

[Guest]

If you want to really confuse yourself consider that there's working theory that when a player gets generated by the game, let's say 80 rated WR, he is only then assigned combine scores.

So, if we see a 40 yd dash combine of 4.42 we think he's potentially a WR who rates anywhere between 30 and 100. The game knows he's 80 rated, we don't, but his dash tells us he could be anywhere from bad to great. (Of course we'd look to his BPR bar to determine whether he's likely to be bad or great or inbetween.)

Now, that same WR could've been assigned a 40 yd dash combine of 4.26, which we'd translate to mean "STUD" without blinking an eye and in this case our interpretation would be correct.

The player is who he is, we are given combine scores that fall within who he is.

Or we're straight up given false combine scores (ie. workout warriors).

And then there's the combine correlation which throws even more noise into the whole process.

It's a gigantic confusing mess and it is keeping drafting fresh and moving it away from the pure science it was back in FOF2k7.

[IrishGuy65]

You should go on FOFC and do some research. There are two significant posts that are relevant.

One was by RedKingGold many, many years ago, but from what I have been told, is still relevant today. In it, he talks about how the Solecismic combine correlates to IQ, Read Defense, and Avoid Interception. So, if you have a high Sole combine, a low IQ and low RD, you are likely to have a high AI. A higher RD will lower the AI rating.

The other, I don't remember who did it. But, what they did was create a draft class of all QBs, with differing ratings relating to AI, and evaluated the combine ratings, IQ, and bars to determine a connection. He also came to the conclusion that 3 things were used to determine AI... Sole combine, IQ, and Read Defense.

Both of these talked about Read Defense affecting AI the least, but it isn't negligible. So, all my information is from those two sources.

[IrishGuy65]

OK, the other was done by Hammer, but in a league I was in with him, and I don't know if it was ever posted on FOFC.

[irabowman]

OK, I will try and find it. I have been on there reading stuff but I do have a hard time finding answers to questions that I am wondering about. But I have found other good info while trying to find what I want. Guess when I search for thing I am putting wrong key words for what I am looking for or get frustrated reading bunch of articles and not finding the answer I am looking for lol.

http://www.operationsports.com/fofc/...ad.php?t=89609 This has been most insightful link I have found recently while looking for something else. Really lke Julio Riddols response.

[Sharkn20]

Feel free to keep asking. Is always good for us to refresh our brain as well :)

[Cory]

OK, I will try and find it. I have been on there reading stuff but I do have a hard time finding answers to questions that I am wondering about.

I have a tough time there as well. It doesn't help that FOFC has been around so long and that things have changed so much from one version of the game to the next. Usually, when I find an answer to my question there I'm happy for about two weeks until I realize that that answer was good for the 2k4 version and is now completely wrong. I usually find out because chuck comes here and mentions how this or that is completely different now and I realize I've been working under the understanding that he's now ditching.

Anyways, I appreciate you asking questions here because the answers are usually spelled out much better here and hopefully they're a little more relevant to the current version of the game. I'm more of a trial and error person, so I don't bother asking questions but I definitely learn a lot from the questions you ask.

[Aston]

OK, the other was done by Hammer, but in a league I was in with him, and I don't know if it was ever posted on FOFC.

Thanks, IG. Helps to know where you're coming from. Is Hammer the same person as Jeffrey? (I wanna say no. I think Hammer is Nick. And Jeffrey is another guy posted some detailed stats stuff somewhere, a long time ago.)

I believe I vaguely remember the RKG stuff. There was also a lot of early work done by Caratacus. Some of this is still in the FOF2k7 reference thread at FOFC. I don't completely know what to make of it because my impression is that some of this was really early work...

So you know where I'm coming from, I am sure I've read all these things back in the day, I just don't totally remember. I do remember deciding to go with what's in Stelmack -- my understanding is DA's correlations are a consensus consolidation of all those early works.

But it's completely possible that some of it just isn't very carefully thought out, or that the consensus is wrong. WRs and 40 times are an example. Some people are quite adamant that it figures heavily into GD just as well as BPR. I've always assumed otherwise.

Let's go back to QBs/Sole/Read Defense for a minute. I want to compare this situation to DBs/Bench/Bump and Run. So, let's assume you're correct -- Sole figures equally with Avoid Interceptions and Read Defense. That would make these situations comparable; for DBs, bench figures equally with Bump and Run and PH.

My argument is this: you don't need an all-time great bench to have great bars in both BnR and Punishing Hitter, because there's a good deal of variance in the combines. Particularly in a "top prospect" with good to great combine scores and bars everywhere, the sky is (potentially) the limit.

Generally, yes, I do think "Well, this guy has high PH. So maybe that's where all the bench is going." This tends to be for much more meh looking players later in the draft class -- where I have reason to be skeptical about their BnR. But if they have great combines, look like 1st round grade, I'm not going to downgrade how I feel about their BnR just because they also happen to have 1) high PH and 2) a nice bench, but not a *way up in red* bench. Does that make sense?

So with this 1st round QB, I think we can all agree -- far from the rock solid slam dunk guy you can feel good about picking at 1.1. I agree with your assessment that any 1.1 team has to be a little disappointed this wasn't a year with one of those guys at QB. It's just that the combine in question here -- we'll combine Sole/intel into one measure -- is pretty above average. Not "way up in the red, elite" for a QB, but pretty high, and something that could completely justify a guy with both high Read Defense and high Avoid Interceptions. Especially a 7.0+ grade guy that Stelmack's new machine-learning predictor feels is going to very good. I hope that makes sense. Though, I'll note that I am a LOT less sure about his prospects than Stelmack's numbers are!

Irish, you're a very sharp player and that's been clear from day one. I do appreciate the sharing of knowledge and perspective -- that's what makes this game great. We're always learning new things, or hearing about different theories. Sometimes these discussions get spirited, but let's remember at the end of the day it's all in good fun. I'd be curious to read the Hammer stuff, if you ever find it! I know he is *very* highly thought of.

[Nemesis]

jeffery did the regression analysis on the bars/stats correlation. Hammer is Nick.