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*Positional Contribution by Player Year - Defense - AustinP0027 - 06-07-2024 Defensive Positions - When Do They Contribute? I grabbed all the seasonal player totals from the Index to look across the positions and see what player stats looked like across each season. As I saw the range in each season, it caused me to ask myself, When does a defensive player really start to contribute to their team in a major way. As it is with all things Sim related, the answer to that would be different based on position, so I took a look position by position. What the Charts Show The charts you will see below for totals are a single dot for the seasonal total of every player that played that position. So for the first group, it’s every linebacker and their total stats by each season they played. The red lines you see are the averages per season across that position. Something to remember is that the averages are for all types of earners. So your Max Earners will hit these averages much sooner in their career vs. Mid/Low earners. Linebacker The position that tends to have the most defensive stats, I started with the linebacker. Here, you can see a couple charts. Linebackers tend to have stats everywhere, so I included the most charts. Linebackers tend to have stats in every category, but I narrowed it down to the follow as their “main” stats: Tackles, TFLs, Sacks, and PDs Now, we take a look at these stats individually to see when a Linebacker tends to reach the league averages Tackles Goal: 85.85 Reached: 2nd Season Linebackers tend to reach their tackle goal almost immediately. On average, in their 2nd year a Linebacker will be right at the league average. They peak around 90 tackles a season, but when it comes to tackling, they are mostly all consistently hitting the league average most of their career. It’s only around year 10 that regression really hits their tackling and it drops off. TFL Goal: 4.71 Reached: 4th Season 4.71 is a pretty low goal for Tackles for a Loss, but it makes sense given the responsibilities Linebackers have. As you can see, it takes Linebackers up until year 4 to reach the league average. So TFLs are very TPE dependent. Interestingly, they don’t really drop off from that point, so whatever triggers the jump doesn’t just drop with regression (perhaps a trait?) Sack Goal: 7.02 Reached: 2nd Season Right off their first season in the ISFL, Linebackers are getting their sacks, with the season 1 average at 5. However, it takes them 2 full seasons to reach the positional average. Once they get there, however, they stay up until around their 11th season and regression tanks their sack count hard. PD Goal: 7.04 Reached: 2nd Season It only takes Linebackers a single season before they start hitting the positional average for Passes Defended. Of note, they stay roughly around their average until season 9, when regression causes a slight dip. Final Verdict: Given most of their stats reach averages in the 2nd Season, it seems that Linebackers are able to reach Contributing level in only their 2nd season, and I’d expect max earners can push all their stats higher from that point on to be above their positional average. Cornerbacks Cornerbacks have a much narrower stat focus for contributing, and it’s visible in their position averages. Only Tackles, Interceptions, and Passes Defended are notable averages, everything else usually averages out to less than 1. Tackle Goal: 68.55 Reached: 3rd Season Cornerbacks put up a pretty decent number of tackles, with their positional average only being ~10 short of Linebackers. However, it takes 3 seasons for them to reach their positional average, likely on account of having to catch up with the jump wide receivers and running backs make when the DSFL cap is removed. Int Goal: 2.17 Reached: 2nd Season Cornerbacks hit their Int positional average in their 2nd season. Even with the gains made by WRs and QBs, they are able to get their hands on a couple passes and keep above their average up until their 10th season, when regression hits them very hard. PD Goal: 17.99 Reached: 3rd Season At first, I was surprised that Cornerbacks had such a low positional average for Interceptions. When seeing the positional average for passes defended, it made a lot more sense. CBs in the sim seem to focus more on batting down passes than intercepting them. In their second season, a cornerback will be just shy of their positional average, and it takes until their 3rd season to jump above it. But then they stay well above it up until their 9th season when they come back down to the average and slowly decline for any remaining years in the league. Final Verdict: Pretty clear on this one, 2 of their 3 main stats take 3 season to reach their positional average, so Cornerbacks take 3 seasons to reach Contributor level Safeties Safeties are harder to pick specific stats that represent them because outside of tackles, they don’t have a ton of high numbers. So, in the interest of trying to keep it more than two stats (Tackles and PDs), I am including: Tackles, Sacks, Ints, and PDs Tackle Goal: 58.37 Reached: 2nd Season Safeties almost hit their positional average for tackles right away in their first season, missing it by ~2 tackles. They jump up over the average and then actually dip below it their 3rd season before returning above it for most of the rest of their career. It would be an interesting effort to dig and see what happens in that 3rd season but I’m still giving them credit for their 2nd season due to how close they stay to average their whole career. Sack Goal: 3.04 Reached: 2nd Season I included sacks just because the average for a safety is 3 a season, which is fairly high for the position at the very back of the defense. Safeties reach this in their 2nd season, but just like tackles, they dip back and forth. This seems more like Sim randomness than anything else. Int Goal: 1.98 Reached: 1st Season Safeties hit their Interception goal right away in their first season, and then stick around that average their entire career until their 8th season. There’s some anomaly data here in the 11th year, but that’s player specific because very few players make it that long. PD Goal: 8.42 Reached: 3rd Season The slowest stat to reach, Safeties take until their 3rd season to get to their positional average for passes defended. This seems like a situation where LBs and CBs take the majority of the work, so it just takes some time to accumulate the stats for the low volume that makes it through. Final Verdict: 2 2nds, a 1st, and a 3rd average out to the 2nd season being the place when Safeties reach that Contributor status Defensive Tackle Defensive Tackles were pretty easy to pick out stats for. Tackles, TFLs, and Sacks. They’re right up in the backfield every play, so the stats that reflect that are going to define them. Tackle Goal: 40.43 Reached: 4th Season It takes Defensive Tackles 4 seasons to reach their positional average for Tackles. I’m guessing a big part of that is that max OL bots can be bought that are 750 TPE, so the defensive tackle needs time to be able to overcome that. Once they get above the average, though, they stay above it up until that 10th year. TFL Goal: 2.89 Reached: 4th Season Defensive Tackles take until the 4th season to reach their TFL goal as well. Again, same pattern, take until the 4th, then spend their career above the average until regression really hits hard. Sack Goal: 4.12 Reached: 4th Season Surprise, surprise, another 4th season. I think it’s pretty clear that maxed OL bots really cramp a defensive tackle’s style until they surpass them. Final Verdict: Pretty easy, Defensive Tackles need until their 4th season to reach Contributor status. It looks like a position that is better suited for high/max earners who can get there faster than mid earners who will take longer. Still, even a mid earner is valuable once you get them past their 4th season. Defensive End Last but certainly not least, the Defensive End. I’m going to use the same stats for them as I did the Defensive Tackle: Tackles, TFLs, and Sacks Tackle Goal: 33.81 Reached: 1st Season Defensive Ends jump out right away and reach their positional average for tackles. There’s a slight dip in years 2 and 3 but they come right back and keep it strong until year 9 when regression starts to hit. I’m willing to ignore years 2 and 3 and chalk it up to sim randomness, but it could also be TPE jumps of running backs and quarterbacks. TFL Goal: 4.29 Reached: ??? I honestly don’t know what’s going on here. Defensive ends start their careers above their positional average, and then just start getting worse at tackle for losses every year. I want to mark this down for additional research because it makes no sense that as everyone grows TPE, only Defensive Ends take a hit here. Sack Goal: 5.56 Reached: 3rd Season Defensive Ends are good at sacks, though. Starting their 3rd season, they pass their positional average and then stay above it all the way until their 10th season. Final Verdict: This is a hard one given the real oddity of the TFL stat. I’m going to say 3rd season just because they do well in season 1 with Tackles and TFLs, and then by season 3 it’s Tackles and Sacks. So, I think the 3rd Season is where I would start marking them as Contributor. I hope you enjoyed this dive into positional data based on all the seasons since the introduction of the new sim. Below is a link to the data files that you can look at. I’d recommended downloading them and opening them in Excel because when I open them in Google Sheets it removes all the averages lines. Given I created all the charts via code, I really have no interest in manually figuring out what I have to adjust for Google Sheets to behave. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lKksLUKJI8erxzUnyDm8-V9XSt99UiAW?usp=sharing If there’s interest, I might also do the same thing for the offensive side of the ball. RE: Positional Contribution by Player Year - Defense - goodvsevil1275 - 06-07-2024 curious to see what explains what is happening with DEs. after looking through all the charts, i'm surprised how early players can become "average". would've though it'd take a little longer than 2nd season for most of them