*Forced fumbles and how they affect voting

[br0_0ker]

I will say I love all this interpretive dance everyone is doing with FF and FR.

Everyone is picturing this massive hit for a FF that takes a lot of skill, while a FR is just being in the right spot and picking up a ball.

Whereas in reality, it can also be a guy just dropping the ball that causes a fumble (we see it so often in football) and a FR could just as much be a ten person pile and having to fight and claw for a ball.

But somehow no one ever pictures it that way around, weird.

i see a lot of contextualization for why tackles don't matter, then "this is just how i feel about FF" as reasoning for FF, or "this is how it happens in real life". this isn't real life, it's a sim.

high tackles are based on ratings.

ff is based on ratings.

fr is based on ratings.

there is not a single thing in the sim that happens because a player" just got lucky!" - it is based on ratings. 

the willingness to contextualize tackles but not other stats is mind-boggling.

@AW13
"1) Sacks + TFL - How often are they in the backfield

2) Int + PD + FF - How often making plays on the ball"
So EDGE rushers are the only valuable LB in the game? Fred Warner has 7.5 sacks in his ENTIRE CAREER (84 games)... are we saying he's not a good NFL LB? Bobby Wagner had 29.5 sacks in 171 GAMES - less than 3 sacks a season. Was he a bad LB? How did you arrive at the conclusion that these were the only stats that mattered for a position group that does not ONLY rush the passer, or play coverage?

@Pvtpenne
"Racking up more tackles could simply mean the DL was weaker thus the OLB had more tackle opportunities."
yea and FF is just a high TPE LB tackling a low TPE RB who has bad Strength or Hands rating... so why do we praise one disparity and not the other?

"I think in general FFs are skill-based and FRs are largely luck based, at least that's how it is in real life, not sure if the sim handles it the same way"
So if you don't know... find out? How are you going to be an awards voter and not base your decisions on the mechanics of the game we use? We ALL know the sim isn't a real life translation, just look at 4th down and end of game logic (point me to EOG override, I dare you, conservative override should not be punting teams on 4th and short down 2 scores with less than 4 min in the game)

@slate
"If you don't force a fumble the defense doesn't even have a chance at recovering it."
And if you don't recover the fumble your team doesn't even have the chance of immediate possession on offense. Just because something helps you to achieve a later goal, does not make the later goal worthless. Are coverage sacks a worthless measure because the DB's were playing well, should we devalue sacks because of it? OL makes a crucial pancake, guess we have to reduce the rushing yards and TD scored by the RB on that play? Good play = good play. Just because a good play has to happen before it does not inherently make it worth less. FF without FR is worthless, especially if the FF doesn't occur during a TFL (entirely possible for a LB to force a fumble on a 1st down catch and not recover... so effectively doing nothing for their team).

[AW13]

@AW13
"1) Sacks + TFL - How often are they in the backfield

2) Int + PD + FF - How often making plays on the ball"
So EDGE rushers are the only valuable LB in the game? Fred Warner has 7.5 sacks in his ENTIRE CAREER (84 games)... are we saying he's not a good NFL LB? Bobby Wagner had 29.5 sacks in 171 GAMES - less than 3 sacks a season. Was he a bad LB? How did you arrive at the conclusion that these were the only stats that mattered for a position group that does not ONLY rush the passer, or play coverage?

Definitely would not say they are the only valuable LBs in the game. From an awards perspective and what can actually be measured by the sim, unfortunately the most likely to win awards.

So yes, Fred Warner and Bobby Wagner (Go USU!) are great linebackers, but it is definitely hard to stand out as an inside linebacker in the league especially since those players usually contribute less on the stats sheets in this league. 

That is more comparing apples with oranges though.

This is more comparing similar players and the stats surrounding them. Tackle wise though, we do have missed tackles and tackle % available to us which can help.

Would be all for as many stats possible to be able to distinguish every player!

[slate]

We ALL know the sim isn't a real life translation, just look at 4th down and end of game logic (point me to EOG override, I dare you, conservative override should not be punting teams on 4th and short down 2 scores with less than 4 min in the game)

"Conservative" override doesn't exist, and the override settings only take effect in the last 2 minutes of the game.

@slate
"If you don't force a fumble the defense doesn't even have a chance at recovering it."
And if you don't recover the fumble your team doesn't even have the chance of immediate possession on offense. Just because something helps you to achieve a later goal, does not make the later goal worthless. Are coverage sacks a worthless measure because the DB's were playing well, should we devalue sacks because of it? OL makes a crucial pancake, guess we have to reduce the rushing yards and TD scored by the RB on that play? Good play = good play. Just because a good play has to happen before it does not inherently make it worth less. FF without FR is worthless, especially if the FF doesn't occur during a TFL (entirely possible for a LB to force a fumble on a 1st down catch and not recover... so effectively doing nothing for their team).

I don't think FR have 0 value, obviously recovering the fumble is good once the fumble has already taken place.

Each incremental step towards a goal has value in getting you closer to that goal. When evaluating a player, steps that are more clearly attributed to that player's skill should be valued more than steps that have more luck or external factors involved.

If Player A had 20 sacks and Player B had 17, but then we go look at the film and see that Player A benefited from great coverage and 10 of his sacks were coverage sacks while Player B only had 2 coverage sacks and tons of plays where he instantly beat the OLine off the snap, i think it would make sense to say Player B had the more impressive season.

In the real world, we can use advanced metrics like pressure rate to try to get an idea of individual player performances in that detail without having to watch thousands of hours of film. The idea is that pressuring the QB is a step towards producing a good outcome (a sack) which is largely under the defensive players control. Whereas actually converting the pressure to the sack is a bit more random and subject to other stuff (coverage, other pass rushers on your team, QB scrambling ability).

In the sim we don't have any advanced metrics. But the logic is the same for using FF to try to look at progress towards the goal, especially for things which are somewhat more directly attributable to the player, as a means of evaluating players.

[lordcoolcats]

I will say I love all this interpretive dance everyone is doing with FF and FR.

Everyone is picturing this massive hit for a FF that takes a lot of skill, while a FR is just being in the right spot and picking up a ball.

Whereas in reality, it can also be a guy just dropping the ball that causes a fumble (we see it so often in football) and a FR could just as much be a ten person pile and having to fight and claw for a ball.

But somehow no one ever pictures it that way around, weird.

Not really sure how it's a song and dance. 

There are very specific tackling, punching, and ripping techniques taught to players to achieve Forced Fumbles. It's an art form.  But more often than naught, Fumble Recoveries are just players diving on the ball like drunken seals and one of them gets lucky.

[br0_0ker]

@AW13
"From an awards perspective and what can actually be measured by the sim, unfortunately the most likely to win awards"

So we capitulate to the easier method because we don't want to check the play-by-play in the index? Look I get people not wanting to do additional work for like, an article or something, but for something like AWARDS which are a league honor and only given out once a season (and in some cases being the merit for HoF consideration) voters really should be looking into the context of the stats and not just assigning value to what they "feel" is the most important. 

@slate
"When evaluating a player, steps that are more clearly attributed to that player's skill should be valued more than steps that have more luck or external factors involved."

Do you have support that FR is luck based and not ratings based? Because IRL, I understand this argument, but for a SIM I don't. Everything is driven by ratings. There isn't an outcome that happens that wasn't due to the player's skill. If the argument is "it just is" then I counter with FF is just a luck based stat as well. Unless we can tie FF to mechanics and FR to luck/rng, then we are WILLFULLY choosing to downgrade an area of player performance simply because that's "how we feel" or "that's how it works IRL".

e: forgot to tag

[negs]

@AW13
"From an awards perspective and what can actually be measured by the sim, unfortunately the most likely to win awards"

So we capitulate to the easier method because we don't want to check the play-by-play in the index? Look I get people not wanting to do additional work for like, an article or something, but for something like AWARDS which are a league honor and only given out once a season (and in some cases being the merit for HoF consideration) voters really should be looking into the context of the stats and not just assigning value to what they "feel" is the most important. 

@slate
"When evaluating a player, steps that are more clearly attributed to that player's skill should be valued more than steps that have more luck or external factors involved."

Do you have support that FR is luck based and not ratings based? Because IRL, I understand this argument, but for a SIM I don't. Everything is driven by ratings. There isn't an outcome that happens that wasn't due to the player's skill. If the argument is "it just is" then I counter with FF is just a luck based stat as well. Unless we can tie FF to mechanics and FR to luck/rng, then we are WILLFULLY choosing to downgrade an area of player performance simply because that's "how we feel" or "that's how it works IRL".

e: forgot to tag

FF is tied to competitiveness/sack numbers with strip sacks. FRs have no stat base in sim because it’s not based on attributes but position when a fumble is forced

[br0_0ker]

@AW13
"From an awards perspective and what can actually be measured by the sim, unfortunately the most likely to win awards"

So we capitulate to the easier method because we don't want to check the play-by-play in the index? Look I get people not wanting to do additional work for like, an article or something, but for something like AWARDS which are a league honor and only given out once a season (and in some cases being the merit for HoF consideration) voters really should be looking into the context of the stats and not just assigning value to what they "feel" is the most important. 

@slate
"When evaluating a player, steps that are more clearly attributed to that player's skill should be valued more than steps that have more luck or external factors involved."

Do you have support that FR is luck based and not ratings based? Because IRL, I understand this argument, but for a SIM I don't. Everything is driven by ratings. There isn't an outcome that happens that wasn't due to the player's skill. If the argument is "it just is" then I counter with FF is just a luck based stat as well. Unless we can tie FF to mechanics and FR to luck/rng, then we are WILLFULLY choosing to downgrade an area of player performance simply because that's "how we feel" or "that's how it works IRL".

e: forgot to tag

FF is tied to competitiveness/sack numbers with strip sacks. FRs have no stat base in sim because it’s not based on attributes but position when a fumble is forced

Well there you go! So go up that competitiveness rating @JuOSu and you'll be good to go

[BOOM™]

Don't make my 6 FF seem meaningless. It's about all I had going for my player.

[AW13]

@AW13
"From an awards perspective and what can actually be measured by the sim, unfortunately the most likely to win awards"

So we capitulate to the easier method because we don't want to check the play-by-play in the index? Look I get people not wanting to do additional work for like, an article or something, but for something like AWARDS which are a league honor and only given out once a season (and in some cases being the merit for HoF consideration) voters really should be looking into the context of the stats and not just assigning value to what they "feel" is the most important. 

@slate
"When evaluating a player, steps that are more clearly attributed to that player's skill should be valued more than steps that have more luck or external factors involved."

Do you have support that FR is luck based and not ratings based? Because IRL, I understand this argument, but for a SIM I don't. Everything is driven by ratings. There isn't an outcome that happens that wasn't due to the player's skill. If the argument is "it just is" then I counter with FF is just a luck based stat as well. Unless we can tie FF to mechanics and FR to luck/rng, then we are WILLFULLY choosing to downgrade an area of player performance simply because that's "how we feel" or "that's how it works IRL".

e: forgot to tag

As someone who has went through the play by any both for punting data and for defensive stop data, it is extremely tedious.

I would love if there was a stats team dedicated to finding these little things that may help. Stops are a solid one and gives a little more value to tackles but it is a pain to find info on and I only did DTs. Couldn't imagine going through all!

Obviously all new stats and such that we can get are welcome! If you'd love to volunteer to get this to us, I am all ears!