* What Really Should Have Happened in Arizona

[manicmav36]

I saw a post earlier today alleging that they were some shady things happening with the sim, and that HO may be at the bottom of it. As someone who likes to form their own conclusions, I decided I would do some investigating and get to the bottom of this.

So for those of you that may not know, I do a majority of the testing for the Hawks. During an average week I test for 3 games and slm tests for 1 (he does all the other super fun stuff). It’s been this way for about 5 seasons now and I think our results show I’m at least adequate in testing. My team is in another conference and I’m not a member of HO, so I have no dog in the fight. If anything, I should be rooting against San Jose as their loss would help us in hopefully obtaining home field advantage throughout the playoffs. For this session I would be using the sim file that is openly available on discord and I would be running 200 simulations with the week 2 rosters and strats that were used for the actual sim. Full disclosure, I didn’t check rosters for 100% accuracy, but I did do a quick skim and nothing egregious jumped out at me.

What I found may shock you.

Out of 200 games, San Jose won 104 and Arizona won 95. Poor math? Nope. They also tied 1 game. San Jose outscored Arizona by an average of a tad over 1 point. I kept the score at 3 decimal places to avoid any accusations of tricky rounding.
I have no idea what unit the time of possession is in but, San Jose led by about 300… things.

San Jose averages about 2 more first downs a game and roughly 49 more total yards than Arizona. Arizona has a slight, roughly 2 yard edge in passing yards, but San Jose really pulls away in rushing yards by averaging about 50 more a game (sorry Asipi). San Jose committed more penalties and was penalized more yards, which is very standard for the away team during a game in our sim.



So all-in-all, what did we learn? San Jose at Arizona is one of the more evenly balanced matchups that I’ve run across in 5 seasons of doing this. The game ended how the averages show it should have. The chances of HO tom foolery are essentially zero. In fact, I know with 100% certainty that slm himself (who is NOT a member of HO) oversaw the simming of week 2 (as he does most weeks) to ensure everything is on the up-and-up.

(On a side note, as someone who has done a ton of testing for this season, the sudden emergence of San Jose as a talent should surprise no one. They’re the real deal.)

If anyone would like the excel file that I exported the results to, please let me know.

[iamslm22]

Also - I watch the sims. So you have to think me and TC are trying to rig the league together.

[Muford]

Also - I watch the sims. So you have to think me and TC are trying to rig the league together.

I knew you were rigging

[iseedoug]

Seriously, thanks for doing this.

[DeathOnReddit]

smh sjs gms, baltimore gms and HO are all in on the rigging!

[majesiu]

The plot thickens, now we have proof

[kckolbe]

@manicmav36 Did you use our DCs, or what was in the sim file. Because sadly, they were not exactly the same.

Second, how about our loss to YKW (in YKW) and, most damning, our loss to PHI in ARI?

[manicmav36]

@manicmav36 Did you use our DCs, or what was in the sim file.  Because sadly, they were not exactly the same.

Second, how about our loss to YKW (in YKW) and, most damning, our loss to PHI in ARI?

I can't see your DCs, so I used what was in the program. After all, that's what was used to actually play the game. Even so, the reults wouldn't have changed so much to make it unreasonsable for San Jose to win.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to do the others but, I welcome anyone else to do so if they please. I see no reason to believe anything less than 100% honest happened. There's too many safeguards in place. I believe the sim is even on sale right now if you'd rather pick it up yourself though.

[kckolbe]

I can't see your DCs, so I used what was in the program. After all, that's what was used to actually play the game. Even so, the reults wouldn't have changed so much to make it unreasonable for San Jose to win.

It was never unreasonable to lose any game but PHI. The overall 4 week stretch is the unreasonable result.

[manicmav36]

It was never unreasonable to lose any game but PHI.  The overall 4 week stretch is the unreasonable result.

Trust me, being a tester is absolutely maddening. We've lost games before where we were 13+ point favorites. We've had seasons where we won an average of 10 games in 20+ sims and finished with only 7. Blaming the randomness of the sim as maliciouness of others (with no hard evidence) is just bad form. Sometimes the sim just does whatever the hell it wants.