According to my Calculations

[timeconsumer]

Welcome back to episode 3 of our sorta weekly statistical analysis series, According to My Calculations. The past couple of weeks we dug in deep to divine the attributes most important to running back success and we found.....not much. In the meantime several other enterprising amateur statisticians have come out with similar looks at attributes and performance, and I advise you to read them, there is some good stuff. However that leaves me with a conundrum, do I continue to analyze these relationships? Or do I go off and chase something new and shiny? I agree, new and shiny. So here we go, which archetypes are the best??

For this I looked at every archetype to see how much TPE it started with in attributes, and how much it has available maximum. Then I removed the useless stats (like kicking and throwing for most people, tackling for offense, blocking for defense, etc) but still left a good mix of stats in there, like intelligence and endurance for everybody. Let's start with the defense:



I did 2 things here I want to mention. I combined safety and corner, since they can be interchanged and have been throughout S1 by many teams, and I did the same with defensive linemen. These tables are all sorted by max useful TPE. As we can see on the secondary side the Man-to-man corner is the best at the top end among DBs, followed by the All-Around while both run support roles come in dead last with a significant different in max useful TPE of just shy of 300! That's by far the biggest gap among all archetypes. You'll also notice that safeties start with more useful TPE, but this is actually mostly from endurance, which safeties get an additional 50 or more TPE from off the bat.

Next we have our defensive linemen where the Run Stuffer and Nose Tackle archetypes come in the lead for max TPE while speed rusher DE and balanced DT/Interior Rusher DT bring up the rear. They're fast but that's about all they have going for them. Nose tackle and interior rusher start with the least as well, so interior rusher apparently sucks from beginning to end. Also note that the max useful TPE and max TPE overall are very very low for DTs and DEs, they'll be capping out much sooner than other positions at the rate we earn TPE in this league. Yet they are already getting nerfed (for DTs) even more by reducing their current speed cap.

Finally we have our LBs which appear to be fairly balanced at the beginning but this also shows the speed rushers to be really fast, but the run stoppers to be the higher TPE cap position. I don't have much else to add there.

Onto the offense:



Offensive linemen have by far the largest max TPE cap, but max useful TPE is a bit closer to the DBs. Run blocker leads the way in max useful and max starting useful with technician right behind it. Meanwhile the athletic linemen (me) are about 130 less in max TPE. I may have made a mistake here....

For RBs the receiving back surprisingly has the highest cap by a good margin of 110 TPE over the next archetype and starts with the most useful TPE. Speed back comes up next as a solid option while power back lags behind in max TPE cap. Note I did include blocking stats here, as I find it's useful for RBs.

Tight ends you can see the top two in max are balanced ad possession while blocking brings up the rear. Vertical starts with a surprisingly low amount of useful TPE compared to the rest.

Then we have our receivers where we can see that the route runner has a significant advantage in max TPE cap with 140 more over the lowest, Red Zone Threat. Speed receiver offers a nice high cap but also starts with the least. It would appear based upon some of this that you could probably put a WR at RB and do better when players are close to cap in TPE after several seasons.

Lastly I have the specialists at QB and K:



I don't want to go too much into analyzing this because I don't think analysis really translates well to these positions. So draw your own conclusions here.

I'm interested in hearing feedback. Do you think you picked the wrong archetype now?

Code:

Didn't count the words, typed really fast might have errors....sue me....but pay me first.

EDIT: CHANGES MADE TO DT ARCHETYPES WITH SPEED AND AGILITY. NEW RESULTS HERE.


Now that the Defensive tackles have had their speed nerfed across the bord by 10 and agility increased by 5 we can see what the affect of this change is. It is readily apparent that the Interior Rusher archetype was hit disproportionately harder than the rest, and is now the worst archetype on the defensive line with 8% less max useful TPE available for them to allocate as opposed to the Run Stuffer archetype.

This also further solidifies the defensive line's place as the archetype quickest to cap out in useful TPE. If we can assume that the overachieving S1 players earned around 200 TPE and will earn 150 TPE from here on out then the Interior Rusher will have maxed all of his useful stats somewhere around the end of S4 and beginning of S5.

[ErMurazor]

I'm more concerned that defensive lineman might be "weak" when people start to hit their caps. We'll have to see how it all plays out.

[7hawk77]

I find this really interesting. I've never been in a sim league before but my initial thought process for creating my character was pick the archetype with the highest starting TPE (not starting useful TPE, mainly because I wasn't sure what was useful).

This is why I decided to be a balanced DT, since it tied with run stuffer and I wasn't sure what kind of role I wanted to play.

A few weeks ago, I looked in to it more and ended up coming to the conclusion that I'd rather be a run stuffer which is why I asked how much it would cost to switch archetypes (and if that would be a 1 time thing similar to swapping positions). Either way this is some great analysis.


What changes would you make to balance OL archetypes?

[Bwestfield]

I was also looking at switching archetypes because of this

[timeconsumer]

What changes would you make to balance OL archetypes?

I don't know, but it would probably involve using smaller point jumps than 5. I understand we want to keep it looking clean but how are you supposed to accurately balance archetypes when the difference between 95 and 100 is 75 TPE?

[bovovovo]

This is awesome. I had done something similar to this (not on the same scale) when I choosing my archetype in the beginning...

I think one thing that's interesting to think about though is how much the differences in skill levels scale when you get to higher numbers. So like is the difference between 100 strength and 95 strength the same as the difference between 75 speed and 70 speed as far as the sim is concerned? I don't think it is (though I could be wrong), it seems to me like the difference between 100 and 95 would be greater in the sim than the difference between 75 and 70 is. But I could be wrong on that.

The trade off though is that the more balanced builds would be maxing out their skills way earlier than the more min/maxed builds (costs much more TPE to upgrade at higher levels), so it seems like balanced builds would have an easier time with longevity too once regression kicks in (depending on how regression is handled...I'm new to sims). Would be very interesting to see how the different archetypes compare in the sim when they're all maxed out.

Great work as always, I love your articles!

[timeconsumer]

I think one thing that's interesting to think about though is how much the differences in skill levels scale when you get to higher numbers. So like is the difference between 100 strength and 95 strength the same as the difference between 75 speed and 70 speed as far as the sim is concerned? I don't think it is (though I could be wrong), it seems to me like the difference between 100 and 95 would be greater in the sim than the difference between 75 and 70 is. But I could be wrong on that.

You are correct here.

[Ben]

This is awesome! Really really interesting to me to look at the differences between archetypes.

[Rich]

I didn't pick the wrong archetype. I should have created a safety to play at corner.

[timeconsumer]

I didn't pick the wrong archetype. I should have created a safety to play at corner.

Other way around. Man-to-man corner appears to be pretty much the best archetype at the top end for DBs. And at the low end their only disadvantage is in endurance (which given that corners are doing fine with 40 endurance, I don't think safeties will be much difference)