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Admin

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Lucky catches?

September 12, 2011 at 07:19PM View formatted

As you all know, I tend to subscribe to the "Anything can happen" school of football. Thus, there is rarely a 0% chance of something occurring (although it does happen). For example, on any given pass there is a minimum 2% chance of a completion (if the QB can get the pass off), no matter what the distance, skills or weather conditions are. I don't know how often this happens, but I suspect there are a lot of times when a pass gets down to the 15% range, and with as many passes are simulated here, enough of these will fall into key situations enough to make the sim look "broken" (people don't remember the majority of passes that went the way they were supposed to).

However low 15% sounds, it's about the same chance as rolling a 6 on a six-sided die, so it certainly can happen, and anyone who plays Yahtzee can attest that sometimes you get a Yahtzee on one roll, and similarly a QB might complete five of these 15% passes in a row.

I'm trying to think of a way to indicate in the play-by-play that a particular pass was a "low percentage" pass and the QB and WR got lucky and beat the odds. I can't use "spectacular catch" because that actually has a very different meaning, when the results should have been incomplete but a receiver's skills turned that incomplete into a completion. The natural solution would be for the wording to be "*receiver* makes a lucky catch at the *lineball*" but "lucky" sounds sort of negative or even perjorative (even though accurate).

So my questions are:

- Do you have a suggestion for the wording other than "lucky" or "spectacular"?
- At what point is a pass "lucky"? (I'm thinking when the reception chance is 10% or less.)

Thanks!

--Chris

redcped

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September 12, 2011 at 07:30PM View BBCode

I would suggest descriptive terms for the pass, rather than the catch because of the connotations of lucky.

The current language says: Smith passes to Bob Jones at the 50.

Instead have descriptions based on percentage likelihood, as in:

For anything over 80% completion expectation: "Smith attempts an easy pass to Bob Jones at the 50"

For anything between 30% and 80%: Keep current language

For anything from 10% to 30%: "Smith attempts a difficult pass to ..."

For anything under 10%: "Smith attempts a very difficult pass to ..."

Or maybe use "tough" instead of "difficult"?

Admin

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September 12, 2011 at 07:39PM View BBCode

That might be even better because in my plan an incomplete or interception wouldn't show anything.

--Chris

casperthegm

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September 12, 2011 at 07:40PM View BBCode

When I think of lucky, we're not talking about skill, so I'm thinking about a deflected pass kind of thing that ends up in the right person's hands. Or a qb is hit as he throws and instead of going downfield to the wr it ends up going to the te or rb who were blocking.

Admin

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September 12, 2011 at 07:43PM View BBCode

I'm thinking I may throw the turm "Risky" in there somewhere when the interception rate is higher than normal; that might help see the effect of high-aggressiveness vs low-aggressiveness QB's.

--Chris

Admin

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September 12, 2011 at 07:45PM View BBCode

Originally posted by casperthegm
When I think of lucky, we're not talking about skill, so I'm thinking about a deflected pass kind of thing that ends up in the right person's hands. Or a qb is hit as he throws and instead of going downfield to the wr it ends up going to the te or rb who were blocking.

Good point. I don't have any of those yet but I'm planning to add receptions by nearby players on tipped passes soon, as well as occasional passes tipped by the DL that could occasionally end up in a lineman's hands.

--Chris

blakjakshalak

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September 12, 2011 at 09:15PM View BBCode

You could add a line after the pass leaves the QBs hands that describes in "play-by-play" speak what makes the pass risky. If it's because he's covered by a defender with superior skills say, "WR Smith is covered!" or if the wind is blowing and it's a long pass, "QB Jones throws into a stiff wind!" or "WR Smith bobbles it!" Follow with a pregnent pause....

"He makes the catch!" or "He dropped it!" or "It's the waiver wire for sure!"

exclamation points optional:D

In other words, there's an oppurtunity here to add some drama and color to the game. It shouldn't be merely informational imo.