2015 RULES: Suggested Topics

[bigphil44]

I'm certainly not married to Madden grades, but I don't see any workable alternative.

Having a committee of graders with one person each responsible for certain teams' grades would lead to way too much variation based on who is doing the grading. PFF uses volunteer graders to help them come up with their grades, but these people get some training and the site uses several graders to attempt to average out good/bad graders and possible mistakes. There is just no way to standardize this across a handful of people. I also think that, even though we have plenty of smart people here who love football, scouting/grading is a very particular skill that takes a lot of practice. I just don't think we can expect people to do a good job of this.

Madden grades have their faults. I think the biggest issues are that the grades are tied into game balance (so changes tend to be conservative and I think the non-skill positions always tend to get shafted a bit) and that the overall grade has perhaps become less important to Madden than the individual skill grades. However, they have way more eyes and more information than we could expect to compile (for example, Donny Moore has acknowledged that they pay attention to PFF ratings when making grade updates).

I agree somewhat to what your saying but what skill are the madden people showing during their evaluations? You mention they have way more eyes and more information than we could expect but it doesn't show up in their ratings updates. They aren't paying attention to scheme fits and game plans and etc.....Its a well known fact that Donny Moore doesn't even watch more than a handle of games a weekend. How's he evaluating or even the people that is helping him all of the players across the league? If he supposedly uses PFF for their grade updates then why don't the scouting grades and the madden updates coincide? The madden people do what nearly every average sports fan does; they watch sportscenter and nfl network. I'd be willing to bet you Donny Moore and half his staff couldn't tell you the difference between a power I formation and offset I formation.

We need to start somewhere and its time for a change.

[bigphil44]

Madden isn't the greatest but it's the best we have right now. I don't think its a real issue considering every single team in all 3 leagues had to follow the same grade levels.

No disrespect but Madden is awful. I know that there are guys in our leagues that could do a better job.

[Goodell]

One of the biggest reasons we use what we use -- along with it being one of the only options published freely to all -- is that it's OBJECTIVE. There aren't any players of this game setting the grade for this game. It's an INDEPENDENT source that isn't intended to impact our results here.

Definitely some conflict of interest or potential problems with a GM having a lot of power over the grades of his own team and his rival's team.

The way I've seen it, we have to use the best available, public, non-paid, regularly updated information out there. Whatever that is. I'm open to other resources if there's a better option that most support. Finding a good paid resource and striking an agreement to legally use/promote them here is something looked at before and possible but hasn't been so likely (and would probably be costly).

The other alternative I've thought about to create some independence from current grade sources (or if that ever stopped being available as it is now -- needing a backup plan) would be to have league management maintain their own grade formulas based upon some determined factors of both public player statistics and a mix of inputs from various resources available so that our generated grades were not based upon any one resource (paid or not) but factoring in several different resources and generating new grades unique to us once every 4 weeks throughout the season. The madden grades could be one of the factors in that formula. Game updates uploaded each week could be part of that formula. Other ranking services out there could possibly be part of that overall mix of information thrown together to spit out some kind of consensus calculation. There are some cons to that also in terms of extra labor involved, loss of independence in grades, more influence from me personally into the grades while having a team, and more potential issues with the grade outcomes than we have now where we have zero control over that. They are what they are, determined by another company now. But if we determine them ourselves and people don't like them, it becomes more of a headache/powderkeg than just all agreeing upon an outside independent resource publicly available.

[bigphil44]

I'm certainly not married to Madden grades, but I don't see any workable alternative.

Having a committee of graders with one person each responsible for certain teams' grades would lead to way too much variation based on who is doing the grading. PFF uses volunteer graders to help them come up with their grades, but these people get some training and the site uses several graders to attempt to average out good/bad graders and possible mistakes. There is just no way to standardize this across a handful of people. I also think that, even though we have plenty of smart people here who love football, scouting/grading is a very particular skill that takes a lot of practice. I just don't think we can expect people to do a good job of this.

Madden grades have their faults. I think the biggest issues are that the grades are tied into game balance (so changes tend to be conservative and I think the non-skill positions always tend to get shafted a bit) and that the overall grade has perhaps become less important to Madden than the individual skill grades. However, they have way more eyes and more information than we could expect to compile (for example, Donny Moore has acknowledged that they pay attention to PFF ratings when making grade updates).

Well said.

Furthermore, I think it would open up a whole can of worms having other GM's set our grades for our teams. These leagues like any other organizations has its cliques; its rivalries; and its arguments. Those issues may not be out in the open but there's some back biting behind the scenes. And we see this come up in trades over and over again: a players worth is in the eye of the beholder.

I would have an issue with other GM's setting the grades for my team. We need an independent resource and while Madden may not be perfect-- especially with non skill positions--it's the best we have right now.

You make some valid points and yes its true that there are some guys here who would swindle their own mother and kids in a trade; heck I can name you seven or eight guys in the DFFL alone who would do that. But I would argue isn't that why we have a commissioner? Cant he appoint a couple of guys that he can trust to oversee the grading process? And also say if one of the GM's that's on the committee is showing bias wouldn't everyone know what he's trying to do? Wouldn't he be called out on it? For example; right now if you have a question about a players particular grade who are you going to contact, Donny Moore? He's not going to answer your tweet or email with any kind of response. He's probably too busy playing video games. But if we use our own committee and you have a question about a players grade or evaluation then it will be very easy for you to contact one of the committee members or even the commissioner.

I'm tired of non football people who are only interested in adding +3 for juking having a huge impact on the player ratings system. We can do better. There are good guys here (fair guys too) that can do way, way better than what we're using now.

[Ulrich82]

So, I was wrong about the team. I thought Moore managed more guys, but it is mainly him. But I disagree with you that it is awful. Here is an interesting article on the Madden ratings:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/madden/#

There is some interesting stuff in there that I think points to some of what people complain about. Madden has to keep the general public happy. They point out that when a player like Case Keenum or Geno Smith exhibits accuracy in the game as poorly as they have in the NFL, people just find it miserable to play. It is also noted how speed easily breaks the game. A lot of work has gone into fixing things so a fast guy like DHB doesn't just become unstoppable in the game. Most interesting to me, they discuss how the Overall ranking comes from the individual ranking categories. You can see that for a LT, pass block and run blocking count for 39% and 19% respectively, while at RT run blocking becomes more important (33% run blocking to 20% pass blocking). Contrast that to PFF's top 5 RTs last year of whom 4 were all MUCH better in their pass blocking grade than run blocking grade (and Ricky Wagner was actually a liability in the run game).

Madden isn't built to rank players ideally for us. But it is the only independent, publicly available system we have. Sure, I find it annoying when my RG gets docked 1 point on a weekly update because he might be credited with giving up a sack that was actually the RTs fault, but these small changes don't really cause much of a difference week to week. The things that really matter are the big changes over the course of the season which I think they do a decent job on (albeit probably conservatively). The article lists a case study of LB Brandon Marshall going from a 64 to an 81 after he stepped into the starting lineup and posted several good games (both statistically and via PFF rankings).

Here's the relevent info regarding how changes are made for folks who don't want to take the time to read the whole thing:

For the past few versions of the game, users can download Moore’s latest roster update every week of the season via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. That means a player’s ratings fluctuate based on how he plays each time he takes the field. To figure out whose ratings to tweak and by how much, Moore said he combines his observations and notes taken during games13 with subsequent film study, conventional statistics, and — increasingly — advanced metrics from outlets such as Football Outsiders (particularly for schedule strength) and Pro Football Focus.

“The big factor during the season is stat-based,” Moore said. “The advanced metric sites like Pro Football Focus, like the Football Outsiders, this guy named Ryan Riddle — [a] former NFL player who actually does a blog that has a lot of great information — those types of things bring out the snap-by-snap look on a player. And that, to me, gives a truer look in terms of a player's value, rather than the conventional ‘how many receiving yards’ or ‘what was the completion percentage for the quarterback.’ ”

Pulling all that data together, however, is when Moore’s instincts take over. Listening to him describe the process of rating a Madden player across all 43 categories, I began to realize that he has unwittingly adopted a sort of ad hoc Bayesian updating process.

He said there’s a bit of “What have you done for me lately?” in the ratings but that certain categories are fundamentally more or less prone to short-term adjustments — another Bayesian-sounding notion.

“Speed largely stays the same,” Moore said, “although when guys get hurt, I will make a change to [their] speed and agility” — a fact Cam Newton came to know firsthand. “Carry rating can be in flux if a guy fumbles a few times,” Moore continued. “Every position has certain ratings more impacted in-season than others.”

Meanwhile, a category like “spectacular catch” can change on the basis of a single play. Moore defended the policy, saying that this particular rating has little to no effect on actual gameplay — but it underscores the ad hoc nature of some of Moore’s changes.

[bigphil44]

One of the biggest reasons we use what we use -- along with it being one of the only options published freely to all -- is that it's OBJECTIVE. There aren't any players of this game setting the grade for this game. It's an INDEPENDENT source that isn't intended to impact our results here.

Definitely some conflict of interest or potential problems with a GM having a lot of power over the grades of his own team and his rival's team.

The way I've seen it, we have to use the best available, public, non-paid, regularly updated information out there. Whatever that is. I'm open to other resources if there's a better option that most support. Finding a good paid resource and striking an agreement to legally use/promote them here is something looked at before and possible but hasn't been so likely (and would probably be costly).

The other alternative I've thought about to create some independence from current grade sources (or if that ever stopped being available as it is now -- needing a backup plan) would be to have league management maintain their own grade formulas based upon some determined factors of both public player statistics and a mix of inputs from various resources available so that our generated grades were not based upon any one resource (paid or not) but factoring in several different resources and generating new grades unique to us once every 4 weeks throughout the season. The madden grades could be one of the factors in that formula. Game updates uploaded each week could be part of that formula. Other ranking services out there could possibly be part of that overall mix of information thrown together to spit out some kind of consensus calculation. There are some cons to that also in terms of extra labor involved, loss of independence in grades, more influence from me personally into the grades while having a team, and more potential issues with the grade outcomes than we have now where we have zero control over that. They are what they are, determined by another company now. But if we determine them ourselves and people don't like them, it becomes more of a headache/powderkeg than just all agreeing upon an outside independent resource publicly available.

Are there not any other independent, free, public and viable sources out there? Ones that actually take the game of football seriously? From what it sounds like there isn't. So.....that settles it then. It looks like we'll be using Madden updates for the long term. Well I guess we can all hope that EA sports hires someone that knows the difference between a quarterback and a cornerback.

[bigphil44]

So, I was wrong about the team. I thought Moore managed more guys, but it is mainly him. But I disagree with you that it is awful. Here is an interesting article on the Madden ratings:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/madden/#

There is some interesting stuff in there that I think points to some of what people complain about. Madden has to keep the general public happy. They point out that when a player like Case Keenum or Geno Smith exhibits accuracy in the game as poorly as they have in the NFL, people just find it miserable to play. It is also noted how speed easily breaks the game. A lot of work has gone into fixing things so a fast guy like DHB doesn't just become unstoppable in the game. Most interesting to me, they discuss how the Overall ranking comes from the individual ranking categories. You can see that for a LT, pass block and run blocking count for 39% and 19% respectively, while at RT run blocking becomes more important (33% run blocking to 20% pass blocking). Contrast that to PFF's top 5 RTs last year of whom 4 were all MUCH better in their pass blocking grade than run blocking grade (and Ricky Wagner was actually a liability in the run game).

Madden isn't built to rank players ideally for us. But it is the only independent, publicly available system we have. Sure, I find it annoying when my RG gets docked 1 point on a weekly update because he might be credited with giving up a sack that was actually the RTs fault, but these small changes don't really cause much of a difference week to week. The things that really matter are the big changes over the course of the season which I think they do a decent job on (albeit probably conservatively). The article lists a case study of LB Brandon Marshall going from a 64 to an 81 after he stepped into the starting lineup and posted several good games (both statistically and via PFF rankings).

Here's the relevent info regarding how changes are made for folks who don't want to take the time to read the whole thing:

For the past few versions of the game, users can download Moore’s latest roster update every week of the season via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. That means a player’s ratings fluctuate based on how he plays each time he takes the field. To figure out whose ratings to tweak and by how much, Moore said he combines his observations and notes taken during games13 with subsequent film study, conventional statistics, and — increasingly — advanced metrics from outlets such as Football Outsiders (particularly for schedule strength) and Pro Football Focus.

“The big factor during the season is stat-based,” Moore said. “The advanced metric sites like Pro Football Focus, like the Football Outsiders, this guy named Ryan Riddle — [a] former NFL player who actually does a blog that has a lot of great information — those types of things bring out the snap-by-snap look on a player. And that, to me, gives a truer look in terms of a player's value, rather than the conventional ‘how many receiving yards’ or ‘what was the completion percentage for the quarterback.’ ”

Pulling all that data together, however, is when Moore’s instincts take over. Listening to him describe the process of rating a Madden player across all 43 categories, I began to realize that he has unwittingly adopted a sort of ad hoc Bayesian updating process.

He said there’s a bit of “What have you done for me lately?” in the ratings but that certain categories are fundamentally more or less prone to short-term adjustments — another Bayesian-sounding notion.

“Speed largely stays the same,” Moore said, “although when guys get hurt, I will make a change to [their] speed and agility” — a fact Cam Newton came to know firsthand. “Carry rating can be in flux if a guy fumbles a few times,” Moore continued. “Every position has certain ratings more impacted in-season than others.”

Meanwhile, a category like “spectacular catch” can change on the basis of a single play. Moore defended the policy, saying that this particular rating has little to no effect on actual gameplay — but it underscores the ad hoc nature of some of Moore’s changes.

Your entire post proves my point. It says that Moore's instincts take over. What instincts are those? The guy doesn't know the game of football. He plays favorites. He gave an interview in 2011 saying that he mainly pays attention to a handful of teams. I do think it makes a huge difference over the long term that your RG is penalized for giving up a sack when it wasn't his fault. He shouldn't be docked period. If he does his job then he and you should be rewarded for his play.

But its all for not because from what I gathered from the commissioner's post we're using Moore's INSTINCTS for the really long term. I appreciate the feedback and good luck with the offseason.

[tino38]

Madden isn't the greatest but it's the best we have right now. I don't think its a real issue considering every single team in all 3 leagues had to follow the same grade levels.

No disrespect but Madden is awful. I know that there are guys in our leagues that could do a better job.

Even if we did go that route, do you know how long it would take to create grades for each team in a league? That means you're relying solely on the GMs of the league. Some GMs don't check in but once a month. I'd like to know what situations of players has been so bad that you want an immediate change? This was designed to be a show up as you feel kind of website and I myself am on here all the time, but some guys don't log on for months. That's a huge time commitment you're asking for when madden is already doing it for free.

[tino38]

If we decline the option on a rookie that has the 5th year do they become normal FA where we have unlimited bidding or do they become FA where there is no unlimited bidding to the team that they are on?

[Goodell]

If we decline the option on a rookie that has the 5th year do they become normal FA where we have unlimited bidding or do they become FA where there is no unlimited bidding to the team that they are on?

There were no new systems or scripts built around team options for first rounder contracts. Just first round contracts initially structured in a way that allowed people to make those same decisions without any cap hit impacts to replicate that same choice of taking on that higher last year salary or saying good bye to the player before that higher option year kicked in.

I haven't done all the research yet and open to more discussion on it, but initially had a sense that most guys who don't have their first round pick options picked up for the most part weren't going to be highly likely to be brought back by their home teams at a discount as our sim teams may want to do themselves. That it was usually going to be a no-brainer to either keep that player that extra option year or else they likely were going to be gone to another team. Not totally sure yet that's how it tends to happen (and we don't have a lot of history with that quite yet to look at probably). But if that's how it mostly happens, I tend to not be in favor of extra building of new tools for stuff that's not happening in reality.

Before we start a new season, there'll be more research into that, more discussion and some conclusions on that ahead. If that's something that's happening in reality (teams not picking up those options but highly likely to resign them back for less than the option) I'd be much more open to rules allowing for that here too. Probably would have to be manual with me modifying each individual upon request in the short term since we haven't built anything to process those kinds of situations.

A big argument for allowing unlimited bid advantages even if a team declines to continue a first rounder contract with that high last option year is that first rounders would be less valuable without that. Some I think have said it would be better to have second rounders instead in that case. To me, I almost kind of like that, though, personally with the situations we often find ourselves in unrealistically with teams piling up numerous amounts of first round picks. They are free to do that (so long as can fit in salary cap) and no rules against that, but at the same time it's arguably one of the more unrealistic things we have with teams able to have so many first round picks. If things shifted to where teams weren't as motivated to pile up as many first round picks as possible if they saw some disadvantages to the first round pick contracts (having to keep them through that last high option year or cut them loose before that) that might discourage some of the unrealistic stockpiling of first rounders (some might say that'd be for the better overall). Adding more and more advantages to first round contracts arguably would keep giving more value to first round picks and encourage more stock piling.

It's something that's come up and something we have to decide this off-season if we're going to change our initial approach (just structuring the contracts to replicate that option choice) or build some other processes to deal with those select players differently. Open to thoughts and more research on that. I'll look into it more myself with some research for a later poll on the subject.