2013 RULES: Injury Adjustments to Game Updates

[Goodell]

In at least in one high profile championship example this playoff season, there was an injured sim player who rode solid averages and nice performance boosts with strong grades around him to a championship bowl win.

The issue of injured players and how we adjust their averaged games had come up in previous off-season polls, where I thought we were giving injured players way too high of updates. The most we currently reduce a player's stats is 75% for doubtful (85% for questionable, 99% for probable). If a player was out in the last regular season game (but not seriously out for the year) and bumped up one level to doubtful, then his playoff update is not too far off his normal game update with that 75% reduction.

It turns a normal game average of:
23-for-38, 268 yards, 1 TD / 1 INT
into 17-for-28, 201 yards, 1 TD / 1 INT

If the game situations call for more passes called, the QB essentially performs about like his usual self despite his low injury status. Add in a maximum offensive advantage if superior supporting cast grades around him and it takes that injured QB's completion percentage from 60 to 75% and performing at elite levels despite being pretty seriously hurt.

An elite back who was marked doubtful in the playoffs would have his averaged game go from:
22 rushes for 130 yards and 1 TD
to 16 rushes for 98 yards and 1 TD

With in-game situations calling for more rushes, he's somewhat his normal self also despite the doubtful injury health.

Part of the issue in not impacting injured players more is that their completion percentage and average per rush isn't really impacted by our current injury adjustments that just lower their attempts and totals mostly.

If we take 75% off a 65% elite passer, he'd go down to 49% game update when most injured but still playing. For a most injured RB, his 4.0 yards per carry x .75 would go down to 3.0 yards per carry. That's more the injury impact I think perhaps needs to be made to really scale back the production of very injured players. The problem with that, though, is that none of the attempts and totals are as easy to also adjust to fit the modified averages/percentages.

What I proposed in previous years was to double the injury reduction just for game averages (keeping the injury multiplier for grades just as it is). So instead of 'attempts x .75', it would be 'attempts x .75 x .75' making it more like a 56% larger reduction in the totals for the guys most seriously hurt as to be doubtful.

With less attempts in the update, once they get beyond that figure their additional attempts would be more at a default performance level (usually lower than averages for good players).

It's very difficult to manage injury situations and make personal subjective judgement calls on hundreds of players and not have people fall through the cracks. So we previously instituted the playoff injury practice of bumping every player (except those on IR) up one injury level at the start of the playoffs and one more level up before the bowl games. Doing so, though, allows guys who were really walking wounded at the end of the season look almost totally healthy because we don't impact their game updates so much arguably. I think that could be resolved and we wouldn't have to worry about injured players impacting the sim playoffs so much if we just chopped the injured players' stats down further than we currently do. We aim to do that now, but it just isn't as much of a reduction arguably as it should be.

Also, if a guy is at the lowest injury level I'm thinking he should also perhaps be marked for in-game injury to put a cap on his impact limited to his reduced averaged totals (and if a QB who surpassed his averaged attempts and marked for in-game injury would be replaced with backup once beyond those averaged attempts).

[Royce R]

The vote seems fairly even on this, i have not voted yet and would like to hear some arguements to both sides before i vote.

Can anyone explain what they think should happen here?

[Strategist]

To me injuries are not reliable enough... The teams decide on thier own what to mark their players. I have seen doubtful players play just as well as if they had no injury... To me the only injuries we should take into consideration is playing are not. It is just too subjective in my opinion.

[Goodell]

It's very difficult to track hundreds of players on an individual player by player basis....

As injury status impacts grades, if we let a sim team decide injury levels themselves, I'd always say all my guys are always 100% healthy so their grades never take a hit. Need some kind of independent injury designation the way the game was setup from the beginning.

If a QB plays in reality, his injury rating is meaningless. If he plays, he'll have a game update from his real life stats to use and his injury position has no impact on real game updates. Same with running backs, so the biggest individual impacts on the sim arguably it doesn't matter what their injury ratings are if they get real game stats.

However, if they aren't playing on the field then the injury adjustment shifts averaged performances somewhat based upon whether the player is completely healthy or completely hurt. It's not an unreasonable assumption that a guy whose doubtful to even play maybe should have a lower game update than if he was 100% healthy going into that same averaged game I'd think.

This poll is about one thing and one thing only really...

Are you okay when guys in the playoffs (using averaged games) who are more seriously hurt in reality perform great in the sim playoffs?

We set out to adjust their impact somewhat for injuries, but in my opinion it isn't lowering their impact for the most serious enough. I'd like to lessen the impact of the most serious of players by adjusting their seasonal averages more than we already do. That's the question asked here.

[hoopie44641]

Hows does the injury list work cause I have RB Best Det who is not even playing anymore but yet he has a high rating and I don't understand how that can be.

As for the playoff injury's I agree with you commissar on your point

[Goodell]

Hows does the injury list work cause I have RB Best Det who is not even playing anymore but yet he has a high rating and I don't understand how that can be.

As for the playoff injury's I agree with you commissar on your point

We get grade updates posted by EA Sports. Usually they are just a guy's grade moving slightly up or down. They don't list out we aren't grading this guy any more.

If a guy has actually retired, we can add him to a retired list.

If it's a RB, grade isn't all that important for RBs. Their weekly game stats and seasonal averages are really all that matter for them. If a player doesn't have real game stats, but their sim team plays him anyway he'd likely have pretty mediocre numbers based upon default values for players without real stats with small averages per play.

Before the start of the next year, we'll zero everyone's grades out when Madden has a new batch of grades for the new year, and guys who aren't playing any more at that time would have zero if they don't receive a grade next year.

[hoopie44641]

OK Thanks and here is what I found on him

Detroit Lions running back Jahvid Best hasn't played in an NFL game since Oct. 16, 2011, when he suffered a concussion against the San Francisco 49ers. Despite the disconcerting amount of time it's taking to gain clearance for contact, he remains optimistic he'll be able to return to the field one day.

[Ben C.]

OK Thanks and here is what I found on him

Detroit Lions running back Jahvid Best hasn't played in an NFL game since Oct. 16, 2011, when he suffered a concussion against the San Francisco 49ers. Despite the disconcerting amount of time it's taking to gain clearance for contact, he remains optimistic he'll be able to return to the field one day.

Translation: He hasn't retired yet. In fact, he's still officially on the Lions roster. He just spend all of 2012 on injured reserve.

[Goodell]

As this won't matter until the regular season, we'll leave this topic of injury adjustments for byes/playoffs open, but most seem to be leaning toward further reduction in game update stats for most seriously injured players in those situations mentioned where the most hurt players have their averaged game stats and impact on sim play reduced a little further than we currently do.