Your Chance To Participate In A New Football Phenomenon (Sandbox Simulations)

[Rain Man]

I apologize if the mods think this is soliciting, and I guess it is, but at the same time it's beta testing a new product developed by long-time planeteers, and it's free.

cdcox and I have been developing a new football game for the thoughtful fan, where players build franchises and compete against each other. A description is below.

If you're interested, we're offering the game for free in Year 1 to Chiefsplanet members, with the goal of both giving the system a dry run and also hooking you like Phillip Morris. You can go to www.sandboxsimulations.com to sign up, and use the access code 6Lanier3.

Here's the overview:

Build and manage a full 53-player roster over multiple seasons, as an offseason activity to give you year-round football

Select your personnel to match your offensive and defensive scheme. Every position matters – even your blocking tight end.

Realistic and accurate simulations of league games based on head-to-head matchups against other teams in your league.


This is essentially a new concept in fantasy football that attempts to simulate as closely as possible the management of a real NFL franchise over a multi-year period. Unlike regular fantasy football, every position on the offense and defense contributes to your success or failure. On special teams, the punter, kicker, and kick returners matter.

In Sandbox Football you will build a team – an entire 53-man football team – via an initial draft, and will maintain it year after year in annual rookie drafts, trading periods, and free agency. You compete against teams in your league. In the first year of the game, before the start of the NFL season, you will build your roster by drafting veterans and rookies through separate drafts, and through trades with other teams in the league. Your roster is frozen at the beginning of the NFL season. During the real regular NFL season, you can focus on your traditional fantasy games and perhaps keep on eye on your Sandbox roster as our statistical models build the data on player performances. At the end of the regular NFL season, the Sandbox season begins. There will be 16 games in the season. In real time, the season will run about 8 weeks (2 alternate reality games per week).

Game outcomes will be simulated based on the performance of individual players during the just-completed NFL regular season. The simulations, developed by a PhD statistical expert, estimate how individual players will perform in the context of your alternate reality team competing head-to-head against other teams in the league and with the specific team that you have built. The simulations will consider the offensive and defensive schemes that you select. So you can build your roster to support a power running game or a high-flying passing attack. You can run a 3-4 or 4-3 base defense. You can run nickel formations or four-wide receiver sets. You can rotate your DL to keep them fresh.

The game is more about building a team than playing video games. So this isn't Madden, but you will have the ability to tweak your game plan to take the best advantage of your roster and the weaknesses of your opponent. Injuries are a factor in the game. If a player is unavailable during weeks 3 through 6 in the NFL, he is also unavailable during the same weeks in the alternate reality season. So roster depth matters. The game simulations are based on the most advanced statistics and the latest research regarding what matters in winning an NFL game. But, the outcomes of the games have a random component, just like real NFL games.

The calendar for the alternate reality league year will look something like this:
• Jan to Mid March: Alternate Reality regular season and playoffs.
• Mid-March to the beginning of NFL season: Roster building through trades, veteran draft (first year), free agent drafts (2nd year and beyond), and rookie draft.
• Beginning of NFL season to end of regular NFL season: Alternate reality league is dormant, but the NFL players are generating their performance stats for the up-coming AR league.
• Rinse and repeat.

Copyright Sandbox Simulations, all rights reserved.

We're still finalizing the cost structure, but this won't be an expensive game to play at all. It might range from a few bucks a year to $50 per year, depending on a few factors.

Year 1 will require a couple of days of drafting with rather high intensity, but we've got it set up where you can put your draft list together and do customized and automated drafting if you like.

So...go! Now! Time to get ready for the draft!

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

I blew a 24-10 lead.

What the ****.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

4th Q 0:54 1st and 10 Denver 28 Tom Brady passes 27 yards intercepted by Vontae Davis and returned 1 yards.

4th Q 0:18 1st and 10 Denver 15 Ryan Succop field goal attempt from 32 yards. Good.

Tom Brady, you son of a bitch.

[AustinChief]

OK, I won.. IN OVERTIME!!! so no complaints... but my FB rushed a lot. Like as much as my HB. Of course, it could easily just be an outlier and it won't happen next game.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

OK, I won.. IN OVERTIME!!! so no complaints... but my FB rushed a lot. Like as much as my HB. Of course, it could easily just be an outlier and it won't happen next game.

Fixed for next time. Keep 'em coming.

[Branden Albert's Huge Balls]

You need to fix the glitch where Tom Brady chokes.

[Dartgod]

Here is a glitch in my play-by-play by my opponent. This was at the start of the 3rd quarter and the QB spiked the ball to kill the clock on 1st and 10. Then it has me kicking off.

3rd Q 15:00 1st and 10 Waco 40 Michael Vick (pressured) scrambles for 14 yards.
3rd Q -1:0-16 1st and 10 Provo 46 Michael Vick spikes the ball to kill the clock.
3rd Q 15:00 Nick Folk kicks 64 yards, returned for 19 yards by free agent

[rageeumr]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

OK, I won.. IN OVERTIME!!! so no complaints... but my FB rushed a lot. Like as much as my HB. Of course, it could easily just be an outlier and it won't happen next game.

Key interception by Aldon Smith. I can't even be mad.

cdcox, it looks like I always had free agents returning kicks. AustinChief had that sometimes, but I noticed Jerious Norwood returned a kick or 2 for him.

Austin also had a free agent kicking off for him sometimes.

Is there a special teams line-up page that I'm missing?

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

Here is a glitch in my play-by-play by my opponent. This was at the start of the 3rd quarter and the QB spiked the ball to kill the clock on 1st and 10. Then it has me kicking off.

3rd Q 15:00 1st and 10 Waco 40 Michael Vick (pressured) scrambles for 14 yards.
3rd Q -1:0-16 1st and 10 Provo 46 Michael Vick spikes the ball to kill the clock.
3rd Q 15:00 Nick Folk kicks 64 yards, returned for 19 yards by free agent

Thanks. When I reorganized the game simulator, it isn't handling the transition between quarters correctly. I'll fix it.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by rageeumr

Key interception by Aldon Smith. I can't even be mad.

cdcox, it looks like I always had free agents returning kicks. AustinChief had that sometimes, but I noticed Jerious Norwood returned a kick or 2 for him.

Austin also had a free agent kicking off for him sometimes.

Is there a special teams line-up page that I'm missing?

In order to save a lot of coding time, I did all of the special teams lineup selection behind the scenes. I selected the best punter or kicker on your roster and used him.

For KO and punt returners, there were only a few that were significantly better than the pack. If you have one of the good ones on your roster, I use that one. If you don't, he's basically just a guy, so I use some typical stats and call him a FA. So you aren't losing out on any competitve advantage by not being able to name your special teamers.

[lostcause]

I'm noticing in my simulation (Pitt vs. Anchorage) that on punting downs the opposing team's punter is punting and being returned by the opposing team. Confusing but here's a sequence:

3rd Q 14:52 1st and 10 Anchorage 24 Jonathan Stewart rushes for 3 yards.
3rd Q 14:02 2nd and 7 Anchorage 27 PENALTY. False Start Branden Albert loss of 5 yards.
3rd Q 13:12 3rd and 12 Anchorage 22 Alex D. Smith passes complete to Nate Burleson for a gain of -0 yards.
3rd Q 12:17 4th and 12 Anchorage 22 Brandon Fields punts 60 yards, returned for 4 yards by Jacoby Jones

Brandon Fields is a Pittsburgh player and Jones is an Anchorage player.

[brorth]

I had an injury or two that kept backups out of the lineup week one. Will you let us know when we go from week one to week two, so that I can plug them in? Thanks.

[lostcause]

Here is a play where my kick returner (Jacoby Jones) scored against myself on a kick return.

3rd Q 1:46 4th and 3 Anchorage 32 Brandon Fields punts 51 yards, returned for 104 yards by Jacoby Jones Touchdown, 2-pt conversion
3rd Q 1:38 free agent kicks 62 yards, returned for 7 yards by free agent

[lostcause]

I also noticed excessive FB usage. I have FB down for 2% of total carries, he carried the ball 23 times. My entire team rushed the ball 36 times, thats about 65%.

[Rain Man]

My team, Duluth, is pleased to be 1-0.

However, we had a controversial call with 46 seconds left in the second quarter. Believe it or not, Phillip Rivers took a snap to try to spike the ball and fumbled it. The defense recovered, though we don't know if it was Andy Studebaker who got it.

However, the controversial part is that my team retained possession of the ball and later kicked what was ultimately the winning field goal.

[Rain Man]

This is awesome and my heart beats faster as I read the play by play.

Another glitch in the return game is that Devin Hester returned a punt 118 against my Anchorage Eskimos in League 2. We then didn't get a carriage return to start the kickoff so it's a little jumbled.

Anchorage got off to a rough start, but we'll recover. We're still getting our chemistry in place.