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!

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah, I guess you're right in general on the first down. The situation that caught my attention was the special case subset below, a spike on first down after a change in possession, which should never be a spike unless your QB is Elvis Grbac. Is there a way to put a fix in for that? Otherwise, we'll be fielding complaints from paying players down the line.



Richmond
2nd Q 1:10 Nick Folk kicks 64 yards, returned for 30 yards by LaRod Stephens-Howling
2nd Q 1:02 1st and 10 Richmond 36 Matt Hasselbeck sacked by Shaun Phillips for a loss of -3 yards. QB fumbled and defense recoved returned for 0 yards.
Richmond 0, Duluth 10
Duluth
2nd Q 0:46 1st and 10 Richmond 33 Philip Rivers spikes the ball to kill the clock.
2nd Q 0:43 2nd and 10 Richmond 33 Philip Rivers passes incomplete to DeSean Jackson.
2nd Q 0:36 3rd and 10 Richmond 33 Philip Rivers passes incomplete to Randall Cobb.
2nd Q 0:29 4th and 10 Richmond 33 Nick Folk field goal attempt from 50 yards. Good.
Richmond 0, Duluth 13

OK, change of possession was the thing I was missing. Yeah, I can fix it. That is the beautiful thing about code -- anything is possible.

[cdcox]

Independence Vision 1-1. Congrats to Topeka Tricyanide.

I have that irritated feeling I get after the Chiefs lose. Heh.

[Dartgod]

OK, this is kind of a weird sequence at the end of the first half of my second game.

Provo
2nd Q 2:00 1st and 10 Provo 25 Joseph Addai rushes for -1 yards.
2nd Q 1:18 2nd and 11 Provo 24 Bruce Miller rushes for 0 yards.
2nd Q 0:28 3rd and 11 Provo 24 Bruce Miller rushes for 6 yards. PENALTY. Neutral Zone Infraction on Tommy Kelly. 5 yards. Penalty declined. time out Columbia
2nd Q 0:20 4th and 5 Provo 30 Ben Roethlisberger fumbles snap Recorved by Provo Turned over on downs
Columbia 14, Provo 3

Columbia
2nd Q 0:10 1st and 10 Provo 30 Ryan Fitzpatrick (pressured) passes complete to Vincent Jackson for a gain of 25 yards. time out Columbia
2nd Q 0:02 1st and goal Provo 5 Mike Nugent field goal attempt from 22 yards. Good.
Columbia 17, Provo 3


First of all, why did Provo decline the penaly on 3rd and 11 and then why would we go for it on 4th and 5 from our own 30? It ended up costing me 3 points which happened to be the marging of victory for Columbia.

[Dartgod]

Here's another interception ball placement error.

3rd Q 10:32 2nd and 15 Columbia 15 Ryan Fitzpatrick (pressured) passes 20 yards intercepted by Eric Wright and returned 0 yards.
Columbia 17, Provo 6
Provo
3rd Q 10:20 1st and 10 Provo 35 Bruce Miller rushes for 4 yards.

The ball should have been on the Columbia 35, not Provo's.

[Sully]

When is league two gonna start?

[Dartgod]

My FB had 14 carries. Why so many. I think I even adjusted his percentage down to 3%.

[cdcox]

Oh shit. I forgot to update the the software on the site before I ran the sims. I'm going to clear out week 2 results, update the software and run the sims again.

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by cdcox

Oh shit. I forgot to update the the software on the site before I ran the sims. I'm going to clear out week 2 results, update the software and run the sims again.

Dang. This sucks. I had already adjusted the rosters to week 3. Not sure what will happen when I roll back. I'm going to take the site off line and look at it.

[MagicHef]

Well, the Fort Collins Horseteeth were 2-0, we'll see what happens when you redo the simulations.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

OK, this is kind of a weird sequence at the end of the first half of my second game.

Provo
2nd Q 2:00 1st and 10 Provo 25 Joseph Addai rushes for -1 yards.
2nd Q 1:18 2nd and 11 Provo 24 Bruce Miller rushes for 0 yards.
2nd Q 0:28 3rd and 11 Provo 24 Bruce Miller rushes for 6 yards. PENALTY. Neutral Zone Infraction on Tommy Kelly. 5 yards. Penalty declined. time out Columbia
2nd Q 0:20 4th and 5 Provo 30 Ben Roethlisberger fumbles snap Recorved by Provo Turned over on downs
Columbia 14, Provo 3

Columbia
2nd Q 0:10 1st and 10 Provo 30 Ryan Fitzpatrick (pressured) passes complete to Vincent Jackson for a gain of 25 yards. time out Columbia
2nd Q 0:02 1st and goal Provo 5 Mike Nugent field goal attempt from 22 yards. Good.
Columbia 17, Provo 3


First of all, why did Provo decline the penaly on 3rd and 11 and then why would we go for it on 4th and 5 from our own 30? It ended up costing me 3 points which happened to be the marging of victory for Columbia.

Hmm, the logic on the penalty was probably that the yards gained were greater than the yards of the penalty. But you're right in that it didn't account for the benefit of getting another down. We may need a tweak in the logic to account for that.

I'd never thought about it, but if you have a neutral zone/offsides penalty on a play where you gain more than 5 yards, but less than the first down, when do you take it? What's your opinion on the following scenarios?

Assume it's 1st or 2nd down and 10 and you get the offsides call after the play is run.

You gain 5 yards or less - You obviously take the penalty.
You gain 6 yards - take or decline?
You gain 7 yards - take or decline?
You gain 8 yards - take or decline?
You gain 9 yards - take or decline?
You gain 10 yards or more - You obviously decline the penalty

Now, if it's third down I think you always take the penalty if you didn't get the first down, so in your specific case it's straightforward. So it seems like we need a different logic for 1st and 2nd down compared to 3rd down, right?


With regard to the 4th down call, it looks like Ben was just trying to run out the clock and fumbled. Shades of Phillip Rivers against the Chiefs last year. It seems like the call was correct, but you just need to work on your C-QB exchange.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Dartgod

Here's another interception ball placement error.

3rd Q 10:32 2nd and 15 Columbia 15 Ryan Fitzpatrick (pressured) passes 20 yards intercepted by Eric Wright and returned 0 yards.
Columbia 17, Provo 6
Provo
3rd Q 10:20 1st and 10 Provo 35 Bruce Miller rushes for 4 yards.

The ball should have been on the Columbia 35, not Provo's.

Yeah, there's a straightforward problem on placing the ball after interceptions. cdcox is going to fix that, and we suspect it's an easy fix. Thanks for noting it, though.

[AustinChief]

Seems like the punters are still switched. But again no complaints! The Stetsons roll to another victory!

ALSO.. it appears that every false start is a loss of 5 yards AND a loss of down.

[AustinChief]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Seems like the punters are still switched. But again no complaints! The Stetsons roll to another victory!

ALSO.. it appears that every false start is a loss of 5 yards AND a loss of down.

Ah I just read that you hadn't updated code... hopefully the Stetsons can win the rematch!

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by AustinChief

Seems like the punters are still switched. But again no complaints! The Stetsons roll to another victory!

ALSO.. it appears that every false start is a loss of 5 yards AND a loss of down.

I just noticed a neutral zone infraction with the same problem.

Otherwise, everything is looking amazingly good. The play by play and total stats seems to be quite reasonable.

[Rain Man]

Oh, and it looks like we declined a personal foul, which shouldn't happen.