*MUST READ*: INJURIES, AGING, PERFORMANCE BONUSES
I have been working on a formula dealing with how injuries and aging will affect the attributes of players and their probability of retirement. Also, if a player attains stats that are above league average, they would be subject to an possible increase in attributes. I also think it's important that we set a cap as far as "how good" a player can get. For example, I think 75 MS should be the limit for RB. Imagine trying to defend a guy FASTER than Bo. For WR, a RC score of 81 would be the limit, or else all you'd have to do is get yourself a stud QB and a 88 or 94 RC receiver and just throw into coverage the entire game. I think we want to encourage QUALITY TECMO GAME PLAY and as little of the CC bullcrap as possible. Here is what I have come up with. If age 20-25, no aging occurs and 2% chance of retirement If age 26, 10% chance of aging and 4% chance of retirement If age 27, 20% chance of aging and 6% chance of retirement If age 28, 30% chance of aging and 8% chance of retirement If age 29, 40% chance of aging and 10% chance of retirement If age 30, 50% chance of aging and 15% chance of retirement If age 31, 60% chance of aging and 20% chance of retirement If age 32, 70% chance of aging and 30% chance of retirement If age 33, 80% chance of aging and 40% chance of retirement If age 34, 90% chance of aging and 50% chance of retirement If age 35+, 100% chance of aging and 50% chance of retirement AGING means one notch loss in all significant categories INJURIES If player is injured once, increase chance of aging by 5% and chance of retirement by 2% If player is injured twice, increase chance of aging by 10% and chance of retirement by 5% If player is injured three times, increase chance of aging by 20% and chance of retirement by 10% If player is injured four times, increase chance of aging by 40% and chance of retirement by 20% If player is injured five times, increase chance of aging by 80% and chance of retirement by 40% If player is injured six times, automatic retirement PRODUCTIVITY If player is in 0-50 percentile statistically at their position, they have 0% chance of gaining attribute points If player is between 50-60 percentile statistically at their position, they have 20% chance of gaining attribute points and reduce the chance of retirement by 5% If player is between 60-70 percentile statistically at their position, they have 30% chance of gaining attribute points and reduce the chance of retirement by 10% If player is between 70-80 percentile statistically at their position, they have 40% chance of gaining attribute points and reduce the chance of retirement by 15% and reduce the chance of aging by 5% If player is between 80-90 percentile statistically at their position, they have 50% chance of gaining attribute points and reduce the chance of retirement by 20% and reduce the chance of aging by 10% If player is between 90-100 percentile statistically at their position, they have 60% chance of gaining attribute points and reduce the chance of retirement by 25% and reduce the chance of aging by 15% PRODUCTIVITY gives one notch improvement in all significant categories. A player must have a certain number of pass attempts/rush attempts/receptions to qualify for improvement. For QB use QB rating as key statistic For RB use total yards as key statistic For WR use total yards as key statistic For TE use total yards as key statistic For DB use sacks+interceptions as key statistic For DL/LB use sacks+interceptions as key statistic For K use total points as key statistic For P use punting average as key statistic Highest attainable attributes are: 81 PC, 31 MS, 81 PS, 81 AB for QB (We can make exceptions on MS on VERY special occasions--Randy, Kordell, Vick, Vince Young eventually, etc.) 75 MS, 94 HP, 69 RC for RB 69 MS, 50 HP, 81 RC for WR 56 MS, 63 HP, 69 RC for TE 75 MS, 75 HP, 81 INT for DB 69 MS, 75 HP, 63 INT for LB 69 MS, 75 HP, 31 INT for DL I have run this formula through a couple entire teams on the original ROM and the results seemed to come out pretty good. The Buffalo Bills had 3 players retire, a few increase in stats, and a few decrease. Exactly what I wanted. One thing I'm debating is whether or not defensive players should age more quickly than offensive players, since they are not subject to the same injury issues as offensive guys. HOW IT WORKS At the end of the season, I (or somebody) will determine a few things for each player in the league. We will need to know their age, what percentile their stats fall into, how many injuries they sustained that year. Let's say a player is 29 years old, suffered 3 injuries, and was in the 65th percentile at their position statistically. A 29 year old has a 40% chance of aging and 10% chance of retirement. Since he suffered 3 injuries, he now has a 60% chance of aging (20% increase) and a 20% chance of retirement (10% increase) according to the formula. Since the player was between the 60th and 70th percentile at his position, the chance of retirement is decreased by 10%, so he only has a 10% chance of retirement. The player also has a 30% chance of a stat increase. So to recap, the player has a 10% chance of retiring, 60% chance of aging, and 30% chance of a stat increase. I will then use a random number generator to generate a random number between 1 and 100. If the number is between 1 and 10, the player RETIRES. If the number is between 11 and 60, the player AGES (loses one notch of every significant attribute) If the number is between 61 and 100, the player NEITHER ages nor retires Next, I will generate a second number, provided the guy didn't retire. If the number is between 1 and 30, he IMPROVES (gains one notch of every significant attribute) If the number is between 31 and 100, he DOES NOT improve and his attributes will remain the same (provided that he did not AGE in step 1 of the process). So for this particular player, say the first random number generated is 38. The player stays in the league but loses a notch of attributes. Say the second number generated is 17. Then he gains a notch of attributes so he is essentially the same player in year 2 (1991) as he was in year 1 (1990). One more thing - I feel injuries should be CUMULATIVE. Meaning that injuries from year 1 SHOULD carry over to year 2. So 3 injuries in year 1 and 3 injuries in year 2 should automatically retire a player. Please let me know what you all think of all of this. Like everything in this league, this is certainly open for debate and opinion. Thanks for reading.

81 pc is too high for the max for qbs. Maybe some of those max attributes should be brought down. I know I have a very difficult time stopping Bo. Too fast. Everything else looks logical and makes sense. Is there a place to get the ages of the players on the original rom? Are you going to automate this using excel?

Yeah I'm totally fine with bringing down some of the attributes. 81 PC is a little much but I figured since Montana and Kelly are already rated that highly in the original ROM that such a high rating would be justified. 75 PC certainly seems good enough. Also, I agree, stopping a RB like Bo (75 MS) would be near impossible if the team's QB wasn't completely inept/error-prone like Jay Schroeder. I would support capping the MS for RB at 69 or even 63. It would help level the playing field somewhat. A lot of the player ages can be found at various websites. The website I was using earlier to get the ages was something like profootballreference.com or something like that. A google search for "football reference" should yield some worthy results. I would LOVE to streamline the process using spreadsheets but it may not be worth the hassle. We shall see. Thank you for the input, Sowa.

I think the QB PC and RB MS should be capped at 81 and 75 respectively, but they shouldn't go up there very often.

If you have a 75 RS for RB and DB, you should also have a 75 RS max for WR's also. This would make sense considering that most WRs are faster than most running backs, and you colud possibly have a scenario where in 1999 that the best RB (Marshall Faulk) could max out at 75 and be faster than the best WR (Randy Moss) at 69. we all know this isn't possible for real, but it could easily happen here.

I'd agree and well I had another "wild" idea that I'm sure no one would really care for but would probably make this first draft go by ALOT quicker. Why don't we use an even ROM? My reasoning is were not doing a "historical simulation" league. Where picking a point, 1990-91 era, and advancing from there with different franchises. The even ROM would be for initial season with the player progression from that point. That way everyone will be "equal" and we could advance from there. That way if we miss our clock time or live draft it won't really matter who we get selected for us. And like i said this is just a suggestion.

I agree with L about the caps!!

The 69 max sounds real good, then. I just hoped that those 3 positions in particular would have the same max, so 69 is fine until Bo is done.

i had another thought: all this talk about maximums, what about minimums. i'll just take proehl for example: he's already as slow as heck, but let's say when he reaches 26 he ages and at 27 ages again. he's down to 6 MS, and that's apretty darna slowa. i guess by this point i should draft a new receiver anyway! but is that just how the cookie crumbles or do we set a min?? i think about OLs, too, or Brister--oh man!

Kidpro and I were discussing minimums the other day. I think what was decided is that minimums would be established. Here are my thoughts (in all of the "major categories" for players): QB: min of 6 MS, 25 PS, 25 PC, 25 APB RB: min of 25 MS, 19 RC, 19 HP, 44 BC WR: min of 19 MS, 31 RC, 13 HP, 44 BC TE: min of 19 MS, 25 RC, 25 HP, 44 BC OL: min of 19 MS, 31 HP DL: min of 19 MS, 31 HP LB: min of 31 MS, 31 HP DB: min of 31 MS, 25 HP, 25 INT K: min of 25 KA, 25 AKB P: min of 25 PA I realize there are some players that might be even worse in some of these categories than the "minimum" such as Cleveland Gary and his 38 BC; any such player would retain their crappy attributes but could sink no lower in that category. Let me know if these numbers seem fair for minimums. Keep in mind that it will be under very rare circumstances that a guy will sink to such low depths. But Proehl, I think, is safe from a decline in MS.

bump, this is important

topic
So far, i like what is proposed... I do agree that keeping MS down is significant..

I have an idea, and I don't know how everyone else would feel about it, but I'll throw it out there.... Take Andre Rison for example on my team. He's young and is already a 63 MS and 75 REC. Odds are he's probably going to get at least 1 attribute gain in his career bumping him up to a 69MS and a 81 REC, which is the cap @ both categories. If, once he gets to the cap, he gets another attribute increase, what do we think about making it so his first time aging, he doesn't recieve any attribute losses b/c of the fact that he had an extra year of attribute gains saved up? Same goes for Barry, and every other young star in the league.... thoughts?