I finally sat down to figure out how to use GP adjustments effectively, and boy howdy, that algorithm is a doozy. So a few clarification questions.

Are the starting bounds for medium distance plays fixed at 5 and 15 despite what my game play adjustment is set to?

If the answer to the first question is right, is this math right for game play adjustments where the GP is not 5 (this is obviously for after the first play since I'm not going to write this out as sigma notation):

1st Down Lower Bound: 5 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))
1st Down Upper Bound: 15 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))

2nd Down Lower Bound: (5 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))) - 1
2nd Down Upper Bound: (15 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))) - 4

3rd Down Lower Bound: (5 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))) - 2
3rd Down Upper Bound: (15 + ((Play Distance * 0.05) + ((GP * 0.95) - GP)))) - 6

The top of the first down 'short' distance will trend toward the average play distance using a weighted average based on the GP Distance Adjustment. A setting of 100 will set the 'short' distance to the distance gained on the most recent play, a setting of 50 will be previous_short * 0.5 + most_recent_play * 0.5, etc. Medium distance's top is then the new short distance top times 3.

Then the short/medium/long for the other downs are linearly distributed such that 4th down short is half of the first down short distance.

Excellent! This will help me tweak the spreadsheet I was using to determine Short, Medium, and Long / plays run / yards per play. I should be able to have a solid guide for using the thing in about a week based off of theoretical numbers.

Coming back to this before I don't have time to play this game anymore. So if I set the GP adjustment to 25, does the formula go average*0.75 + last_play*0.25?

Yes. ("average" being the previous value, not the actual average so far)

Oops, that's what I meant.

So, just to make sure that I have my spreadsheet set up correctly, the full formula goes like this for Med Floor with Med Ceiling being Med Floor*3.

1 - (prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100))
2 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 5/6
3 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 2/3
4 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 1/2

If this is correctly, early analysis shows that a GP of 21 may be the magic number for disrupting those blitz 2 to stop the run teams. More to come.

The actual formula is this:

1 - (prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100))
2 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 3/4
3 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 3/5
4 - ((prev_short * ((100 - GP)/100)) + (last_play * (GP/100)) * 1/2

The logic is actually doing it the other way, where it is adjusting the 'togo' value based on the down:

togo = (togo * down * 1/3) + 2/3

OK - plugging in the correct formula leads to a magic number between 12 and 35.

How I'm arriving at that logic is looking at a scenario of a team that runs 100% of the time on first down against a blitz 2 defense. In that scenario, your average YPC for rushes will be between 0-1.5 yards.

When you get 0 yards on first down, the max Medium distance on you 2-10 play gets set to the following:

GP -- Yardage

12 -- 9.90
35 -- 7.31

So 12 is the lowest you can get to force 2-10 to be a Long distance play.

Similarly, if you get 1.5 yards running on the first play, your 2-8.5 play gets set to the following:

GP -- Yardage

12 -- 10.31
35 -- 8.49

Meaning that 35 is the lowest value you can get for your 2-8.5 play to be Long.

And we're live: https://paydirt.myfootballnow.com/community/3/4214?page=1&x=vlUxQDbyoC#26895

seems like a number in the 20's is the "sweet spot"..setting a few teams to 25 for tonights games and see how we do.