*Getting back to the subject of drops, it's not only that there seem to be a bunch of them -by my calculations about half the incomplete passes come from drops- but that the pass catching bar doesn't seem to help avoid them.

Prime evidence is WR David Cundiff, who has 100 pass catching and 3 drops vs 24 catches this year. That's not a terrible rate, but it is a terrible rate for a guy who's supposed to be the best there can be at not dropping the ball.

Of course, most other players -on my team, anyway- do have terrible drop rates despite having good pass catching bars.

*As far as passes to players who are way behind the LOS, the problem's never really gone away, but recently it's been compounded by the fact some of these passes are being intercepted. Since screen passes haven't been implemented, maybe we could just "ban" passes to players who are behind the LOS? Something like the "if Miami, then fail" script, I'm thinking.

The passes behind the LOS is driving me crazy too. I keep thinking it's ultra restrictive and then a QB starts throwing it again. You might be right, I may just need to completely eliminate passes to a receiver behind the LOS, period, until I start building the screen pass logic.

The drops are being counted if the ball is within the catchability of a player, but here's the current weight of each factor in determining whether a pass is dropped or not:

60% base chance of a completion
2% for above his head - higher above the head, the less lower this value. (Ball must be within a catchable height to get here)
2% for how close the ball is to the player - further away reduces this value.
20% - pass catching bar
3% - experience/fatigue
2% - if the ball is behind the WR there is a 2% penalty
11% - coverage - this is a calculation based on the number of defenders right on the WR and how our courage stacks up against their punish receiver skills.

So, a 100 pass catching bar gives you an 80% chance base, the other 20% are influenced by other factors. The most likely reason for high pass catching bars to have drops is probably the coverage around him.

Does the 11% coverage factor in path of the WR, position of defender (whether running from behind, or closing in from the front) and trajectory of the ball or just proximity?

Take a quick slant as an example, if the WR beats the DB and knows he has him behind him if the ball is thrown in front of him he's going to make the catch since he doesn't have to worry about getting plastered while having his head turned towards the ball. In this case the only way the pass gets defended is by a defensive penalty, since no matter how close the defender is, he can't make a play on the ball, only the man.

Thanks for sharing those numbers! At first glance it would seem to me that 80% completion for a receiver who excels at catching the ball in a play with bad or no coverage is too low. I'm thinking that, at worst, that number ought to be about 95% and about 80% for receivers with really bad hands.

At the same time, it also feels like that 11% is too low. Not sure how the math works, but I'd love to see both of those figures go up a good bit, making catches in traffic even less likely and wide-open catches much more so.

It's 80% in the worst case (still talking about someone with a 100 pass catching bar), because the other 20% is the other factors - if they all are zero, you still have an 80% chance. Best case, with no defenders and the ball perfectly placed and no fatigue and perfect experience, could resolve to 100% (But it never will, because at the very least he will have a tiny amount of fatigue from running the route).

Nero, I need to look and see if I'm doing that - if not, I need to add that.

Nevertheless, I don't like that most incompletions come from drops rather than defense. It creates the impression defenses don't stop offenses, but offenses stop themselves

I should probably give credit to the defense when they have a high influence in the incompletion, instead of just attributing the drop to the receiver every time.

Yes, that would make a big difference. However... most of the drops I recall have come without any defenders near the receiver

I second this, I see far more drops when open than when covered and I've also noticed that they tend to come in bunch, even on consecutive plays on many (could even be most) occasions.