League Forums

Talking to Wade in chat, but I think there are two aspects here.

1. When do I go into hurry up?
2. When do I go for a FG rather than a TD?

Regarding #2: If I can tie/win with a TD, I should not go for a FG in hurry up. If I need two scores, and a combo of a TD and FG will tie/win, but a TD will not, I should go for a FG. But "2 minutes per score" should not be fractionalized, IMO. It should be 2 minutes or 0 minutes, no dividing based on fractions of a TD or anything like that.

e.g.: 10 points down, 2:30 left, I go for a FG. 11 points down, go for the TD.

Obviously there are issues here with timeouts, 2 point conversions, etc.

The logic for hurry up and the logic for kicking a field goal vs. going for it on 4th down are handled separately. If you're not in hurry up, then it just uses your max field goal range to decide whether to kick a FG or punt. If you are in hurry up, then the following logic is applied:

* If it's not the 4th quarter or you are losing by more than 14 points, treat it as if you're not in hurry-up - kick a field goal if you're in range, punt if not. (This is to prevent teams from going for it and causing the other team to run up the score because they keep getting good field position from the failed 4th down attempts).

* if you are in FG range (defined by your gameplan settings) and a field goal will take you out of hurry up, you will kick the field goal. I think this would fire your 10 points down example but not the 11 points down (if I change the logic to fixed # of TD's as you all are describing, which I think I will do).

* If your are losing by 3 points or less and you are within the end-of-game field goal range, kick the field goal.

* If none of the above applies, go for it.

The other scenario is the end-of-game logic, where if there is less than 5 seconds on the clock after the huddle (a whole separate set of logic decides how much time the offensive team runs of the clock), we're at the end of the half or at the end of the game and down by 3 points or less, and we're within the end-of-game field goal range, we kick the field goal no matter what down it is.

... and for 2-point conversions, I'm using the chart here:

http://theredzone.org/Features/TwoPointConversionChart.aspx

It sounds like the logic matches at least closely if not exactly with the logic I was stating.

What doesn't seem to match is just the "when am I in hurry-up?" logic

I agree with no fractions. 1-7 points down counts as 1 score down, 8 to 14 as two scores down, etc. I would not consider 8 as one score down in this specific calculation, better go to hurry up earlier in case you miss the 2-point conversion.

The fact that hurry up and going for it are linked together probably means a 3 min setting is a wiser choice.

Yeah, and I like what you guys are saying, that makes more logical sense. I let my computer programming mind get the best of me on that one.

Good catch, FF - the clock did not stop after a missed field goal. Should be fixed with the next sim.

Just pushed a change to the hurry-up/slow-down logic that follows what we've discussed here.