Ok, one of the first items I'm going to dive into for 0.4.3 is going to be to make the QB fatigue more realistic. I want to open a discussion on your observations and see how we end up landing.

So, the problem as I see it now is that a QB tires with more passes throughout the game, and a way around it is to sub in a second QB. Here are some thoughts I have about resolving this:

1) Bring QBs cold off the bench. This would mean that when a QB is not the starter and comes into the game, his accuracy rating starts at maybe half and slowly warms up with more plays on the field. Not sure how many plays it would be before he gets to 100%; likewise, the QB that is on the bench would endure a similar decrease in his skills.

2) The reason for the QB fatigue is to help reduce the all-out passing strategy. I am thinking about removing the in-game QB fatigue penalty based on # of throws, but adding a decrease in pass protection if you throw for more than a certain percentage of the time, resulting in your QB getting hit more often. Then, as I think it was Ares who suggested, the QB's fatigue would become more tied to getting hit and less about the number of throws. (I still think the number of throws should impact his fatigue but this point would be to reduce that impact)

3) I've had this on the docket for a while and am wondering if now is a good time to add it - season-long fatigue. This would be an attribute that is reset to 100 at the start of the season, and the more a player is used, the more this reduces throughout the season. There would be a measure of reset between games, but right now this essentially resets to 100 for each game. I'll have to toy with this and how it impacts each position.

Please give your feedback on these ideas, as well as any other thoughts or suggestions you might have.

Thanks guys!

#2 should happen first. Fatigue isn't really slowing down the all out passing offenses anyway. It just makes it more frustrating watching elite QBs complete 90% through the first half and 12% in the second.

I'm curious, would the QB fatigue go down for all hits that they take or just the hits they take later in the game? For example, if a team had a below average pass blocking line and their QB's takes multiple sacks during the beginning of the game, would that reduce their fatigue for the rest of that game?

Tom Brady got beat up pretty bad last superbowl. Under these current suggestions I don't see him coming back the same way. He continued to pass his way to victory hit after hit....sack after sack.

Great players , great duos have a timing that is uncanny at times. Some of the toughest catches and throws are made due to thier synchronization , and knowing where they will be.

I think the Falcons got tired by the fourth quarter and went to zone more where brady picked them apart. It wasn't Brady who got tired it was the coverage guys. They were running around all day and we're gassed by the fourth .

I don't know if the current suggestions directly relate to how it works iRL. Dbs/wrs run miles per game and qbs do not. The fatigue ratios are off.

Brady at 6'4 212 lbs is a very lean player. His bodies ability to process lactic acid is quite efficient . Taking hits doesn't tire you out.....it's the running . ...snap after snap.

Stocky players have a harder time processin that lactic acid. 5'11 198 pound cb probably would tire more quickly . Yet here in mfn the 212 pounder would tire faster, even if he were 6'5.

Along with speed and strength , the physical mechanisms of player are very tied in to how dense they are....the muscle mass they carry around. Shorter guys should tire more quickly but be more explosive, while taller guys....more lanky generally have better endurance , but lack that explosiveness.

The latest adjustments to speed show the effect of weight , but height should be tied in to that equation . Same goes for how strong a player is. Also, the same should be accounted for fatigue levels.

It's really quite simple....smaller(in pounds) is faster and in better shape. It just doesn't work that way and will always be exploited and or look visually distorted . The whole spectrum of how fast players move is distorted in a spread out fashion .

Making guys faster is one way around it and messing with qbs fatigue is another, but I would much rather the whole fatigue system , the whole speed system , and the whole strength system to be tied in to how dense a player is. Not just how much they weigh. This is why certain guys are only able to play certain postions i n the nfl . They have the skills but not the endurance or leverage.

Then add some player to player familiarity . Both Montana and young threw to rice. I think Gannon did too, but rice was even slower by then. They had to develop a rhythm , but I doubt fatigue had much to do with rice catching passes from any of those guys. Except rice could not create separation any more.

Rice had great endendurance . ..he would run the hills of California as training same as barry sanders....he would run the length of the feild many times after games. Brady has exceptional endurance also.

QB s coming in and out should create some sort of disruption to rhythm . Each game the more times qbs play a snap . ...the more a rhythm should be created. Once benched that rhythm should drop a bit....only to continue to rise if they play consecutive snaps.

The penalty should come as they sit. Right now there is no penalty , but a bonus from resting them. QBs use less energy than oline, but olinemen can carry the highest density , yet still be effective .

Here, I see this method working with teams that have certain rating at certain positions. The ones where a players mobility is higher than the average . Multiple great wrs is as effective as a rotation of qbs . Together with shorter passes it nearly unstoppable . It all reaks of fatigue levels being off . As well as little guys being too strong which points towards a players density as being very important . ...yet overlooked. I don't think small guys get injured more often here, because they should. Throw in the abuse a guy is taking and even more injuries are possible . Here it is linear across all postions . ...except qb.

I don’t love the idea of #1, QBs coming in cold. It seems like building out player-to-player familiarity would have a similar more realistic result. If #1 was implemented, I’d want to see the penalty go away relatively quickly - 3 plays maybe?

I also really like another of Ares’s suggestions - don’t make a QB handing off the ball affect fatigue, and maybe even make them gain back during a run.

Season long fatigue seems really cool, but it’d need a lot of details to feel right I think. You hear about RBs wearing down over the course of the season, but OL almost never rotate in the NFL. Given the OL already get more injuries here since they have more opportunities on each play for the equation to cause an injury, I’d hate to layer on anymore fatigue.

Seems like tying fatigue to distance run PLUS hits taken could work. RBs would be affected, and QBs that take more hits would be affected. OL don’t run really, so they wouldn’t be affected as much. DB and WR aren’t hit much, so they wouldn’t be affected much either.

This brings me back to a previous suggestion I've made, which is to implement a 'toughness' attribute:

https://private75.myfootballnow.com/community/5/3236?page=1#21982

This (along with some discipline) could replace both pass receiving courage and punish receiver, and serve similar functions for those positions. In conjunction with discipline it would also be used to determine how well a QB throws under pressure. And for all positions it would impact how much fatigue is drained from big hits. So Brady would be an example of a QB that gen'd with high toughness. It could also give a small passive bonus to fatigue recovery. In the interim, or if this suggestion is nixed, I'd suggest discipline as a stand-in.

To +1 mardn, I don't like #1. I do like player-to-player familiarity (P2PF) as an incentive to keep the 'flow of the offense' in place. Whoever is listed as #1 on the depth chart at each position should receive the bulk of 'reps' with each other, increasing their P2PF more significantly than for the rest of the team. I'd see P2PF as something of a combination of how play knowledge works combined with conditioning. That is, there's a baseline "floor" that it can never go under, and increases gradually over time as a % of the total familiarity gained. For example, say 1/20th of all familiarity gained each spin is converted into 'permanent P2PF', while the remaining 19/20th would be added as 'temporary P2PF' (however this would ideally be a sliding scale, so it's far easier to gain at low levels but slows down to requiring much more as it grows, so that a perfect 100/100 floor would be impossible). Temporary P2PF would also automatically drain each spin, draining faster the further it is from that player's floor #. For instance, if you had 100 Temporary P2PF, with a floor of 60, it might drop 20 points to 80. If however it was already 80, it might only drop 5 points to 75 (so in effect, if you gained at least some temp P2PF that season, it would stick 'semi-permanently' for that season until the off-season spin cleared it). If that player was active and listed as the #1 on the depth chart, it would then add back points from that week's practice, say +15. Then during the game it would increase with each snap on the field together. So if your floor is so low that you're losing more points each spin than you're gaining from practice, it might take a few (or quite a few) snaps to start gaining perfect rhythm (growing faster the closer to the floor... so a P2PF floor of 90 would almost instantly get into rhythm with each other, but someone with a floor of 50 might quickly jump to the 70s but then start to slow down to a slog). Some positions would gain it faster and slower with each other. For instance QB to WR would be pretty quick, but OL to OL would be much slower (simulating the importance of OL stability which is crucial in the real sport).

This would prevent a QB injury being overly devastating, as they could come into rhythm with their WRs over the course of the game (even if perhaps not hitting 100), and if they're a veteran, they probably have at least a decent floor with the rest of the team regardless. And for the next game if the starter is still out (or you decide to make a depth chart change), they'd have that week to practice with the ones and establish a better rhythm for next game.

Edit: And this would help prevent that QB-by-committee approach as only the #1 QB would be getting reps with the ones and be ready pre-game, and the rest wouldn't be getting enough snaps in game to get anywhere close to 100 rhythm. It wouldn't be impossible to run it still, but there'd be at least some incentive not to do so. And with the inclusion of temporary P2PF it ensures that simply running this system long enough or using long established vets to do it wouldn't allow you to skirt the penalties.

I have mixed feelings about #1-backup QB's entering cold. Here is why: I use a 2 QB system in all leagues. I have observed better performances from both QB's using this system. The system I use is not based on the fatigue level, but rather on what formation is called. I look through my "backup" QB's play familiarity and place him in 2 or 3 formations that he is most familiar with. The number of snaps the "backup" gets varies from game to game, based on what is called.

My issue with the implementation of #1 would be this: What happens if the 1st play called in the game uses one of the formations my "backup" is in. Since it is the first play of the game, I believe that this QB would be deemed the starter for the game. On the second play, my 1st string QB comes in. Would he have to go through this progression and be somewhat terrible for 1, 2 or 3 quarters, even though he will be getting 70-80% of the snaps? If I am correct in this assumption, I would hope that this change would take into affect the depth chart for starter, rather than who is playing on the first play of the game.

If this change is only based on backups coming in under fatigue conditions, then I like the change as proposed.

The thing with this strategy, though, is that any real team that has attempted to do this has failed miserably, so much so that it's not even considered in mainstream pro football. I can remember maybe one or two attempts at this in my lifetime; QB by committee doesn't work in real life, but it does here. It shouldn't here, but I want to ensure that the reasons that it doesn't here are appropriate reasons and not just hacks to discourage it.

Your reasoning for this makes sense to me and I agree these changes would make game results more realistic. I wouldn't have a problem making the adjustments to see how this works.

I have given some thought about #3 - season-long fatigue. My thinking on this is, there could be more injuries to players and some pretty ugly playoff games would be observed if this new factor is added. If there is an increased possibility of players getting injured due to season-long fatigue, along with their "normal" injuries during a game, this factor could put a team in a very bad position of not having enough players for a given position.

I wouldn't be against this change, but definitely think there should be much testing of how this change would turn out near the end of the season before implementing it.

I don't recall ever seeing a good QB struggle at the end of a game, or season, simply because they were tired due to a bunch of pass attempts.

Does anyone have any real life examples?

Marino? Fouts? Brees? Brady? Favre?