Dunlap Modified Fletch67 System
I know that there are many Football gamers out there who use the Fletch67 system to determine defensive line settings, but something has always bothered me about it – it seems “one-sided.” You only take into account the defensive point totals in determining the line setting.
I have taken the basic concept of Fletch67 and modified it so that it also takes into account the offensive point total. So, in my system, you would COMPARE the defensive point total with the offensive point total before rolling the dice to get your line setting.
Let’s say that the defense has 42 points and the offense has 36. This is a +6 for the defense. That means that dice roll result 11-36 would result in the most favorable defensive line setting, 41-56 would be “Standard” and 61-66 would be more favorable to the offense.
I’d love to hear any feedback on this innovation, especially if you have a way that you get line settings that might be different.
Ray Dunlap
Ray,
While I am not a big believer in the Fletch67 system in general I do think your thought process is spot on. It didn’t make sense to me that there was no accounting for the ability of the offense.
Let’s not lose sight why Scott Fletcher designed “Fletch67”. At that point in time, the defense had practically NO impact on the game since everything is predominately driven by the QB or RB’s cards. The defense could be +7 and still not move the needle on the offense (i.e., still in “B” index). This is why he designed a system solely based off of the defensive rating(s). I would never consider doing a replay without using Fletch67, Sack & Interception ratings, and Forced Fumble with Recovery Charts because defense does matter. I’m adamant on this because I use the Offensive Index Finder System to determine the offensive index for EACH play. This system already accounts for the defensive points being compared against the offense’s.
With all this being said, your system would be just fine for a solo player to determine the defensive alignment during neutral downs especially if using the Basic Game or only using the +8/-8 to determine offensive index using the Master game.
OK, Greg . . . . I think I get your point.
Let me see if I’ve got your sequence of play correct. When you play a game solo, you call the offensive plays for both teams – rolling the dice on a passing play to determine the intended receiver using APBA’s “Finder” system. Then, the Offensive Index is then set by a roll of the dice, looking up the result on the game company’s sliding scale “Offensive Index Finder System.” Once this is determined you need a defensive call, just as if you were sitting across the table from a live opponent. And, this is where the Fletch67 system comes in. You roll the dice once again and use that result to determine the line setting, where the teams with the higher defensive point totals will be “right” on the line-setting call a greater percentage of the time.
I can see the logic of this approach, because it is agnostic as to down and distance, which is something that I strongly favor. But, it also seems to me that Fletch67 assumes that a team, just because it has a highly rated defense, will make more correct defensive line-setting calls during the course of a game, implying that the coaching is better just because they have better rated players . . . and I don’t know that is an absolute in my experience. And, since you are using the Offensive Index Finder System, that already takes into account the defensive points, is it possible that you are actually “double-counting” the defense’s team point value?
But, in the absence of a real coach on the other side of the table, it certainly is a viable way to determine line settings without resorting to the uncomfortable system of saying, “Well, it is second down an 2, so, therefore, 90% of the line settings will be ‘G’ because most teams will run in this situation.” I have always hated those types of defensive play calling systems, because I think they lend themselves to abuse, especially when you are calling all of the offensive plays. So, from this perspective, I can see the appeal of Fletch67.
But, I’m curious . . . . . are there nuances of this system that I’m missing or not aware of? I’m always ready to learn something new!
Ray
Ray,
Yes, I call the offensive plays for both clubs. You basically got the sequence down, I believe the only thing not mentioned is “keying/double covering” and how the type of run or pass is determined. For exactly how I do it, I’ve chronicled it several times in my “Method of Play” presentations. Since I use locator tables, the entire sequence occurs with one refresh of the screen (F9 key) and the only time that I actually roll the dice is to determine the play result.
As for the “double-counting” defensive points, you can look at it that way but I don’t. I view it as “correcting” the +8/-8 rule, where there was absolutely no difference between a defense that was +7 points better than the opposing offense or -7 points worse than the opposing offense because they both were in B index.
As for the better defense being in the proper alignment to stop the called play compared to the inferior defenses, this is the feature that I really enjoy. Why? Because I do season replays and this brings the overall statistics more in line with the actual season. In addition, the keying/double coverage innovation is tied into Fletch67 which really distinguishes the upper echelon defenses.
With all this said, if I was conducting a tournament like yourself and not a season replay, I would probably use the Defensive Coaching cards sold by the game company or this innovation instead of Fletch67. I say that because there is a good chance that those two teams didn’t actually meet during the season, speeds up preparation time and it’s a minimal amount of games being played.
Greg . . .
I’m going to study your method of play options right now! Thank you for the explanation . . .
Ray
For what it’s worth, I play as Greg does (though I never complete a full replay), but for the same reasons – I roll for every play to see what Index the Offense is in (that factors in the O vs D in terms of points, but adds variety) and then I do think the Fletch system is a fair way to “weight” the defenses in that the “better” defenses in theory are “better coached” so the line call should be better. Yes, this is an assumption, but in my mind; a fair one. I “key” in a different way than Greg; my “keying” is not based on anything other than randomness; I actually roll the dice each quarter to see what the “key” number is so it adds variety. Now, you have to be in the “best” line to trigger a possible key – D vs Pass and G vs Run OR since you can “key” in S if you guess the play type correctly, I incorporate that too; if in S align, a die roll of 1-3 = guess of pass, 4-6 = guess of run. The key number as I said varies; 1st quarter might be 4, 2nd might be 7, 3rd might be 9, etc; anything between 2 and 12. As you can see, sometimes more “keys” happen when the key number is 7 for example vs 2.
I guess this highlights one of the ways that solo football is so different from face-to-face football. As Greg Wells pointed out, the objective of the face-to-face experience is to beat the guy on the other side of the table, and good play calling should be rewarded.
I know that when I ran the Suncoast Football League in Tampa we modified the game in every way to reward good coaching. There were some quirky examples (still are) where you could end up with a better result from a worse dice roll. There was also the issue of calling the “Heavy” (or “G”) line setting on a run and having the opposing runningback score on a “1” or a “2” breakaway. We wanted to make sure that those results were modified so that the correct defensive call would ALWAYS result in a worse offensive result.
So, in the face-to-face experience, you could take an inferior opponent, but if you could “out-coach” him, it would be reflected in the outcome of the game.
When playing solo, again as Mr. Wells pointed out, the objective is to have a competitive, realistic game . . . so, I can see Mark’s logic of saying that the better defenses should be rewarded with more correct defensive calls – and, thus, the inherent logic of the Fletch67 system.
I think the “Keys” and “Double Covers” are another interesting point that merits discussion and scrutiny. On the surface, if I’m coaching against someone and they have five potential receivers on the field, it would be easy to say that each receiver should be double-covered 20% of the time. But, if one of those receivers is an A and the other four are rated C, then it would seem logical that the A receiver should receive the lion’s share of the double covers.
Should you use the Finder System to determine who to double cover? Roll once for the offense to determine who the pass is going to, and roll again for the defense, if the defensive alignment allows a double cover, to see which receiver will be double-covered?
It is an interesting argument and I would love to get some more feedback on what others reading this post think.
Ray Dunlap
I actually tried what you’re saying once Ray – I rolled to see the targeted receiver and rolled again to see if the defense keyed correctly – all based on the finder system or dice range calculator (I use that). I’m not sure what I thought to be honest. Now I have the system for keying I described above, and I like it. I do think that the challenge with a face to face game is if you truly had a team with only one legitimate RB, man – that guy is going to be keyed a lot. I suppose the move would be to run a lot of 2 TE or Full House sets and PASS out of that to limit the defense from always calling Goal Line plus the key. Maybe the the opponent then calls a Base defense and even with a correct key, it offsets. Lots of moving parts! Tons of strategy. And at the end of the day; a dice roll of 66 beats all!!!