Whether you play the Master Game or the Basic Game, you have no doubt noticed some odd results on the Medium Pass chart.  What I am referring to is the results which are significantly less than what you would expect on a normal Medium Pass.  

At this point, for the sake of clarification, allow me to explain what I mean by that.  According to the charts, Long Passes are those that are 30 or more yards; Medium Passes are those falling in the 15-30 yard category; Short Passes are those that are 14 yards or less.

So, to return back to my point, why are there some Medium Pass results listing just 4 yards gained?  Can you imagine using you index finder and being all set to throw a Medium  Pass from Tua to Tyreek, and then getting just 4 yards on the play?  That’s ridiculous. A REAL medium Pass should be 15 yards downfield, so there is no way that Tyreek would be catching a medium Pass for just 4 yards.

I recently discussed this with Greg Barath, and it was his belief that the yardage was intended to be like a safety valve pass, to another receiver, other than the actual intended receiver.  I agree.  So, for purely aesthetic purposes, I came up with an innovation to remedy that.  It works like this:

The reception stands, but it no longer goes to Tyreek.  Instead, the pass goes to a back.  I roll on a special index just for Running backs, and that player is awarded the pass.  I do not mess with adjusting the total due to the pass receiving grade.  The result was already provided in the original.  All that I am really doing is redistributing the pass to a player who is more likely to receiver that pass, than a player like Tyreek.

Okay, what does it do to the game?  Not much.  The QB’s completion remains intact.  Tyreek loses a reception, and some back (probably a C-receiver) picks up an extra one.  I’ve tested this several times and the play only comes up about 2 or 3 times a game. 

(Here’s the math, if you desire it:  Teams generally have 60 plays a game.  Or most modern teams, they pass the ball 60 percent of the time, so that would be 36 pass plays a game. If you use the 60/40 (Short Pass/Medium Pass ratio, then 21.6 of those passes would be Short Passes, and 14.4 would be Medium Passes.  So, as you can see, a change of just 2-3 per game really won’t do very much to change anything, other than to provide a more realistic result to a more realistic layer position. 

Note: If you prefer fewer changes, no one says that you have to count everything less than 15 yards as a dump off pass.  I can easily see the category of 10-14 yards being considered as being a Medium Pass on the border where the receiver ran backwards or laterally trying to make a big play.  In fact, there are 75 play results on the Basic Game Medium Pass boards, and 27 of those results would fall into the 10-14 category.  That would significantly lower the potential changes.  This is an option to this innovation.

If you are conducting replays like Greg does, you can use this innovation, or not.  If you are a random game player like me, you will probably like this because the result “looks better” from an aesthetic position.  To me, this is similar to changing that 85-yard TD pass to some 256-pound fullback that has just scored on a Short Pass play.  That just doesn’t “look right” to me. 

Finally, I just want to restate that this doesn’t change anything.  The game totals are the same.  It merely redistributes the play results to a position player that would be more likely to catch that kind of pass.