NFL Super Sim - A Season of Vikings Simulations

Let's see how the Vikings do against the Lions and Steelers in their Week 13 and 14 matchups...





I knew my simulator hated the Steelers, but wow! It seems the first half of the Vikings-Steelers game was not a surprise to it.

Super Sim W-L: 6-7
Real Life W-L: 6-7

I predict the simulator will have us beating the Bears twice and then losing to the Packers and Rams, thus finishing 8-9 - just like how it actually happened. Any bets on what the Packers win % is once I put Mannion in?

Now that I think about it, if you really want to know what the win % will be, you could just go onto my simulator, sub out Cousins for Mannion, and then let it rip...

I was planning on having my 'calculated line' present on my Depth Chart Preview articles that I publish every Friday/Saturday before a game. I do need to work out how the home field advantage will be worked in for different stadiums. Just had a thought - I should increase the chance of false starts if you're the away team.

Ooh, now that gives me another idea - perhaps I could have a toggle for 'unfair refs'. You could have a team get constantly screwed by penalties, basically emulating a 'fixed' game. Now we can properly simulate the 2009 championship vs the Saints! 

So you don't have injuries yet in your simulator right? Because I just realized something. In Madden, offenses are noticeably better when injuries are off. And I got the data.

with injuries off:

4% more scoring
3% more yards
6% more passing TD's
4% fewer sacks
2% fewer INT
2% more rushing TD's
3% better 3rd down conv rate
3% higher FG pct
16-18% fewer kick and punt return TD's

I sim'd 20 seasons on each setting. So without injuries, I wouldn't calibrate the sim to be NFL-like, because with injuries you'll have a 1970's NFL simulator lol. I haven't checked your averages yet because I'm waiting for the version that has stat exporting.

Welllll that escalated quickly.

You make it seem like I just have all my good ideas at once.

We'll get there.

Whoa, how'd you know I was watching Breaking Bad again? Are you stalking me? I'll have Jesse rush over some of that Blue Sky that Heisenberg has been cooking up. I hear it's the bomb dot com yo.

There are people/sites out there tracking NFL ref stats, you might approach it from that angle instead of trying to come up with something from scratch.   But you would likely have to pay for advanced/deeper metrics like which refs are harder on which teams, etc.

That would only give you part of the picture anyway. What about the penalties that aren't being called on teams, like holding on the Packers? The poor coaching/low awareness thing might be a good idea though.

I was keeping track once upon a time, but I haven't updated the database since 2017 xD. Back then Clete Blakeman (47 calls against Vikings, 33 on opponents) was our least friendly ref. Ironically we went 4-2 in his games though. Meanwhile we were 0-4 in Ron Winter (37/27) games. And Tony Corrente (67/105) favored us the most, but we were only 5-6 in his games. Plus he's the twat that missed that smash to the face on Sam Bradford on a game tying 2 point conversion against the Cowboys.

Guess who the Packers 2nd favorite ref was? Clete Blakeman (31/52). The Packers won both games against the Vikings when he reffed. Walt Coleman (43/71) was up there too and the Packers went 8-0 in his games.

Ofc these were only the crew leaders and you'd probably need to look at which refs were actually throwing the flags.