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Is there an Offensive Explosion in Action?
During this week’s radio show, Jeff revealed that he left the league due to defense not mattering in Action PC football. Len then agreed and commented about changing the era setting in the game next season. This would reduce the offensive effectiveness of all skill players in the game.
You may have similar thoughts like:
1) Does Defense matter?
2) Are the offenses in PAFL greatly exceeding what happens in real-life?
I decided to look at the stats and see what they say. SPOILER ALERT – and boy was I surprised.
Approach:
I began by looking at the stats from PAFL season 8. These stats are found under reports, teams, team comparison charts. I looked at the offensive stats, in particular the stats on the League line at the bottom which represent the average for each team in the PAFL. I then went to pro-football-reference.com and looked up team stats based on the 2020 NFL season which are the stats on which our season 8 players were based on. Let’s dive in.
Points per game – PAFL 21.6, NFL 24.8
Yard per game – PAFL 330, NFL 359
Yards per play – PAFL 5.6, NFL 5.6
Passing yards per game – PAFL 219, NFL 240
Passing TDs season – PAFL 26.8, NFL 27.2
Passing INTs season – PAFL 9.6, NFL 12.3
Yards per passing attempt – PAFL 7.0, NFL 6.8
Rushing attempts season – PAFL 415, NFL 431
Average yard per run – PAFL 4.2, NFL 4.4
Looking at all of these numbers, you’d be hard pressed to say that last year’s PAFL offense was exaggerated as compared to real-life. In fact the only offensive stats where the PAFL exceeded the NFL were yards per passing attempt and interceptions (less interceptions in PAFL of 2.7 per team for the year).
Not seeing any concern looking at last year’s PAFL stats, I decided to look at our current stats through game 7.
Points per game – PAFLs8 21.6, PAFLs9 23.8
Yard per game – PAFLs8 330, PAFLs9 253
Yards per play – PAFLs8 5.6, PAFLs9 5.6
Passing yards per game – PAFLs8 219, PAFLs9 162
Passing TDs per game – PAFLs8 1.7, PAFLs9 1.3
Passing INTs per game – PAFLs8 0.6, PAFLs9 0.45
Yards per passing attempt – PAFLs8 7.0, PAFLs9 6.9
Rushing attempts per game – PAFLs8 26, PAFLs9 20
Average yard per run – PAFLs8 4.2, PAFLs9 4.5
Looking at these stats again no evidence of any offensive explosion. Should we entertain changing the era selection for our league next year? I believe the stats provide a resounding no answer.
I suspect some may say while the averages appear to be in-line with real-life, certainly the top teams in the PAFL have more offensive prowess than their counterparts in the NFL? If I have some time, I'll look at what the data tells us.
Posted on 24 Feb 2022 by Bears
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