I still get surprised how pumped up I and other can get from just reading play-by-play descriptions.

Told ya we'd meet again.

Really hoped we wouldn't. Yours is really the only team in the conference I thought could knock me out. Know that Mahomes is out of the show on the other side of the bracket, the stakes are even higher.

Kinda out of ideas against your boys at this point. I think I learned a little from the first matchup that helped in the 2nd even with a depleted squad, but I'm not sure what other wrinkles I may have to throw at you.

Probably gonna be the same as the other two games - one of us will throw a brutal interception at some point and that'll turn the outcome.

I’m just glad I didn’t get sacked 15 times tonight

When the lights are bright, the brightest stars shine. We had no answer for Tyreek Hill tonight.

My offense also really bogged down late in the season. It's almost as if Phillip Rivers isn't a guy we can rely on in the clutch. But you even shut down Nick Chubb, who has been almost unstoppable this year. I shuffled the offensive line a bit, which apparently was a bad move, but we got Odell Beckham and Jonnu Smith back, so we were at full strength.

Congrats, and good luck going forward. It won't sting as much if we lost to the eventual champions.

We had too much on tape to make the same mistakes again. Defense stepped up big time. They were embarrassed in the regular season by your team. I’m assuming they wanted revenge.

How in the hell did I have the thing set for my HB2 to receive 33% of the carries, yet Ekeler (the HB2) have 14 to 10 for Carson and Carson was never targeted on a pass?

Congrats Phog and good luck the rest of the way

Yeah, I'm sure a turnover or two will be the decision maker, as in the first two matchups. Good luck. :thumb:

Riots and Covid delaying the championships games. Once again, playing in front of no fans hopefully will help Talladega as they play their 3rd playoff game on the road.

Sims are up. Sandbox Bowl matchup is set.

thanks cdcox

good game ruckdafaidas son :) That was a doozy.

Oh Man, what a penalty filled brawl fest of a game DJ and I had. Complete with many game changing TO's, a 75 yard TD by Gurley with 10 seconds left in the first half, and a sack/fumble return for a TD when the Golden Beavers were threatening to tie the game.

We needed every one if these gifts to be victorious. Good game.

:LOL: That was a doozy! Good game to you as well. I thought you had him beat when you intercepted Brady with 5 minutes left.

****ing Dak, man.

His numbers always come out okay, but he is just such a dink and dunk artist. And because he works underneath so much, he needs to have a completion% in the 70% area to be effective. He also just holds onto the ball too damn long so he takes more sacks than his pressure% says he should.

Mid 50s w/ nothing downfield just isn't gonna get it done, especially not with a sack/fumble that turns into a TD.

Our matchups just had a TON of big momentum swings. You had 2 of them in the first game and won, I had a couple in the second and won. And you outlined them pretty closely in this matchup so naturally you won.

Two very evenly matched teams that need to be on their A games to win. Dak had probably his worst game of the season (even with the running game working well) and so we came up short.

Dak's got Alex Smith written all over him in this league. Just not a dynamic enough passer to pull it out if things go even a little sideways.

Bentonville seems to be getting hot at the right time.

:thumb: He tweaked his game planning some and it seems to be working. But, his games have been close all year and the playoff games all could have easily gone either way.

Ok, well, good luck to Rukdafaidas son in the Sandbox Bowl. :thumb:

:thumb: Good luck to you as well.

Guys, let me know when you have your game plans set and I will run the sim. Should be epic.

Be honest. You were just trying to run out the clock on that Gurley play, weren't you?

My son, Brett, said he's ready.

Most likely. :p

Yeah, I'm ready also. :rockon:

Sandbox Bowl is up!

Congrats to....

Woo woo!! The 1st Annual Sandbox Bowl (2018) Champion Tulsa Trojans!!

And to honor our very own KC Chiefs...(I couldn't find a ring with a T on it) :)

https://s.ecrater.com/stores/328499/...2c_328499s.jpg

Good game Brett! :thumb:

My favorite Sandbox Bowl commercial was the one with the key lime pie, Great Dane, and submarine.

A better pichttps://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/19...g?v=1584766624

So what was your secret, Phog?

Congrats Phog! Great game!

Up next:

I’m going to take a month or two to do some work on the game. Some of this will improve the simulator.

Then:
2019 rookie draft
2019 FA
2019 simulations

Thanks cdcox..
great season Phog!

I feel like this somehow makes me even more bummed out.

This is like the Chiefs losing to the Patriots in the AFCCG in '18. I know they would've beaten the Rams had they gotten a shot at them. But they just didn't get the job done.

I know you're supposed to take satisfaction in being beaten by the eventual champion - but not when it's the semi-finals. That just makes you realize how close you were before you shit the bed.

In either event, congrats Phog. I think we can close the book on any 'best division' dialogue. Some serious firepower to deal with there. I noticed you did exactly what I've seen you do in most of your games. 3-3 game and then 3 straight TD drives.

Your boys just strafe teams. And that's a good offense, but they're also oddly inconsistent. You'll get held down for a quarter or more here and there but then pop off 24 points in a 15 minute span and all hell breaks loose. Just a difficult team to deal with - only way to beat you seems to be to force a turnover that stalls that 'run' out before it gets up to speed for you.

Well, this was fun. Congrats, Phog on the championship. Now the pressure is on you to repeat.

Looking forward to the next season later this year. Hopefully I can plug a few holes between the draft and FA.

You seem pretty confident that you would have rolled Bentonville in the bowl. You do realize you're 0-1 against Bentonville, right? :p

He's 0-1 against my Mudbugs as well. We just decided to pull a pre-Mahomes Chiefs like performance in the playoffs after going 14-2 in the regular season and only having lost to two playoff teams.

Yeah, I lost to Bentonville - by 1. And then completely shredded the offensive system after Dak threw for 4.2 YPA....FOUR POINT TWO!! Smith at his worst probably never pulled that off. I was pissed and I think I went on a 5 game winning streak from there.

And the Mudbugs also beat me...by 1. And in that game I was missing both my #1 and #2 CBs, not to mention my #1 and #2 runningbacks. As well as my best defensive lineman (which really screws me up when I don't have any solid blitzing LBs to adjust to it) and my starting G. And yeah, you were missing Ekeler, but not much else. And Carson was your #1 RB who absolutely carried the load for you. Dude went off for 245 total yards and 3 TDs - you think it would've been better had Ekeler been there? I don't imagine he's beating that performance but mostly just taking touches away from it.

Yeah, I was pretty sure I could take ya. Both. Tulsa was the squad that had me worried (and possibly facing Mahomes). And sho 'nuff, he won it.

I think we can all be pretty confident that if we played the 2018 season 100 times, the Newport Beach Neptunes would be the champions in about 85 of those.

The surprise for Newport was that our defense ended up tops in the league, which was what I was expecting given our draft focus, but the offense actually carried us for half the season while the defense was finding its rhythm. For the first half of the season, I feel like the offense was the more productive unit. Then at the end of the season the defense was rolling and the offense sputtered.

But when you had your chance, you sho 'nuff didn't......

Chiefs lost to the Titans AND the Texans during the regular season.

How'd that go in the post-season?

I'll let y'all decide who is who.

I need that draft in a big way.

I think I've focused in on a couple of serious problem areas and one thing I did in this league and the other was stagger contracts well and draft mostly young players (though I took over 4 or 5 rounds in so a couple of picks were made that I'd have never gone with).

Obviously everyone's in the same boat there, though. But I left myself no FA rollover precisely because I intended to keep the roster mostly intact for 3-4 years and supplement with draft picks. I gotta get those right.

coulda, woulda, shoulda. But didn't. 0-2 :thumb:

So you're the Texans? I mean the Mudbugs essentially ran the ball down everyone's throat so I assume they'll pick the Titans in this scenario...

Well, my offense was never a problem, except during the end of the season what with all the injuries.

The key was making some adjustments for the _efense through the first half of the season. And similar to the Chiefs this year, they came through with some very good games the last half and the playoffs.

So I guess those adjustments payed off. And some luck along the way also.

Thanks everyone for the congrats. :thumb:

ROFL Actually, I'm the Joplin Red Rockets, but I thought I would try to knock your cockiness down a couple of notches.
The only thing I've learned so far in Sandbox is that I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing or what an outcome of a game is going to be.

I feel like I have a pretty good handle on it. I had 3 seasons (2 teams; 1 for only 1 year, IIRC) in V1.0 and I won the bowl and lost in the CG twice. In this setup I lost in the damn CG again and then missed the playoffs at 10-6 in the other league due to tiebreakers.

So in 5 seasons with 4 different squads and largely different strategies, I've never had a season worse than 10-6, have advanced to 3 CGs and won a title.

It's a pretty solid track record. But like I said when this all started back up, we've never REALLY done much that wasn't in the rearview and that sort of ability to predict what players WILL do (rather than gameplan based on what they DID do) is going to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think I'll be okay there, but I truly have no idea. I may really suck at this 3 years from now...

Pretty good track record, for sure.
This was our first year. We're both definitely happy with how we finished, but I don't think I learned a whole lot on how to get better with game planning. It seemed like whatever changes that I made didn't make much difference in the games.
I did learn how to do better at drafting and free agency, though. Without knowing exactly what was involved in game planning, I didn't know enough about which players to target. For example, I thought that I would focus on a RB that excels at receiving, to go along with Mahomes. Not knowing that I wouldn't be able to game plan how my RB would be used (rushing/receiving) I drafted James White too high.
I had a really good time playing and I'm looking forward to next season.

CD may/may not be willing to confirm this, but how your RB is used depends in massive part on how he performed.

You can't necessarily gameplan to force throws to your RBs, no. But if you have a RB that was a really good pass catcher and you give him the reps (especially if you make him a 3rd down back and have your setting aligned to throw a lot on 3rd), he'll get a lot of throws.

I built up a ton of RB depth in both leagues primarily through mid-late round picks and the passes to RBs vary based on which RB I have out there. It sure seems to make a difference.

The issue you faced is one of fit, IMO. Mahomes has stats that reflect his tendencies - he likes to get downfield with the ball and will check down only if necessary. Well you had Kittle and Cooks. Oftentimes Sammy Watkins as well. You had some dudes that could play and get open so if they are, Mahomes is gonna go to them with his RB as a last resort.

I think that's why I just struggled like mad to get Dak to go downfield (ultimately failed and probably should've dialed down the passing to compensate instead of trying to force an efficient round peg into a bomber's square hole) - because in 2018 (those are the stats we're working from), he just didn't do it that often. 7.4 Y/A despite a 67% completion percentage and a really mediocre QBR supports that - dude just wasn't very aggressive. My hope is that 2019, because of increased stats and more aggressive tendencies from him, yields a far more downfield oriented attack. His YPA went up to 8.2 with his completion percentage actually dropping by more than 2 points. He was clearly more aggressive in '19. Because that seems to be how this thing trends and ultimately I'm 'bout out of ideas when it comes to getting him to get the ball downfield a bit or at LEAST get the damn thing out of your hand when there's pressure.

That's my theory anyway. All of this stuff is about performance and fit, then trying to adjust your gameplans as needed to maximize what each respective player did that season.

"Hey, phog! You better hope I never get back in there, or I'm gonna kick yo' a**!" /Lawrence Taylor

That makes some sense about fit.
I just had a similar discussion with my son about Brady. Brady failed him in a lot of games this year. Crucial turnovers, etc. He was dogging his performance in the bowl because he only had around 50 % completion rate and a 6 YPA average. I asked who his TE's were and told him that IRL Brady needs good TE's to be good and that maybe that was the case in Sandbox as well.

Brady in '18 appears to be a lot like Dak was in '18. A little more aggressive, but probably not in the top half in that regard.

I dunno if the game is quite that specific (could be), but with two shitty TEs and only one reliable target (who should probably be a good fit for Brady; Cooper's an excellent route runner and intermediate WR), he definitely appeared to be a little undermanned so yeah, that probably forces him underneath to his check-down guys.

I'm not wholly convinced he needs a pair of elite TEs because like I said - not sure the sim is THAT narrowly drawn, but he definitely needs chain-movers. I think that's why Julio was really good for me - Dak, playing a similar style to Brady, had a premier chain-mover to work with. He also had a secondary weapon in Goedert (who is REALLY good, fellas. He'd be a top 10 TE in the league, at worst, but for Ertz). I think Robinson will have a better year for me next season w/ a more aggressive quarterback (based on his 2019 performance) but he's more of a downfield guy, IMO, and it showed in his disappointing production this year.

But what I think is really interesting is a point in favor of my theory - Barkley is a good pass-catching RB. But he's not quite James White in terms of efficiency (especially on a per snap, not per touch basis) and he's not quite as productive. James White meets/exceeds Barkley in the passing game even with far more limited usage in terms of snaps. But for the sake of discussion I think it's fair to just use one as a proxy for the other.

Had Barkley been on your Joplin squad and White on his Bentonville one, I think White floors Barkley's receiving stats even though Barkley's a 'better' player with a far better QB. But said better QB just doesn't use his RBs as much if he can avoid it. And if you put a lousy pass-catching RB w/ Brady, I think that RB will be pretty crappy in that regard as well because it's probably something of a calculus. The quarterback may drive more attempts to your RB, but if there's nothing in his resume to suggest he's actually a good pass-catching back, you won't see a lot of efficiency out of it.

Congrats, PHOG! The rookie draft will be fun, but I can't wait for FA... (Fondly remembers the blood bath that was Richard Sherman)

I wonder if anyone knows who won the 1st Annual Sandbox Bowl? (Asking for a friend.)

League 1 or League 2?

League 1, version 1.0?

My Clearwater squad in 2012 led by Aaron Rodgers, Percy Harvin (a STUD in that system) and Dez Bryant.

I had no idea it went back that far.

Who won in league 1? For 2018

It doesn’t really. It’s gone through 3 total seasons. It was dormant for a long while.

Magic Hef

Aha! :thumb:

:)

So hey...'sup?

Rona apparently

The East and West headquarters just had a summit meeting this week. We'll be starting up the new season relatively soon. Just working on a few data issues.

By the way, we're open for commercial business. If anyone has a network of people who want to play, we can give you a referral code, and you'll get a commission payment for anyone who signs up with that code. Hit me up if you're interested.

you guys all still in this for new season? Kinda dead around here....

Someone can have my team.

I just don’t have the time for it.

I'm trying to post on the sandbox site.

You interested in doing the rookie draft for your team? It starts tomorrow.

Are all the drafts at the same time? Im running two teams and that could get hectic.

The two playtest leagues will indeed be simultaneous. But we have enough time for picks that I figure it won't be problematic. We'll just have to remember which team has which needs.

I have two teams. You’ll be fine.

Ok let me check it out. I can probably do that. If I enjoy it maybe I’ll keep my team.

Good to hear!

Also, the draft starts within a couple hours from
Now I believe.

It ran the full hour for the Saint Joseph Samurai pick, but it doesn't show that they picked anyone.

I click on Play once I'm logged in and it goes no where?

Appears everything is down. Cox posted a message.

I should get an email once everything gets ironed out right and it's my pick?

One would hope, but I’m not getting my hopes up

Works for me now.

I am drafting mid round.

You should. The email notifications during the draft always terrify me, though. Not because I think they won't work, but if it goes into a spam folder or something it's a big problem. So I build and lock my draft board just in case.

Welcome back! We knew you wouldn't leave us.