The truth of 'hidden ratings'

[Dean-Atlanta]

The "STAMP" is what I call the hidden rating and works exaxtly how I described it, it determines that a player will play a bit above or below his 8 skill ratings, and explains why some players out-perform or under-perform their skill ratings. Those who refuse to belive this do so at their own peril, and inability to explain their over-performing and under-performing players.

[Dean-Atlanta]

So my guess is that Kyle Allen had a "worthless" turd designation!

Same as Justin Fields, Both got the "turd" value in the hidden "stamp" rating.

[Dean-Atlanta]

I know exactly what the hidden rating is...

CH - Coaching

That is not a rating. Coaching is what we do with players, plays, etc. and it is to a small degree affected by the actual hidden "stamp" rating in the case of the few players that are stamped anything but average.

[Rich-League Officer]

It's nonsense.
If this were true, how do you explain that each season I personally DELETE each and every rookie in the game from the files.
And then I input custom made players back into the game.

The guy in that story was yanking your chain.

If you want to make the claim that players get HOT and COLD randomly which could account for spurts of greatness, okay.
But there is no way to predict hot/cold and no proof that Jake Locker had some dynamic hidden rating. William was a great a coach.
I personally won super bowls with Grbac, Husak, Leftwich, Leinart, Henne, and Luck.
So, I must have knowledge of this hidden rating despite not being a programmer of any sort.
Or I got very lucky that every QB I drafted or traded for had this gift.

Occam's razor is a philosophical principle that states the simplest explanation is usually the best one.

COACHING.

[Dean-Atlanta]

Exactly HOW do you do the deleting and inputting of the rookies?

[Barney - Vikings]

I brought up the HOT and COLD designations because they could be the mechanism by which players could perform differently from their ratings. I always assumed HOT and COLD were random but I don’t know that for sure. Taking into account Rich’s objection, the PID number is generated by the game even though he inputs the players by hand. Let’s say that players, whose last digit of their PID is 1, are STAMPED. Then the game could just choose them to be HOT more often. I’m not saying this is what’s going on, but it is a possibility if STAMPing is really a thing.

[Mitch-Oilers]

I want to congratulate Thomas and Justin.

Somehow, evrry player they dtaft is stamped above average and they talk a lot of coaches into trading them players that are stamped above average.

1 of 3 things must be true:

- They have access to the code
- They are the luckiest guys on Earth
- They are great coaches which is the real "hidden" rating

[Rich-League Officer]

I thought about what Barney said with the PID.
That would be the only way possible for players to be randomly "stamped"
All other data for the game created rookies get deleted and replaced.
So, this magical hidden rating would have to be inside the PID.

And since nobody can see it, the distribution of players with magic over 45 seasons would be relatively even across the 30/18 teams.
Yet, we see coaches defy this over decades of coaching.
There are clear and obvious trends for all coaches.

I do find it odd that so many coaches want to believe it when they alone have complete control of their PPP.
Coaches who are losing don't stop and realize that in any given week, there is a PPP you can create to beat the best team in the league.
The plays are there but you need to find them, the profile can be adjusted to anything.
Even the 1-8 team can start over and create a perfect PPP to beat the 8-1 team.
Or you can do nothing and let the 8-1 team change his PPP and beat you because you think his QB has a hidden rating better than your guy.

But, there is no hidden rating

[Shawn-Giants]

Rich those numbers you see on the front end is just that, you don't see what's on the backend or the formulas those numbers are strings for, that .pyr file is a compiled Python file it holds more information than just the 8 attributes.

It's very possible there's some flag or formula set in there to explain this theory. I've experienced over the 20+ years of participating in leagues and simming, the very same observations others have mentioned in this thread, it's not hocus pocus or 100% attributed to coaching.

There could be some truth to this.I wouldn't be so quick to chalk it up to 100% coaching. One way to test this theory would be to sim a season with each team using the same plans all 18 teams and look at the data at the end of the season.

Remove the "coaching" aspect out of it and examine the season stats of a full season of sims with each team using the same plans to see generally how some players performed, the data would be somewhat skewed due to injuries, but you could see the top 10% of performers for each statistical group and compare their attributes, see who made it into the top 10% that doesn't have the same attributes as those in the top 10%.

[Tim-Colts]

So I was part of the NPL which had a fully simmed college league that would transfer players into the NPL after four seasons (seniors). You could see the stats, but not the ratings of the players. We then could do player invites to reveal those players abilities. You had a limited number of invites, so you would use them wisely. The commish also published a scouting report for incoming players. The abilities were randomized for four different scouts and they were reported with designations like "fast for his position" or "below average strength", etc.

I drafted a kicker in the 7th round and it put me over the limit of my roster. I asked the commish if he would send me his abilities so I could decide to keep him or my current kicker. The guy had a perfect year in college and had hit many long FG. His scout ratings were poor, but he performed well on the field, so I thought he got shorted by the scouts. Turned out his abilities ratings were terrible (like 70 IN and DI). There was no explanation how he was so good when his abilities did not match how he performed in college simming.

Realistically though, coaching makes a way bigger difference than 1 or 2 guys performing above their abilities. For every offensive play that seems unstoppable, there is a defense that can be drawn up to stop it. I personally think we have way too many plays in the play pool as this makes it very daunting to put a PPP together. Also the limitations on what can be called also makes it a real pain for me as well. I would prefer to setup a plan with run middle as run middle plays (either inside or just off tackle). Then choose run left as sweeps and run right as maybe draws. Then I could not have to change the plays as much and could decide if a team is playing weak defense for RM, then call those more that week. That to me is an easier way to manage my plan and profile. Not have to look through a list of 100 plays to find one that matches what I need for that week...