Mount Rushmore of NFL(-ish) Video Games

[Rupert Patrick]

Played many games of Strategy as well. Fun game. Anyone else rub their fingers to the bone flicking that little bead?

This was Dr. Frank Ryan's game. He was of course a mathematician and used three years worth of NFL play by play data to create the outcomes, and for a game from the era when you weren't playing actual teams but generic teams, it was and remains a very realisic game.

[JohnBowen]

Loved that one as well. They also had a "briefcase" edition with a pigskin "texture" to it. The briefcase edition used dice to replace the randomizer bead & spring. The cool part about Tudor Games NFL Strategy was that it taught you a little bit about hash marks and their effect on play calling for both o and d.

[Rupert Patrick]

Loved that one as well. They also had a "briefcase" edition with a pigskin "texture" to it. The briefcase edition used dice to replace the randomizer bead & spring. The cool part about Tudor Games NFL Strategy was that it taught you a little bit about hash marks and their effect on play calling for both o and d.

I have the briefcase version, which costs a little more than the regular game but is worth it if you can pick up a cheap copy.

[Byron]

Paper and cards. I loved Stats Pro Football by Avalon Hill.

I'm also a board game guy. Off the top of my head, I have APBA, Strat-O-Matic, Statis Pro, TSG1, T.H.E., Paydirt/SI Pro Football, Fran Tarkenton's Game/Vince Lombardi's Game/Be A Pro Quarterback (different editions of the same game but the Tark game had beautiful much higher quality components), Canadian Pro Football, 21-Zip, and Booth's Pro Conference in my collection...not to mention multiple seasons of most.

My friends and I replayed the full 1972, 73 and 74 seasons on Vince Lombardi's Game back in the day. A simple, but mostly realistic, game that played smoothly. It was somewhat similar to Paydirt except you had 23 offensive plays and 8 defensive calls to choose from, rather than only 9 and 6.

The 23 offensive plays were broken down to inside and outside runs, draw plays, screen passes, and short, medium and long passes, each to individual running back and receiver positions. Each player on every team was rated in the advanced version but I preferred the intermediate version where I would rate each team's effectiveness on each individual play. The play rating was usually 6 (weak), 7 (average), or 8 (strong). The intermediate version of the game gave each team's defense one overall rating, again usually 6, 7, or 8, but I split the rating into effectiveness against the run and pass so a team strong against the run but weak against the pass would have an 8/6 rating. The offensive play rating would compare to the applicable defense rating on each play to see if an up or down adjustment of the dice roll is required and the defensive call impacts the level of success the offensive play can have.

Games only took about an hour which is pretty quick for a board football game. Thankfully, I still have the records of all of the game scores from the three seasons. After 40+ years I can still remember playing a few of the more memorable games with fantastic finishes when I see the scores.

I'm a Strat-O-Matic fan, although I have played and enjoyed Paydirt and some others as well. I consider Stat far and away the best simulation game for Pro Football. I had a hand in creating the 1965 season cards and I created the 1948 AAFC and NFL cards (with Mike Kane, who had the computer program to test them for accuracy). I'm working on the 1947 AAFC now. Love that game and love creating old teams for it!

[Rupert Patrick]

Paper and cards. I loved Stats Pro Football by Avalon Hill.

I'm also a board game guy. Off the top of my head, I have APBA, Strat-O-Matic, Statis Pro, TSG1, T.H.E., Paydirt/SI Pro Football, Fran Tarkenton's Game/Vince Lombardi's Game/Be A Pro Quarterback (different editions of the same game but the Tark game had beautiful much higher quality components), Canadian Pro Football, 21-Zip, and Booth's Pro Conference in my collection...not to mention multiple seasons of most.

My friends and I replayed the full 1972, 73 and 74 seasons on Vince Lombardi's Game back in the day. A simple, but mostly realistic, game that played smoothly. It was somewhat similar to Paydirt except you had 23 offensive plays and 8 defensive calls to choose from, rather than only 9 and 6.

The 23 offensive plays were broken down to inside and outside runs, draw plays, screen passes, and short, medium and long passes, each to individual running back and receiver positions. Each player on every team was rated in the advanced version but I preferred the intermediate version where I would rate each team's effectiveness on each individual play. The play rating was usually 6 (weak), 7 (average), or 8 (strong). The intermediate version of the game gave each team's defense one overall rating, again usually 6, 7, or 8, but I split the rating into effectiveness against the run and pass so a team strong against the run but weak against the pass would have an 8/6 rating. The offensive play rating would compare to the applicable defense rating on each play to see if an up or down adjustment of the dice roll is required and the defensive call impacts the level of success the offensive play can have.

Games only took about an hour which is pretty quick for a board football game. Thankfully, I still have the records of all of the game scores from the three seasons. After 40+ years I can still remember playing a few of the more memorable games with fantastic finishes when I see the scores.

I'm a Strat-O-Matic fan, although I have played and enjoyed Paydirt and some others as well. I consider Stat far and away the best simulation game for Pro Football. I had a hand in creating the 1965 season cards and I created the 1948 AAFC and NFL cards (with Mike Kane, who had the computer program to test them for accuracy). I'm working on the 1947 AAFC now. Love that game and love creating old teams for it!

I worked with some people about ten years back who were trying to new create Paydirt charts for the 30 best teams of the Super Bowl era. We never got very far, as we were disagreeing over the type of charts we should use. There were three different designs for Paydirt charts, which is one reason why you can't play the early years teams against the late 70's early 80's teams, or those teams against the later 80's early 90's teams, and we were trying to create charts you could play teams from different eras. One of the guys had actually purchased the formulas for creating one of the chart designs from one of the three chart creators. Of course he never gave us much information of the formulas to create the charts, but I asked him a couple times and never got an answer to the question of what if a team or a runner is not good at the draw play, or if a particular runner excels at running outside but not so much running inside. Board games never get this right, they could never work this into their formulas because they just didn't have the stats. I believe the video games have got this right, that these days games like the Madden games analyze every run the runner runs and knows his strengths and weaknesses and programs them into his digital character.

I don't play Strat-O-Matic, but I am curious if you are able to make adjustments to the players cards based on observation (for example, if film study indicated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jim Brown was much better on end runs than running draw plays) or if all the formulas are very rigid and if you start monkeying with them you get all kinds of problems?

[sheajets]

Really liked Madden 95. Got a lot of mileage out of it. Was a great simulation and did a good job eliminating many sure thing "cheat" plays. It had realistic scores, stats, injuries that would last quarters, weeks, full seasons.

Enjoyed Madden 96 as well but its reputation isn't as good.

[Byron]

I worked with some people about ten years back who were trying to new create Paydirt charts for the 30 best teams of the Super Bowl era. We never got very far, as we were disagreeing over the type of charts we should use. There were three different designs for Paydirt charts, which is one reason why you can't play the early years teams against the late 70's early 80's teams, or those teams against the later 80's early 90's teams, and we were trying to create charts you could play teams from different eras.

Board games never get this right, they could never work this into their formulas because they just didn't have the stats. I believe the video games have got this right, that these days games like the Madden games analyze every run the runner runs and knows his strengths and weaknesses and programs them into his digital character.

I don't play Strat-O-Matic, but I am curious if you are able to make adjustments to the players cards based on observation (for example, if film study indicated beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jim Brown was much better on end runs than running draw plays) or if all the formulas are very rigid and if you start monkeying with them you get all kinds of problems?

No, you cannot alter the cards (within the game design) but the cards do reflect the player's, as well as the team's, strengths and weaknesses. For example, a Fullback that ran up the middle will have a strong Linebuck and/or Off-Tackle card but their end run won't be nearly as effective. Same with Halfbacks that ran a lot of sweeps--strong end runs but less effective in the middle. The rankings of the offensive line also factor in very strongly and, of course, the defense can be weaker or stronger in different areas as well. QBs are the same: they can be strong in the flats, short, and/or long passing game. The really good ones are strong in all three.

Strat has adapted their card-making as more information has become available. So the overall design remains stable (you can play across eras if you choose) but the additional information has been included in a way that doesn't break the design.

I used to play Paydirt with a friend and found it to be a lot of fun, although a bit generic for my taste. I never realized that there were multiple versions!

I played Madden once--but that was many years ago. I remember playing the 51 Rams against the 93 Cowboys and Emmitt Smith had over 300 yards rushing. The stats were terrible IMHO. If they've actually made it a simulation (as opposed to electric football on the screen), then I can only consider that a good thing.

[Rupert Patrick]

I used to play Paydirt with a friend and found it to be a lot of fun, although a bit generic for my taste. I never realized that there were multiple versions!

There were three different chart designs. The 1969-71 versions were designed by David Neft, who also created the similar SI Baseball Game from the same era with the color coded team charts. The 1969 and 1970 versions were called Sports Illustrated Pro Football, then became Paydirt. Neft also did the original charts for the Sports Illustrated College Football which became Bowl Bound, and he also did the Sports Illustrated Baseball game, which was I think 1971, 72 and 73, with color coded charts for each player on each team. This morphed into Super Star Baseball which had a separate card for each player. Neft of course was the brains behind the MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia and the Neft Cohen sports encyclopedias.

After the original Paydirt release, it wasn't until after 1976 when Avalon Hill began to release annual Paydirt charts for each team of the previous season. By this point a guy named Thomas Nicely had come up with his own chart design, which I think he used until 1984 or so. At that point James Barnes (who created the Statis Pro games) was brought in to create the Paydirt charts and he had his own formula for creating them, which he did until Avalon Hill stopped producing Paydirt after the 1992 season. The problem with this is you can't play a team with the Neft charts against a team with the Nicely or Barnes charts because they just don't play well. If I remember correctly, one of the later charts (Nicely or Barnes) were designed in such a way that they will almost always defeat the two other style charts.

As board games go, the 1969 and 1970 Sports Illustrated Pro Football games can be found on Ebay relatively cheaply, but the baseball games are pricey. And those two early seasons of Paydirt were my personal favorites. At the 2010 PFRA meeting in Canton, i was fortunate enough to meet David Neft, and one night at supper was seated next to Neft and John Thorn, and there was a lot of fascinating discussion. If you have never attended a PFRA meeting, this is why you have to attend. You never know who might show up.

[JohnBowen]

I own and still play Strat-O-Matic and Paydirt/BowlBound. All great games. Two things:
1. Wish I had more time to enjoy
2. Always looking for a better way to play solo

Football Strategy by Avalon Hill was a matrix based game that is simple, but very underrated. Can be played quickly and really offers an opportunity to "get in your opponent's head".

[Byron]

I own and still play Strat-O-Matic and Paydirt/BowlBound. All great games. Two things:
1. Wish I had more time to enjoy
2. Always looking for a better way to play solo

Football Strategy by Avalon Hill was a matrix based game that is simple, but very underrated. Can be played quickly and really offers an opportunity to "get in your opponent's head".

For Strat, go to http://www.stratfanforum.com/sffipb/ (you have to register) and to the football forum. There are a lot of solitaire players there and they regularly share ideas, tips, etc. There's a current thread here: http://www.stratfanforum.com/sffipb/top ... solitaire/.