WarEagle wrote:
Does anyone know what constitutes short, medium and long in regards to gameplanning?
For example, 3rd and long is what? Greater than 7 yards?
Thanks
It actually "fuzzy" - it adjusts depending on your offensive success. It starts out where 1st and 5 - 15 is medium, 2nd and 4 - 11 is medium, 3rd and 3 - 9 is medium, and 4th and 2 - 7 is medium (so 3rd and long is 3rd and 9+) but as the game progresses, if you are averaging more than 5 yards per play, your "short" distance will be lengthened, and conversely if you are averaging fewer than 5 yards per play it will be shortened.
For the technical answer, after each play the line between "short" and "medium" (which begins at 5) is adjusted based on the "GP Distance Adjustment Speed" in your Misc Gameplan. If you leave it at the default 5, and your first play is a 10-yard gain, then the new short line is 5% of the most recent play plus 95% of the previous value - so 0.5 + 4.75 = 5.25. The medium/long line is 3 times the short/medium line. What this does is it moves you away from long play calls if your team is moving the ball efficiently, the idea being that if your running game is working you'll use it more. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th downs are using the same distance but multiplied by 0.75, 0.60, and 0.50 respectively.
You can change the adjustment speed (I need to restrict it to max at 10, because more than that you will get some really crazy play calling) - and you can set it to 0 to predictably know the down and distance if the fuzzy logic makes you nervous. (You can also use gameplan rules to specifically set play calling based on a fixed down and distance).
I need to write a blog entry about this, because it definitely merits a longer discussion. Let me know if that makes sense, if not I'll try to explain it better :-)
