Turning football results into useful information

The league is producing results, biographies and plenty of things to look at. Now I need to make the football information useful.

I like statistics. That doesn’t mean a page containing every number I can calculate is a good page. It may just mean I’ve found a more elaborate way to avoid choosing what matters.

What changed since the biography update

• Charts cover different scopes. Game, season and career views separate current performance from the longer record.
• The chart catalog grew. It reaches 39 player charts, 21 team statistic views and 14 advanced team analytics views in this version.
• Situational football has more detail. Third downs, rushing styles, the trenches, field position, kicking and first-half versus second-half production can be examined.
• Draft and returning-player contribution are easier to follow. I can ask what a class added to a team rather than only who was selected.
• Fantasy-point scope is clearer. Contribution and PPR figures use the selected season or competition; they don’t decide the football winner.
• Long histories load in smaller pieces. Preparing totals in the background, keeping caches under control and loading pages or sections as needed reduces unnecessary work.
• Draft completion respects the shortlist. The full-draft action considers the queue, watched prospects and legal roster needs, then retains the result.
• Financial reports and league rules are editable and inspectable. Payroll, dead cap, reserves, cap room, ranking priorities and actual receipts have defined places.

A graph still needs an explanation

The advanced views include local empirical EPA and situational success. Those labels need definitions and scope. A metric derived from this simulator’s own plays isn’t an externally validated claim about professional football.

I tried putting some of this under a Fantasy tab, then went back to the ordinary Stats route. The extra label was making the menu harder to follow. Occasionally my best contribution is removing something I was quite pleased with a few days earlier.

Saving my place should be ordinary

Filters, scroll position and expandable sections ought to survive normal navigation. If I open a player, go back and lose the list I was comparing, the game has made the decision harder for no useful reason.

The same principle applies to loading. Work started for an old screen should be canceled when I leave it. I still need to make sure a busy play log doesn’t keep doing work for a screen I’ve already closed.

Financial labels need their own care. A loan deposit is cash, but it isn’t earned revenue. Cash flow isn’t accounting profit. It turns out a bourbon preference doesn’t qualify me to rename inconvenient money columns.

Next I’m working on the game’s voice and visual identity, including the bits that help it feel like one football world.