For those of you unfamiliar with the Almighty Tecmo, here's the story. If you don't care, you can skip ahead to the good stuff.
2000 was my freshman year at Penn State, and being as socially maladjusted and uninterested in consuming alcohol as I was, I had an ungodly amount of free time on my hands. I chose to spend a fair chunk of it hacking the 2000 NFL rosters into Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition for the SNES, and then, a week before the 2000 season began, simulating the entire season, game by game, running every game as CPU vs. CPU (the emulator's frameskip, or 'fast forward', function, immensely helps with this).
At the end of the season, Tecmo predicted that the Baltimore Ravens (8-8 in 1999) would defeat the New York Giants (7-9 in 1999) in Super Bowl 35.
That both those teams even made the playoffs was surprising enough to me and to everyone else on earth. As it happened, Tecmo correctly guessed eight of the 12 playoff teams, not half bad either. So after updating the rosters to reflect various injuries, I ran the entire playoffs again, using a particular system (summarized below).
Tecmo not only again predicted the Ravens would beat the Giants for the championship; it got every single game right. 11-0.
I've never run the full playoffs again since then; instead, I just run the conference championship games and the Super Bowl. And I missed a couple of years in there (2002, 2003). But Tecmo's all-time record to the present time is 28-1. And the one miss kind of has an asterisk, in that it actually projected a tie in the 2004 AFC Championship; I had to decide on a fair way to break the tie, and broke it on which team won more of the five simulations. That was the Steelers. The Patriots blew the Steelers out, of course.
Consider the Almighty Tecmo's performance last year, when it predicted:
- That the Steelers would beat the Ravens in a low scoring game;
- That one big reason why the Steelers would win was because Troy Polamalu would take an interception to the house;
- That the Cardinals would beat the Eagles largely because of Larry Fitzgerald going bonkers;
- That Larry Fitzgerald would go bonkers again in the Super Bowl, but the Steelers would edge them out anyway and Ben Roethlisberger would win the MVP.*
Short version of how this works: I've hacked the current rosters into TSB3. I will run five simulations of each game and record the scores and important happenings of each. I then calculate each team's mean and median score of the five simulations, then average those two numbers. That's its Tecmo Projected Score.
The projections begin after the jump.
So, let's get to business.2009 AFC Championship: Indianapolis Colts vs. New York Jets
Simulation One
Colts 0 7 0 3 10
Jets 0 7 7 7 21
2Q: S. Greene 29 yard run (0-7)
2Q: P. Manning 8 yard pass to D. Clark (7-7)
3Q: M. Sanchez 27 yard pass to J. Cotchery (7-14)
4Q: M. Stover 41 yard field goal (10-14)
4Q: T. Jones 1 yard run (10-21)
SACKS: Freeney, Mathis, Douglas 2
INT: None
FUM LOST: Addai (2nd Q)
INJURIES: Jerraud Powers (1st Q), Gary Brackett (2nd Q),
The Colts blocked a punt in the first quarter.
At the start of the second, the Jets had 1st and goal on the Colts' 1. They ran up the gut for no gain three times, then went for it on 4th, and Sanchez comically overthrew a dumpoff.
Late in the 3rd, the Colts got a long kickoff return to put them on the Jets' 25. On first down, Manning overthrew a wide open Pierre Garcon in the end zone; the Colts went 3-and-out and then missed the field goal.
For God knows what reason, the Jets ran a fake punt on the subsequent drive, and failed.
The Jets dominated this game. Sanchez missed several open receivers, or this might have been 35-10 or 42-10.
The Colts incessantly tried to run, run, run the ball, even though they equally incessantly sucked at it.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Jerricho Cotchery (3 receptions, 104 yards, 1 TD)
Simulation Two
Colts 0 0 7 0 7
Jets 7 0 3 0 10
1Q: M. Sanchez 33 yard pass to J. Cotchery (0-7)
3Q: J. Feely 44 yard field goal (0-10)
3Q: J. Addai 3 yard run (7-10)
SACKS: Pouha, Thomas, Freeney, Session, Mathis, Pace
INT: Lacey (4th Q)
FUM LOST: Wayne (1st Q)
INJURIES: Dwight Freeney (2nd Q), Gary Brackett (2nd Q), Shonn Greene (2nd Q), Kelvin Hayden (2nd Q),
The Colts ran a fake field goal on the Jets' 1 on the opening drive. It failed.
The Colts blocked a punt in the second quarter.
The Colts got consistently strong kick/punt returns, but never broke one.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Jerricho Cotchery (4 receptions, 133 yards)
So far, Tecmo likes the Jets, because (1) The Colts are suffering absurd injuries, (2) the Colts keep trying to run, (3) Even though Sanchez sucks, they complete several long passes to Cotchery each sim, (4) The Colts commit extremely ill-timed turnovers and generally do dumb stuff, (5) the Jets are able to run consistently, and then use it to set up play-fake-throw-deep.
Simulation Three
Colts 0 7 9 0 16
Jets 7 0 7 7 21
1Q: S. Pouha 17 yard blocked punt return (0-7)
2Q: P. Manning 18 yard pass to P. Garcon (7-7) (AWESOME PLAY BY GARCON)
3Q: P. Manning 37 yard pass to P. Garcon - XP missed (13-7)
3Q: M. Stover 39 yard field goal (16-7)
3Q: M. Sanchez 50 yard pass to B. Edwards (16-14)
4Q: M. Sanchez 34 yard pass to D. Keller (16-21) (AWESOME PLAY BY KELLER)
SACKS: Ellis, Pouha, Muir, Pace
INT: Hayden (1Q, in the Colts' end zone), Powers (1Q), Hayden (3Q)
FUM LOST: Edwards (3Q), Baskett (4Q)
INJURIES: Lowery (1Q), Garcon (4Q)
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Braylon Edwards (2 receptions, 79 yards, TD)
Hank Baskett, filling in for injured Pierre Garcon, caught the Colts' last-gasp pass, and struggling to get it in on the Jets' 5, fumbled.
Joseph Addai was actually excellent in this game (16 carries, 100 yards).
The same theme repeats itself every sim: The Colts are suffering a lot of injuries; the Colts' offensive gameplan is stupid; Reggie Wayne doesn't exist; and the Jets REPEATEDLY play fake and hit wide open receivers deep, despite how much Sanchez sucks.
Not that losing was especially his fault, but Matt Stover missed an extra point and a 26 yard field goal.
Simulation Four
Colts 3 0 6 21 30
Jets 0 7 14 0 21
1Q: Matt Stover 29 yard field goal (3-0)
2Q: S. Greene 6 yard run (3-7)
3Q: P. Manning 6 yard pass to D. Clark - XP missed (9-7)
3Q: M. Sanchez 30 yard pass to J. Cotchery (9-14)
3Q: M. Sanchez 34 yard pass to B. Edwards (9-21)
4Q: P. Manning 12 yard pass to D. Clark (16-21)
4Q: J. Addai 16 yard run (23-21)
4Q: P. Manning 21 yard pass to R. Wayne (30-21)
SACKS: Brackett, Mathis, Green 2, Scott, A. Johnson, Freeney
INT: Bullitt (Hail Mary at end of 1st half), Lacey (4th Q), Bullitt (Hail Mary on final play)
FUM LOST: None
INJURIES: Calvin Pace (1st Q), Jerraud Powers (3rd Q)
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Peyton Manning (58%, 210 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT)
The Jets ran a fake punt on 4th and 15 on their opening drive, and failed.
The Colts returned the favor, almost exactly, in the second quarter.
In the third, the Colts got a long kick return to set up a touchdown. Brad Smith took the Colts' kickoff to the Colts' 30, and Sanchez play faked and hit Edwards for the touchdown on the next play.
After scoring early in the 4th, the Colts recovered an onside kick, then went down the field and scored again.
Simulation Five
Colts 0 10 9 10 29
Jets 7 7 0 0 14
1Q: D. Revis 89 yard interception return (0-7)
2Q: P. Manning 16 yard pass to P. Garcon (7-7)
2Q: Matt Stover 24 yard field goal (10-7)
2Q: N. Mangold 51 yard fumble return (on punt return) (10-14)
3Q: P. Wheeler tackles S. Greene in Jets end zone (12-14)
3Q: P. Manning 10 yard pass to P. Garcon (19-14)
4Q: P. Manning 17 yard pass to P. Garcon (26-14)
4Q: M. Stover 38 yard field goal (29-14)
SACKS: Mathis, Freeney, A. Johnson, Ellis
INT: Revis (1st Q), Hayden (1st Q), Powers (last play of game)
FUM LOST: Simpson (2nd Q), T. Jones (4th Q)
INJURIES: Calvin Pace (2nd Q)
On the opening drive, the Jets went for it on 4th and 1 in their own territory, ran left and failed.
At halftime the Jets had 16 yards of total offense, and led 14-10.
Total offense (game): Colts 274, Jets 73.
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Joseph Addai (13 carries, 151 yards)
TECMO'S IMPRESSIONS:
This is going to be one of those soulcrushing playoff losses for the Colts. Stupid playcalling, and despite good enough stats, Manning is going to suck, constantly throwing to the wrong receivers and dumping the ball off. Especially in the last sim, after Revis took that pass to the house, Manning didn't throw deep again all game.
Despite that, Manning threw only one interception in the five sims, which was taken to the house by Darrelle Revis. In general, Reggie Wayne was all but invisible. Pierre Garcon got the lion's share of the receiving yards.
Also, the Colts are going to allow at least one touchdown in a weird way, some kind of return.
Any and all attempts to go for it on 4th down and/or run a fake FG/punt will fail.
I have never seen so many injuries. Especially, look for the Colts to get racked by injuries, and early in the game.
Tecmo expects Mark Sanchez to throw multiple interceptions--but also to complete multiple deep bomb touchdowns off play fakes.
Tecmo expects the Jets' running game to be good enough to grind out yardage and make the play fakes effective, but never really to break a long run or take over the game.
Tecmo expects the Colts to run a LOT, but can't decide whether it's totally ineffective (sims 1-3) or very effective (sims 4-5).
If the Jets do win, expect Jerricho Cotchery to be the story of the game.
THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE...
Mean Scores:
Colts: (10 + 7 + 16 + 30 + 29 = 92) / 5 = 18.4 = 18
Jets: (21 + 10 + 21 + 21 + 14 = 87) / 5 = 17.4 = 17
Median Scores:
Colts: 16
Jets: 21
TECMO'S PREDICTION: The New York Jets win the AFC Championship, 19-17.
.jpg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment