One drive, and it is nearly gone
You are the head coach. The clock is the problem.
The four steps
- 1
Read the spot
The card at the top gives you the score, the clock, the down and distance, the spot on the field and the timeouts each side has left. Those are the real numbers from that game. Third and six with two minutes left is a different problem from third and six with thirty seconds left, and the difference is the whole game.
- 2
Call the play
Tap the family first: RUN, PASS, RPO or TRICK. Then the exact play, and which side of the formation to run it to. Tempo sits right above those buttons and it is a decision of its own. No-huddle burns about 17 seconds, a huddle about 34, milking it about 38, so every snap is really two calls. What you run, and how much clock you are willing to pay for it.
- 3
Watch it play out
The snap runs on the field in front of you, and what happens is the real result of a real play from that game's play-by-play. Nobody made the yardage up.
- 4
Get graded
Every call comes back with a colour, the win rate your call had next to the best call available in the same spot, and a table showing what every option you passed on was worth. At the end of the drive you get one number for it, one line against the coach who really called it, and a coaching style you are welcome to argue with.
Then you play defence
Your drive is not the whole game. When the other team has the ball you take the defensive headset: call one of the quick looks (run stop, Cover 3, quarters, dime, prevent, goal line) or build the call out of personnel, front, coverage and how many you rush. Same four grades, same option table, same argument with the simulation afterwards.
A seven-point lead with two minutes left is not safe, and the simulation is happy to explain why at length.
What the colours mean
The same four colours run through the whole game: the square next to your call, the play-by-play log under the field, the little squares on the final card.
What your grade is measured against
Two different things, and they are worth keeping apart.
The colour comes out of the simulation. Every option you had gets played through the rest of the drive 200 times, which gives each one a win rate; your call is compared with the best of them, and that gap decides green, yellow, orange or red. The table under each result lists the whole set, so you can see what the call you did not make would have been worth.
The drive is scored against the man who really called it. Your final score, with your clock management, against the score his team actually produced from the same situation.
Questions people actually ask
I do not know what a shot play is.
Call one and watch. Every button is a real call from a real offence, and the result explains itself. Ten minutes of that and the language sorts itself out, which is roughly how it went for the rest of us.
Does the other team really get a drive?
Yes. They run their own snaps out of the same play-by-play, with you calling the defence and their clock running the way yours did.
Can I restart today's drive if I make a mess of it?
You can, and it will not help your record: the first result for a day is the one that sticks. Reloading does not re-roll the plays either. The seed comes from the drive itself, not from how many times you have started over.
I missed four days. Is that it?
The streak is. The archive is not. Every drive since the start of the calendar is still sitting there and you can play any of them. Only a drive played on its own day counts toward a run, so an evening spent catching up on eight old drives is an evening spent on eight old drives.
How much football do I need to know?
Down, distance, spot, timeouts: all four are printed on the card. The rest you can pick up by losing, which is the traditional method.