What If Sports and The Falcoholic Join Forces

by Adam Schultz on Nov 17, 2009 8:15 AM EST in News

Ever sat there in your licensed Falcons easy chair, wearing your throwback Jamal Anderson jersey, pondering just how well the 1998 Falcons could do against an opponent on this year's schedule? Have you, like I'm sure reader orang3b has, sat there with your voluminous notes and play charts and stat sheets, dreaming of a chance to actually use the numbers you so lovingly analyze? Well, dream and ponder no longer. What If Sports has partnered with your favorite Falcons blog to bring you some awesome features.

What If Sports is, at its heart, a fully-functional fantasy simulator. You can build a "dream team" in any sport, drafting the players you choose from any year on any team or you can simply take, say the '76 Steelers, and pit them against the '07 Patriots. Or, if you're feeling particularly mean spirited, you can pit the '07 Patriots against the '07 Lions 10,001 times. If What If Sports can get away with simulating the Browns-Ravens MNF matchup 10,001 times, I'm sure you won't have any conflicts of conscience.

With all of this simulation, you're probably wondering where the "playing with the numbers" part comes in. You fantasy football nuts should zoom in right here -> What If Sports lets you build a fantasy sports team with your favorite players from any era, any team, any style of play and then puts your personal all-time pro bowl team in a league to play against up to 24 other stat mavens' perfect teams. The gurus at What If call this feature SimLeague.

Now, onto business. I plan to introduce a few new features on the site utilizing What If Sports' snazzy technology. First and foremost, I'll either be taking some classic teams of Falcons lore and pitting them against modern day foes, or taking our new look Falcons to battle against older foes that deserve a spanking or, in some cases, a re-spanking.

Also, What If was nice enough to provide us with a free 24 slot Falcoholic SimLeague. Yes, we now officially have a fantasy fantasy football league. Dave and I take up two slots, so that invariably means that 22 of you will be the lucky winners of some hot, free SimLeague action. You're welcome in advance. I'll run the raffle soon.

To kick off this day of forces joining, I decided to pit our 2008 surprise playoff team against our 2004 surprise playoff team. Both teams went 11-5, both went into the playoffs. Of course, the '04 Falcons made it all the way to the NFC Championship while our newer Falcons lost in the Wild Card. Apparently, that doesn't matter. Ryan and company completely demolished 'em 48 to 21. What a difference four years makes, eh? Check out the full boxscore

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Comments

nice of you

to try and get our minds off of how bad we suck right now. The Panthers, really? Damn! I can take much more of this type of play. I literally thought I was gonna have a stroke on sunday. Lord this team needs help. Send us all your strongest to stand us up against the rest of this season and allow us to win more than we lose. Amen.

Life is a garden. Dig it!

by Hardcore Falcon on Nov 17, 2009 8:36 AM EST reply actions

Amen.

by Zippo729 on Nov 17, 2009 5:51 PM EST up reply actions

Interesting simulation...

…but they’ve got Jason Elam of the ‘08 team making a 58-yard FG. I’m not really feeling it.

by Mad Molecule on Nov 17, 2009 10:25 AM EST reply actions

Koenen made one a couple years ago.

Plus, if Elam got SUPER angry at somebody the night before, he might could revive the old 63 yard leg he used to have.

by Zippo729 on Nov 17, 2009 5:52 PM EST up reply actions

63 yard leg in Denver

Is about a 55-57 yard leg after the altitude difference. Add 10 years to that leg, and 50 yards is probably pretty close to his limit.

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Aaron Levenstein

by orang3b on Nov 18, 2009 2:24 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

That's an excellent point

I know I could get shouted down for this, but I think we oughta take a crack at Steve Hauschka. He’s got an NFL leg, but some young kicker mental issues that I think we could iron out of him. I like to think the first half of his season before the Ravens cut him was more representative of what he can do than the last few weeks.

by Dave Choate on Nov 18, 2009 2:52 PM EST up reply actions

Wait until y'all see my WhatIf team

It’s the most random collection of players ever.

by Dave Choate on Nov 17, 2009 11:50 AM EST reply actions

Well

Simulating the Falcons/Giants game, with Turner and Norwood behind Snelling, we still seem to win if we favor the pass and conditions are 65 degrees with light wind. Baffling.

by Jebidillah on Nov 17, 2009 12:23 PM EST reply actions

Sim Lovers rejoice!

These guys are one of the best for online sims, in all sports. They’ve been on the map for at least a couple of years.

by tom slick on Nov 17, 2009 2:52 PM EST reply actions

Knew you'd like this.

Our site is known for knowledgeable, stat loving readers and authors. It only made sense to partner with the best in the biz at simulation.

You have opinions. We all do. Some of yours may have to do with the Falcons. Sign up today and share them.

by Adam Schultz on Nov 17, 2009 2:54 PM EST up reply actions

Let me amend that

“Our site is known for knowledgeable, stat loving readers and authors, and Dave.”

by Dave Choate on Nov 17, 2009 3:20 PM EST up reply actions

lol Ostracizing your self now, eh Fearless Leader?

You have opinions. We all do. Some of yours may have to do with the Falcons. Sign up today and share them.

by Adam Schultz on Nov 17, 2009 4:17 PM EST up reply actions

I'd dig this

I’m in for the league, if I’m at all able to be.

by Jebidillah on Nov 17, 2009 6:13 PM EST reply actions

I'm down for the SimLeague.

I don’t really know what that is, (unless it’s just like Fantasy Football) but I’d be down with that, whatever it is. It involves football, so that’s good enough for me :P

by Zippo729 on Nov 18, 2009 3:56 AM EST reply actions

Yes tloz,

I like this stuff. But I’m pretty mad at it right now, because I can’t get it to simulate the Falcons winning if I take Turner and Norwood out of the Depth Chart (I’ve tried about 10x)…

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital." - Aaron Levenstein

by orang3b on Nov 18, 2009 2:44 PM EST reply actions

But you're our numbers wizard!

Fix it fix it!

by Dave Choate on Nov 18, 2009 2:51 PM EST up reply actions

Same thing happened to me!

I simmed 10 games w/o Turner and the Falcons only won 3, got spanked a couple of times too. Nobody puts too much faith in these things (we hope), but I bet this simulates games better than, say, Madden would.

by tom slick on Nov 18, 2009 5:02 PM EST up reply actions