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Tecmo Bowl 2014 season play


Tecmo-Mad-Brad

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Our 6th season of 2-player (Original 1989) Tecmo Bowl has begun.  


 


--2 of us drafting the 12 teams.  I draft 4 teams, my buddy drafts 4, and 4 are deemed rovers...meaning we both control those teams throughout the season.


--Randomized placement of teams into divisions/conferences is done to make each season unique, allow for parity, and keep things fresh for us. 


 


Thanks to the programmers here, the 1989 USA NES version of Tecmo Bowl, and the 1990 Japan Famicom version were matched together in 1 ROM for the 1st time in season play.


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Japan version has the same teams, same playbooks, game features, etc.  However, it has roster changes/updates that offer some variances to the teams, player personnel, and ultimately the overall team ability.  It added a refreshing new layer to the various match-ups.  Most teams are a little different from one version to the next, but a few are drastically better or worse.  Japan Minnesota for example is much stronger than USA Minnesota.  Japan Washington has a far inferior defense compared to USA Washington.  


 


-Playbook fixes removed the dreaded WR run plays for Washington and Minnesota in the ROM we now use.  


 


This season's random alignment looks like this.... 


 


2013%20Tecmo%20alignment_zps6cn50ulq.png


 


-6 teams are represented as their USA version, and 6 as Japan version. 


USA:  CHI, IND, LA, NY, San Fran, and DEN


Japan:  DAL, CLE, SEA, MIA, WSH, and MIN.  


 


Random notes:


-The NFC Tecmo Division with NY, SF, and MIN is easily one of the strongest divisions ever formed.  It features 2 super powers, and Japan Minnesota is really on the cusp of being a top shelf team as well.  The Giants and 49ers shared a division last year.  Other duos that shared a division in our previous season were Indy & Chicago, along with Cleveland & Seattle.  Historically those are 3 of the better match-ups in the game.  Best of all, we'll see those match-ups twice in division play.  Sharing divisions in back to back season also lends to continuity with our own personal rivalry, and definitely adds to the history and tradition of our games over the years.       


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The season schedule:


 


sea6finalsched_zpse3bbb74b.png


 


 


-12 game schedule with 6 home games(Player 1), and 6 away games.  


-Each team plays 2 games vs both of their Division opponents (2 home/2 road), and 2 more vs a random conference opponent (1 home/1 road).  


-Conference schedule concludes by playing the other 2 teams only once.  8 total games in the conference (4 home/4road).


 


-Each team crosses over with 4 Inter-conf games.


-Of the possible 11 opponents, each team will face 9 of them.


-Nearly every match-up possible occurs during season play.  It also allows each team to play a somewhat unique schedule as well.        


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The opponents list:


 


season6opponents_zps5e5b8a09.png


 


Here's everyone's opponent's, and the number of times they face them.  The final 2 columns represent the teams they will not face this season.  


 This also illustrates where they play. In our 800+ games, the Home team(Player 1) wins about 60% of the time....  A schedule alone creates challenges, but where you play certain teams also can make a big difference.


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Strength of schedule is created with a ranking metric for all the teams, then it takes into consideration and adjustment for home and road games.


As mentioned earlier, the home team(Player 1) wins about 60% of the time, so that's a key factor when ranking schedules.   


 


--Here's the SOS from weakest to strongest.


Indy  (Nice schedule for a defending champ!)


Chicago


New York (Bears and Giants are favorites to meet in Tecmo Bowl 6)


Miami


Seattle (expected to parlay this schedule into a div title and 2 seed)


Denver


 


LA


Minnesota


Cleveland


San Francisco


Dallas


Washington


 


The teams with the weakest schedules have in common for the most part is 3 games VS Dallas/Washington.  They are easily considered the worst teams this season.  


SEA, CHI, IND, MIA, NY, and DEN all have this schedule in common, and also have the 6 weakest schedule rankings.


Example:  With only 12 games to play, getting 3 against DAL/WSH can be a big advantage over a division rival that might only face them in 1 game. 


 


Dallas and Washington have the most difficult schedules, in large part because they can't play themselves, and they also managed to not face each other this year.  


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Playoff format:


The 2 division winners in each CONF will claim the 1 & 2 seed.  They will earn a home game in the divisional round of the playoffs.  


The 3 seed is awarded to the team with the next best record, and they will play at the 2 seed in the divisional round.  The 4 and 5 seeds will face off in the wildcard game.  Winner advances to face #1 seed.  


 


The highest seed team playing in the championship game will be host team for Tecmo Bowl 6. 


 


Betting odds to win the championship:


 


Giants 3:1


Bears 5:1


49ers 6:1


Colts 10:1


Vikings 15:1


 


-The Giants can struggle against the 49ers offense, but New York is better against the field than SF.  


-The Vikings will offer major challenges to both SF & NY, and are really a dominant wildcard factor here.  They make the playoff picture less clear.


 


-Bears are heavy favorites to win their conference as they are clearly THE dominant team.  


-Defending champ Colts are clearly 2nd in the pecking order behind Chicago to represent their CONF.


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  • 1 year later...

Playoffs are set for possibly thursday July 2nd.  I never went through and posted results here, but we plan on filming an in-depth segment about how the regular season panned out during our get together.  


 


Considering our conflicting life schedules and the fact that we live 2 hours apart, its hard to get in 72 games worth of regular season plan in a timely manner...hence forth it took a year and half to complete a season....which is sort of the norm I guess for us.  


 


I did put this video together though as a feature game we'll talk about on the show and how it had large implications on the league in general.


 


>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqUk7oLU3E&feature=youtu.be


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  • 3 weeks later...

Score board and weekly recaps in the vein of the old Super Bowl programs I used to read in the 80's.


I'll have to jazz up the subsequent weeks here, but for now, wk 1 is completed in the visual presentation I'd like it to be.


 


                                              score%20wk%201_zpsa4vln7gv.png


 


Some great opening week games.  Rematch of TB 5 between SEA/IND......much tougher game for IND this time, but they still won.  


As always the Giants/49ers game is a battle.  Browns/Bears tends to often be an ugly low scoring affair.


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WEEK 2:


score%20wk%202_zpstlv1v7lr.png


 


Vikes/49ers were picked to compete for the division title, but here the loser would be starting off 0-2, which we didn't see coming.


Raiders put a whoopin' on the Bears, and their new and improved fixed playbook offense looks legit.  Perhaps we were wrong about the Raiders and they might be a new player in town.


James Jefferson of Seattle has 2 KR TDs in 2 games.  Doing his best Gentry impersonation.


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wk%203_zpskbrehjsf.png


 


Our 1st week of teams on bye.


 


The video above is from this Colts/Bears game.  Payton got a 4th and 5 conversion early in the 4th from about the Bears 25 yardline to keep them in the game, then racked up big yardage after that.  I remember prior to that play thinking if I stopped CHI on 4th down there and got the ball back....I would only kick a FG if I absolutely had to, because I didn't want Gentry beating me late with a kick return TD.  Alas CHI converted and the rest is history, as Indy didn't have enough time to answer the Bears TD.  Indy needed to hold Chicago to a FG late to even have a chance, but Walter went Walter and took them out.  


 


Raiders offense continues to cook, as their now beating super power teams left and right.  49ers dropped to 0-3, which had us really shocked.


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wk%204_zpsk7vqqgzx.png


 


Raiders winning games every which way imaginable.  49ers finally get off the schnide.  Indy being Indy with a tough close win.  Though the mighty Minnesota was going to hang with NY, but the Giants smashed them.  Home field(player 1) is powerful though.


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Basically at the quarter turn here.


 


wk%204%20stand_zpsix6buzc7.png


 


The biggest story here to me is the Raiders being undefeated.  That's huge because if they can hold that #1 seed it means the heavyweights in the conference, CHI and iND would face each other in the divisional round of the playoffs.  You don't want to try and go through them both.  You want them to face each other before you get a crack at em.  Raiders are in firm control of their division, so they are worst going to be a 2 seed by looking at things right now.  


 


I expected either IND or CHI to be undefeated here, so having them each with a loss is also huge for LA.  Colts wil face LA twice the rest of the way....CHI is done with the Raiders.


 


In the NFC, the Giants are running away with their division already, and the Giants also have a much easier schedule left as opposed to MIN/SF.   Giants have already beaten MIN/SF once, so there's no way those team can win the head to head later.  They both will play NY once more.  MIN/SF are now looking to get the 3 seed, but start off the playoffs on the road.  


 


Miami is doing alright, but they have their limitations.  They won't have to win a ton of games to get the 2 seed though.  6-6 might do it.  Miami and Marino at home can be tough for anyone to beat.  Miami can still be a player in this conference despite not having  a great record.  Hard to see Denver turning it around and racking up a ton of wins.


 


At the moment, theres really only 1 division race to follow with CHI/IND.  However lots of jockeying for conference seeds and the overall #1 seed in the league.


This may come down to which of the top 4 teams can secure the overall league #1 seed, and be home all they way through the championship game.  


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