Pun City In 2008: Feel Free To Call It A Comeback

The U62 Telethon is on the air!

Always wanted to say that. Paraphrasing Stanley Spadowski, Pun City is back on the air. Sorry for the delay. Lots to cover here, so let's get cracking.

From the pun front:

People from Texas can be a bit Austintatious.

From the Tecmo front:

This blog finished up its Tecmo Super Bowl season where Pun City was trying to get every team to wind up 8-8. Some unexpected results there. First off, this blog was indeed successful in getting each team to 8-8. From there, Pun City had noticed/been informed by Ronk Romens that point differential was the second tie-breaker. Once Pun City was in week 17, it tried for some point differential ties as well. There were some successes on this front, including some nail-biters.

The first game of week 17 was Kansas City versus the Los Angeles Raiders. The Chiefs were sitting at +183 on the point differential, and 8-7 in record. The Raiders were 7-8 in record, +85 in point differential. So....doing the math for you, if the Raiders beat the Chiefs by 34, the two teams would tie in both record and point differential. Fortunately Pun City was able to pull off the feat, and after all other games were played, the AFC West Division standings showed the following lines:
1. Rai 8-8
1. KC 8-8
2. SD 8-8
3. Den 8-8
4. Sea 8-8

Similar ties were able to be accomplished in the AFC East, where the Bills and Dolphins tied at 8-8 and +90, and this blog was also able to get the AFC Central champion Pittsburgh Steelers to +90 on differential also.

In the NFC East, the Giants and Eagles tied at +79, and though the NFC West race wasn't close with the 49ers winning by 163 points, the NFC Central was close going into the last game. The Green Bay Packers were taking on the Minnesota Vikings. If Green Bay was able to beat Minnesota by exactly 30, the Vikings would fall into a tie with the Chicago Bears at +121. Leading by 27, the Packers gained possession of the ball on the 50 yard line with 45 seconds remaining, and proceeded to run off 29 ineffectual seconds, advancing only to the 39. Pun City knew that 16 Tecmo seconds was not very much, but figured there was just enough time for one pass play. Don Majkowski found a streaking Ed West down the sideline, who caught the ball with 2 seconds remaining and ran out of bounds at the 11 yard line with 1 second remaining. From there, Chris Jacke hit a 28-yard Field Goal to clinch the Bears-Vikings tie. After checking the game statistics, Pun City let the fireworks ensue.

Tecmo aficionados know that the "division champion" graphics normally show up when a team clinches the division based on record. With all teams having the same record in this season, that wasn't going to happen. Another quirk of Tecmo is that it will wait until a week is completely over before declaring any tie-breaker division champions. Given this knowledge, Pun City knew that all six division champion graphics would be appearing in sequence, and this blog would find out a) If Tecmo could handle a 3rd tie-breaker, and b) Potentially what that was. There was also a good possibility of finding out c) How to put out a fire started by a smoking Nintendo.

As it turned out, the screen flashed across Buffalo Bills, Pittsburgh Steelers, Los Angeles Raiders, New York Giants, Minnesota Vikings, and San Francisco 49ers as division champions; with the Miami Dolphins, New York Jets, Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears, and Detroit Lions as wild cards.

This meant that indeed Tecmo Super Bowl can handle a 3rd tie-breaker, and it turned out to be total points scored. Pun City enjoyed the project, but getting two teams to have the same number of wins, points scored, and points against is a tough nut to crack.

Lastly, from the college basketball front:

This blog was at the Marquette-Savannah State game in Milwaukee's Bradley Center last Saturday. This was fun, but just prior to the game this blog had some business to do. Pun City had been listening to the Wisconsin-Texas game on the radio on the way down, and was very much interested in tracking the result. The Bacardi Club in the concourse was a huge disappointment and was not showing the game on any of their 3 flatscreen TVs. Fortunately, just down the hall, a normal cathode ray TV was displaying the game. A crowd had gathered around the screen, probably about 15. The group swelled to about 20 before the end of the game. What followed was a pleasant surprise for Pun City. As you may be aware, Marquette and Wisconsin are arch-rivals, so Pun City was expecting at least a minority of the watchers to be rooting against the Badgers. This wasn't outwardly noticeable, however. And when Michael Flowers hit the game-winning shot to put Texas away with 2.7 seconds remaining, the entire group let out a genuine, giant cheer. Maybe they were just happy that Marquette's RPI was being raised, maybe they found Wisconsin to be the lesser of two evils, hopefully they were happy for the state of basketball in Wisconsin, but Pun City is happy to report that they cheered. Mad props Marquette fans.

How To Stop the Super Tecmo Bears

Good evening, sorry about the lacking posts last week, it was a busy one. This is the first post in hopefully a series dedicated to defending against/effectively using each playbook in Tecmo Super Bowl. The first team Pun City has chosen to profile is the Chicago Bears. Here goes.For the purposes of this post, we're going to label each of the plays above. Top row is A, B, C, and D. Bottom row is 1, 2, 3, and 4.



Defending when playing the computer: The Bears are actually really a tough nut to crack here. Normally, Pun City likes to choose a play that will go in one direction, so that it would be able to choose a defender that can defend the other direction. For instance, one could choose Play 1 and take a defender near the top of the screen, thus neutralizing Play C because you know that your drones have 1 covered. This is the problem with the Bears though. Because Neal Anderson is such an effective runner (dude can destroy you), you really have to be extra cautious here. All things considered, Pun City would not recommend choosing either Play C or Play 1. Pun City would actually choose Play A. The reasoning behind this is as follows: First off, Jim Harbaugh is a pathetic quarterback in the game. If he beats you, they earned it. Secondly, Play A is very easily devastating, Anderson breaks that thing for huge gains a lot. Thirdly, the other three running plays are at least containable without having called them. As far as positioning, when the formation is the one in Plays A, D, and 2; this blog would choose one of the middle linebackers, then run between the guard and the center in an effort to stop Play D and also get to the quarterback for play 2 (as you know, you called play A, so that's neutralized). When the formation is the one from B, C, and 1, this blog would take the upper linebacker (Right as listed on the game). This way you can take away Play C. You're a little susceptible to Plays B and 1, but Play B doesn't usually go for a ton of yards since Muster is slow, and Play 1 usually fails because Harbaugh sucks (as do the Bears receivers). For the formation in Plays 3 and 4, you are kinda screwed having picked Play A. But, you're only screwed insomuch as Jim Harbaugh is able to complete a pass. So, maybe 50% of the time for an average of about 8 yards. With the formation in Plays 3 and 4, just take your best pass rusher. You know it's going to be a pass play, and you know you picked a run play, so it's just a matter of who can get to Harbaugh quickest and force him into a lousy throw.



Defending when playing a human: Definitely a lot more theoretical here. If this blog were a human, and picking plays to use against other humans, it would alternate between A, C, D, 2, 3, and 4. Play 1 takes too long to develop given the marginal benefit of the 3-route, 5-yard-route play. Play B isn't likely to work against a human since Muster isn't fast enough. The positioning ends up being the same as defensing the computer. You pretty much have to pick one of those 6 each time, hopefully basing each choice on the down and distance. This playbook is very tough to stop given the variety of plays (and speed of plays) from each formation. Fortunately, it is entirely unlikely that the pass plays will beat you like other teams' would. Pun City would place the highest priority on stopping Anderson, so plays A, C, and D would be the main ones this blog would call. Getting burned on a pass play is a tough way to lose, but your opponent will have earned it.

So that was the Tecmo Bears' playbook in a nutshell. This blog also has a new link for those of you checking the actual website. It's under "Inspirational Blog" on the sideline, a fairly cool site. But you can't see it in Facebook, so you'll have to actually check out the real live Pun City site to notice this. But enjoy, Pun City likes it so far. Over and out.

Tecmo Super Favorites: AFC

Good evening. Pun City was at an open practice for UWM tonight so there isn't a great deal of time here. But this blog does some alright work under pressure.

In a perfect world, Pun City would have drawn up a scouting report on how to defeat a specific team in Tecmo Super Bowl, as the first part in a 28-part series. This will wait for another day, Pun City needs to put some good effort into this, some pictures and bigtime research are in order for that.

In place of that, Pun City is going to rank teams in each Tecmo Super Bowl division, from the most preferred to play with, to the least-preferred. For tonight, the AFC:

AFC East

1. Bills
2. Dolphins
3. Colts
4. Patriots
5. Jets

The Bills, while very easy to win with, are mainly fun due to all-purpose monster Thurman Thomas. Three rushing plays with him plus a great receiver, not to mention the Bills' tough defense with about 4 quick guys you can use interchangably makes for a sweet team. The Dolphins are good with the Marino to the Marks Brothers (Duper and Clayton) combo, plus highly underrated John Offerdahl, for this blog's money the best Left Inside Linebacker in the game. The Colts are fun based on their offense only. That defense is just brutal, one of two reasons they lost the Super Bowl (the other being the 49ers). But the offensive effort they need to win is fun to apply. Patriots are just absolutely impossible, moreso than the Colts. Luckily they faced the Bears in the Super Bowl. For some reason, Pun City just hates the Tecmo Jets. They weren't good in the 1990s, and they drafted poorly, and they were from New York. That's just insurmountable in this blog's book.

AFC Central

1. Oilers
2. Steelers
3. Bengals
4. Browns

Oilers are the greatest show on Tecmo turf. Add awesome Ray Childress on defense, and you've got a fun team to play with. Additionally, Lorenzo White sucks so you don't even have to try to run with them, just use their 4 awesome pass plays over and over. Steelers really are rough but having Dwight Stone, a top-2 kick returner on Tecmo, and Greg Lloyd, a more than serviceable linebacker, makes for a reasonably good team even if they have no offense. The Bengals have a very tricky playbook when you're playing against them, this is helpful against other humans. James Francis is an underrated linebacker also. Browns are good enough to win with, but nothing is too amazing about them winning. Even though they suck, they were a real life playoff team in 1989 with the same core of players, so it doesn't come off as very impressive. Too thankless to like playing with them.

AFC West

1. Chiefs
2. Seahawks
3. Raiders
4. Chargers
5. Broncos

This blog grew up going to the Chiefs' training camp, and having Christian Okoye and Derrick Thomas on the same team, plus a solid passing attack, just makes for a good bit of fun. The Seahawks are another all-pass, no-run, no-defense team, except they can consistently win since they have a sweet passing playbook. The Raiders are amazing, almost a little too easy to win with though, even though everyone should be able to use Tecmo Bo at some point in their life. Marion Butts makes the Chargers pretty cool, given they have 3 running plays for him and he is somewhat of a one-man offense, though Billy Joe Tolliver's bullet throws are also amusing. The Broncos are actually a great deal of fun, they'd probably be 1st in the AFC East, but this is a sweet division. John Elway being waaaaay worse than in real life and Bobby Humphrey only having two rushing plays ends up knocking Denver behind the Chargers, but barely.

So there you are, this blog's favorites in the AFC. (And least favorites, for that matter). Thoughts for the week: Go Rockies and congratulations to Jamie and Travis!

Pun City On The Defensive

Tecmo Super Bowl is often just as fun when one is on the defensive side of the ball as when one is playing offense. Three consecutive sacks setting up 4th and 42 for the offense, winning in overtime on a safety, forcing 3 fumbles in a game, all of which were brought back for touchdowns. These are great reasons for Pun City often preferring the defensive side of the ball.
This blog came to several conclusions when analyzing Tecmo defensive statistics. First off, the computer rules the Interception rankings, while Pun City rules the other metrics, mainly sack-related. There are a number of reasons behind these. Let us examine:

-Interceptions occur at an extremely higher incidence for the computer as opposed to Pun City. There are a bunch of reasons for this. Among quarterbacks with at least one attempt, the overall average number of attempts per season for each was 181.92. Pun City's average was 125.49. Pun City's average is so low because Pun City completes more passes on average (72.9% to 58.6%). More complete passes leads to more yards and less need for more passes. As we explored previously, Pun City's QBs get injured at a much higher rate than the computer, so a higher percentage of throws were made by backups. Backups aren't as good and therefore throw more interceptions. The computer isn't as good and therefore throws more interceptions. The computer plays the computer for almost all games. Pun City plays the computer for all games, but is hampered for a couple other reasons.

-Computer QBs hang on to the ball longer and are less prone to running. This leads to a ton more sacks for Pun City as compared to the computer. This also means less throws actually get made against Pun City, meaning less interceptable balls.

-Pun City normally calls running plays when defending against the computer (for a number of reasons). Anecdotally, this blog has seen evidence implying that calling pass plays leads to a higher chance of interceptions.

-Pun City calls more plays accurately than the computer. For whatever reason, the computer doesn't guess plays right very often. Even when it does, Pun City can sometimes find the open man anyway. When a play is called accurately against the computer, there is a much higher likelihood of a sack instead of an interception.

-Pun City has a sneaking suspicion that the computer makes up some phony stats for games when it plays against itself. Through 8 weeks of the attempted 8-8 season where Pun City is playing every game, the most interception return yards for one player is at 17. Interception returns both for and against Pun City are very challenging to get any significant yards on. Very suspicious that the totals just happen to be pretty high when Pun City isn't involved in the game.

So, the lessons are: humans get more sacks, computers get more interceptions.

Tecmo doesn't keep track of some awesome statistics that wouldn't be necessary in real life (due to their rarity), but are a good measure on the game. Safeties, Blocked Extra Points, and Fumble Recoveries for Touchdowns are some that Pun City can manually track without a great deal of extra effort.

A final note is the statistic of "Points Prevented." Pun City invented this stat and based it only off of Blocked FGs and Blocked Extra Points. The number is the sum of the points that would have been accumulated had the kick gone through the uprights as opposed to being blocked by the player in question. It's kind of a cool way to see how helpful a player was outside of his normal defensive statistics. With that, here we go:

Records Set By Pun City:

• Sacks: Lawrence Taylor, 99
• Fumble Recovery TDs: Tim McKyer and Lemuel Stinson, 3
• Safeties: Lawrence Taylor, 34
• Blocked Extra Points: Derrick Thomas, 8
• Blocked Field Goals: Lawrence Taylor, 4
• Points Scored: Lawrence Taylor, 68
• Points Prevented: Lawrence Taylor, 17

Records Set By The Computer:

• Interceptions: Dave Waymer, 16
• Interception Return Yards: Richard Johnson, 250
• Interception Return Avg (min. 2 Interceptions): Eugene Robinson, 55.3
• Interception TDs: 24 tied with 2

Hopefully that post was worth the wait, sorry for the delays on it. Until next time, hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut.....

Made Ya Look!

We're going to delay the post another night, Pun City compiled the stats for a sweet Tecmo blog, but it doesn't have enough time to do a write-up justice.

Please refrain from breaking kneecaps in the interim.

Thank you for your time.

Good night and godspeed.

Armchair Quarterback Stats - Tecmo Super Bowl

Last week's post worked pretty well, not too much notable information from the 8-8 season yet (this blog lost a game to the Bears when playing with the Bucccaneers, so it will need to play with the Buccaneers again during the rematch, that's been the only hiccup), so this blog is going to draw up some more Super Tecmo nuggets it discovered while playing a season with each team. This week, statistics on the Quarterbacks:


-Easily the most oft-injured quarterback was Randall Cunningham (QB Eagles), who had 9 injuries and was out a total of 70 quarters. A distant second and third were Don Majkowski with 6 injuries and 46 quarters, and Billy Joe Tolliver with 5 injuries and 49 quarters.


-The only backup quarterback to get injured was Marc Wilson. This was probably because he was the only backup QB to play the whole season. This blog didn't want to suffer through any Steve Grogan games. Grogan, while infinitely better in real life, was somehow worse than his backup Wilson on Super Tecmo Bowl.


-3 QBs returned onside kicks for TDs. Rodney Peete did it when Pun City was controlling him, and Randall Cunningham and Steve Walsh did it for the computer.


Records Set By Pun City:

• Completions: Dave Krieg, 175
• Touchdown Passes: Jim Everett and Wade Wilson, 61
• Fewest Interceptions: John Elway, 1 in 150 attempts
• Average Yds. Per Attempt: Warren Moon, 24.2
• Completion Percentage: Jim Kelly, 86.7%
• QB Rating: Jim Kelly, 292.7
• Rushing Attempts: Randall Cunningham, 134
• Rushing Yards: Randall Cunningham, 1603
• Yards per carry (min 80 carries): Randall Cunningham, 11.9
• Rushing TDs: Randall Cunningham, 31
• Points: Randall Cunningham, 186

Records Set By The Computer:

• Passing Attempts: Don Majkowski, 281
• Most Interceptions: Don Majkowski and Bernie Kosar, 32
• Passing Yards: Warren Moon, 4542
• Fumble Recovery TD: Dan Marino, 1
• Combined Yards: Warren Moon, 4813

Next time this blog revisits Tecmo Super Bowl, there will likely be a look at the defensive side of the ball. Kickers and Punters might be up as well. For the time being, enjoy this awesomely pun-tastic commercial:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aL6ysSActVU

Pun City's Tecmo Run: 26 for 28 Titles (Darn Colts and Cardinals)

Pun City just finished its 28th season of Tecmo Super Bowl, taking a turn with each team in the game. Lots of results to report, some interesting, some not. We here at Pun City aren't too keen on the whole "editing" fad, so you get to enjoy the Writer's Cut of the information. Away we go...

• Overall Record: 420-28-0 (.938) in the regular season, 81-2-0 (.976) in the playoffs, for a total of 501-30-0 (.944) overall.
• 26 Super Bowl titles, the Colts lost to the 49ers in the Super Bowl, the Cardinals lost to the 49ers in the NFC Title Game.
• The tie for the most injuries went to John Stephens and David Meggett with 23 each. Stephens, however, was injured a total of 168 quarters (42 games) as compared to Meggett's 140 quarters (35 games).
• Total injuries in the game for 28 seasons: 1152, for a total of 7665 quarters (1916.25 games)
• If injuries were completely random and split evenly amongst all teams in the game, the expected amount of injuries this site's teams would have suffered would be 42 for 274 quarters.
• Pun City would say that the game's internal computer is a jackass though, and as a result this blog's players suffered 112 injuries for 735 quarters.
• This blog believes this occured for a few reasons. One of the ways the game tries to "even out" the human advantage is to injure key players when humans like this blog win too often or by too wide of a margin.
• This blog's style of play also probably contributes to the higher incidence of injuries. Pun City will go to the bench without an injury or stay with a hot bench player after the original starter has returned. For this reason (among others), 13 players suffered their only injury while Pun City was controlling them. Within those 13, there were 3 players that suffered their only two injuries while under Pun City's leadership.

Single-Season Records set by Pun City:

• Carries: Johnny Johnson, 211
• Rushing Yards: Thurman Thomas, 1989
• Yards Per Carry (min 80 carries): Thurman Thomas, 13.4
• Rushing TDs: Johnny Johnson and Marion Butts, 39
• Yards Per Catch (min 16 catches): Mark Carrier, 54.6
• Receiving TDs: Sterling Sharpe, 33
• Kick Return Average (min 16 returns): Dwight Stone, 29.9
• Kick Return TDs: Dwight Stone, 9
• Punt Returns: Kendal Smith, 31
• Punt Return Yards: Kendal Smith, 380
• Punt Return Average (min 10 returns): Vai Sikahema, 19.5
• Punt Return TD: Mel Gray, Craig Heyward, Tony Martin, 1
• Onside Kick Return TDs: Cleveland Gary, 3
• Points: Marion Butts, 306

Single-Season Records set by the Computer:

• Receptions: Jerry Rice, 78
• Kick Returns: Sammy Martin, 90
• Kick Return Yardage: Gaston Green, 1720
• Receiving Yards: Jerry Rice, 2117
• Yards From Scrimmage: Thurman Thomas, 2639
• All-Purpose Yards: David Meggett, 3207

There's some more analysis to be done actually, this blog hasn't summed totals yet so this blog could have a lot more posts where this came from. In the meantime, another Tecmo project is underway: this blog is attempting to have every team finish 8-8 in the next season by attempting to win every game (only 8 times per team). Hopefully that goes well, through 8 Week 1 games it has been a success. Only 448 to go.

Pun City: The Mash-Up!

This blog doesn't have a specific topic tonight, so Pun City is just going to be a bunch of odds and ends.

First off, reiterating this from the Update on the last post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAwKrSVKAr4

Secondly, a bonus link that this blog thought was pretty good, primarily if you like Mike Tyson's Punchout or any of quite a few old school Nintendo games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiBER4iVwCw

Pun City has just completed the 27th of 28 regular seasons within Tecmo Super Bowl. All teams except for the Cowboys (and the Cardinals' playoffs) have been played. Here are some updated stats:

-Easily the best team is the 49ers. Current regular season record stands at 339-93-0.

-Best team in the AFC is the Bills. Regular season record is 308-124-0.

-Pun City playing with any team is a better option though, Current regular season record stands at 404-28-0.

-Worst team in the game: New England Patriots, 111-319-2.

-Worst team in the NFC: Atlanta Falcons 136-295-1.

One could make a case that the "worst" labels are misnomers or skewed at best. Each of those two teams are in the same division as their conference's best teams. Having to play in those divisions where you face a tough schedule every year helps contribute to the bad record. (Or...the 49ers and Bills have inflated records because they have cream puffs like the Patriots and Falcons on their schedules twice a year?...Hmmm).

-A somewhat interesting phenomenon with the ties in this game. A significant amount of correlation exists between how bad a team is with how many ties they have. There have been 18 ties in the 27 seasons. Only 3 of those ties included a team that has the best (or 2nd-best) overall record within its division. Twelve of the ties included a team that has either the worst or 2nd-worst record in the division. The other 3 included teams with the 3rd-worst record in the division, and neither of these involved teams was in a 4-team division (meaning that 3rd-worst was also not 2nd-best).

-Tony Eason and Tom Tupa are the only backup QBs that have not played yet. All other backup QBs were either pressed into service due to a starter's injury or were just used because this blog knew they'd work better than the starter. (Or Pun City just got sick of the starter blowing throws/games and figured any change is good).

-The game will not injure any Tight Ends unless a human is using them. Even then, it's really tough. Eric Green and Keith Jackson were the only TEs to get hurt, and those are 2 of the better TEs in the game.

-This blog has a strong suspicion that a team's best player tends to get hurt when a human is in control of them at a much higher rate than if the human were not controlling them. This blog is going to wait until after all seasons have been played to make a definite analysis, but that's the hypothesis Pun City is going with.

Pun City saw a cool show last Friday at Senor Java's. Check out Gabe Krebs live if you get a chance. Krebs's next show is an open mic 7/13 at the same venue in Saukville (7:00 maybe? Senor Java has a MySpace page if you want specifics).

In conclusion, this blog is happy that Paris Hilton was freed earlier this week. Hopefully she can get back in the studio and crank out some more hott tracks. Pun City will snatch them up if they get made.

Backfield in Traction

Hmm, today was Tuesday, wasn't it?

Alright, here's what Pun City's got for you.

First off, this has been out there for a long time, but Pun City wasn't aware of it until yesterday, so let this blog say that it highly recommends the following 2 links. The first one starts very slow, but the payoff - in this blog's opinion - is well worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zll_jAKvarw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N6sqdrJzVo

Aside from this, Pun City was distracted tonight with resurrecting the Tecmo Super Bowl Cleveland Browns.

In the previous 19 seasons this blog had played (none with Cleveland), the Browns had a league-worst record of 71-232-1, never making the playoffs. Under Pun City's leadership, the Browns went 15-1 and won the Super Bowl 30-14 over what probably would have been heavy favorites in the San Francisco 49ers. All this while having to deal with Bernie Kosar (QB Browns) getting injured in the 2nd Quarter, then Kevin Mack and Eric Metcalf getting injured in the 3rd Quarter.

So the entire starting backfield got injured in the Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl Champion had the following backfield to end the season:

QB Mike Pagel
RB Leroy Hoard (Yes, Pun City knows, fairly competent)
RB Brent Fullwood (Completely incompetent, makes up for Hoard)

Good night, trip recaps continue later in the week.