Strat-O-Matic Pro Football is a tabletop board game that was first produced by the Strat-O-Matic game company in 1968. The game is a statistically based sports game that simulates the play of American football. Each player's statistics are gathered, analyzed, and then converted into numerical results which reflect each player's production for a given year. These numerical results are placed on a set of cards, with each team having its own set. In addition, a team's defensive ratings for a season are converted into card data that determines how many yards may be gained against that defense.
Gameplay
The original game is played with dice and cards. In playing a typical game, each athlete is represented by a player card, on which are printed various ratings and result tables for dice rolls. A player, who may play solitaire or against another player, is in charge of making strategic and personnel decisions for his/her team, while determining the results of his/her decisions by cross-referencing dice rolls with a system of printed charts and tables. A game of Strat-O-Matic Pro Football takes approximately 60 minutes to play.
Strat-O-Matic Pro Football is also available as a personal computer game faithfully adapted from the board game. One of the main features of the computer game is the inclusion of team-specific computer managers which will call plays and make player substitutions to simulate all of the real-life NFL teams Strat-O-Matic has released on the computer game (approximately 20 seasons from 1957 through the present). These computer managers present a competitive challenge to those who may find it difficult to find a live opponent for the board game. In addition, computer game players of Strat-O-Matic Pro Football may play head-to-head online and there are many customer-created leagues set up specifically for head-to-head play.
Although Strat-O-Matic Football is a simplification of the complicated game it simulates, there is a great deal of strategy involved. The person or computer controlling the team on offense and the person or computer controlling the team on defense for a particular play each secretly choose a play to call from among a handful of plays and in the case of defense chooses player movement if any. If the defensive play and/or player movement are designed to be effective against the choice of offensive play (this is the goal of the person or computer controlling the defensive team) then the play is less likely to be successful for the offense. For example, if the defense calls "pass" and the offense calls a passing play then the play is less likely to be successful; further, if the defense chooses to double-team a specific receiver for the pass and the pass is intended for that receiver then the play is significantly less likely to be successful though choosing to double-team may open up other types of plays to be successful. Field goals, punts, and kickoffs are also handled individually within the game and while there is, similar to the NFL, strategy involved in when to use these plays (for example, on fourth down whether to attempt a field goal, to punt, or to go for a first down) there is little strategy associated with these kicking plays.
Each game is decided by an approximately equal amount of strategy, player talent (cards and ratings of players used in the game), and luck. A coach may win a game with a lot of luck but will likely not be successful in the long term without either good strategy or good players (or both).
When two humans are playing a game of Strat-O-Matic Football there is a significant amount of “cat-and-mouse” type strategy. For example, coach A may call a long pass on 3rd-and-2 yards to go in order to take advantage of his belief that coach B may weaken his long pass defense (by emptying his long pass zone) in an effort to strengthen his defense against shorter yardage plays (specifically runs and flat/lookin passes) on that specific play. However, coach B may be careful not to empty his long pass zone in this situation in order not to give up the big play. On the next 3rd-and-2 both coaches will be aware of what occurred on the previous situation and may adjust their strategy accordingly. Coaches who have good intuition in predicting the plays their opponents will call may gain a competitive advantage.