The Unabated NFL Season Simulator Returns For 2023

We’re about 16 weeks away from the start of the NFL season. We have a draft class, we have a schedule and we have Week 1 lines. Crate dive into the ‘90s bin and fire up some Mark Morrison, because it’s the return of the mack NFL Season Simulator.

For those of you who are just joining Unabated this year (welcome!) or who didn’t dive into the simulator last year, you’re in for a treat.  The simulator works by running a Monte Carlo simulation of the NFL season 10,000 times, based on power ratings you choose or input. 

The sim will display a matrix of prices for various futures bets next to odds from different sportsbooks. This should help simplify the quest to find profitable spots to bet the opinions you formulated and entered into the simulator.

The NFL Season Simulator has three modes: Basic, Advanced and Unabated. 

• Basic mode asks for one overall power rating for each team.
• Advanced mode allows you to input separate power ratings for offense and defense. 
• Unabated mode is our most sophisticated way of simulating the NFL season. This calls for inputs on offense, defense, the starting quarterback and the backup quarterback.

Power Up

Where do you get power ratings to begin with? Each mode has some power ratings available, and more will be added as we get deeper into the calendar. Basic will eventually feature the most. Advanced mode will have a few less. And finally, Massey-Peabody Analytics powers Unabated mode. Currently, we’re only supplying market-based ratings in Basic mode. As those ratings begin to include totals, we’ll include them in Advanced mode.

Massey-Peabody ratings won’t be available until some time in the summer as quarterback depth charts finalize, but keep checking back to see new ratings systems added.

But you don’t have to settle just for pre-packaged ratings. You could blend them together or create your own. If you’ve never made your own power ratings, Captain Jack Andrews walks you through how to get started. 

We’ve taken the results of the 2022 season and run them through this process. These are basic ratings and we wouldn’t recommend you use as the basis for any of your wagers. These don’t account for something like Aaron Rodgers going to the Jets, or Aaron Rodgers coming up limping in practice almost immediately after being traded to the Jets. But it’s a jumping-off point and something you can use as you build and refine your own ratings. 

• 2023 Basic Power Ratings

Using Basic mode, choose “Upload my own” to use your own ratings.

The simulator will prompt you to download our template. Fill it in with your numbers and upload it back to the system to import your ratings.

Adjust Your Variables

Using your own ratings will allow you to edit several variables right in the template. If you chose one of our pre-loaded projection sets, you’ll see a couple of other variables once you go to the simulation screen, and these are universal across each simulation mode. 

Home field advantage can be edited – you may even want to adjust on a team-by-team basis. In our basic power ratings, home field was worth about two points. 

We also have a starting quarterback injury percentage variable, which defaults to 4 percent. As Massey-Peabody ratings become available, that will include a more custom-tailored injury number by individual starting quarterbacks.

In Basic and Advanced mode, we use a default league-wide average of three points for quarterback injuries, though you can adjust it on a team-by-team basis if you’d like. In Unabated mode, it will draw on your specific ratings for the starting and backup quarterbacks to create the difference. 

Finally, the Rating Update Function slider. Pull it to the left and the simulator will lean on your power rating inputs. Pull it to the right and it will use your power ratings as a jumping-off point, but will evolve those ratings based on the results of in-season simulated games. 

After you put it all together, you’ll get the results for each team’s season win total, chances of making the playoffs, winning the division, conference and Super Bowl. You can choose between seeing that expressed in implied probability or American odds.

Use the “View in Futures” button to call up the matrix of futures prices at sportsbooks, with bets that are plus-EV based on your inputs highlighted in green. 

Stay Current

We will update power ratings as the season progresses. Trevor Lawrence taking over the AFC South with new weapons? Jalen Hurts gets hurt? Tom Brady un-retires again and the Niners are allowed to carry six QBs? 

Adjust on the fly and keep running simulations to find up-to-the-minute value. 

As always, if you have any questions, hop into the Discord and fire away. There’s a #simulator channel where staff and fellow users are ready to help. 

Want to just get going? Fire up the machine and lets’ see what we get in 2023.