A Perfect Draft: Football

Past Updates

What we've built, what we fixed, and what's coming next.

v16 Latest July 17, 2026

Daily Challenge Eastern-Time Rollover
Daily Calendar
  • Fixed the early Daily rollover. Football no longer advances to tomorrow’s challenge at 8 PM Eastern when UTC reaches midnight.
  • Unified every Daily page. The game, attempt storage, leaderboard filter, roster reveal, and Past Challenges now share the same America/New_York calendar and change dates together at midnight Eastern.
  • Protected tomorrow’s results. Scores saved during the previous early rollover remain intact but stay out of Daily and All Scores views until their actual challenge date.
  • Covered daylight saving time. Boundary checks confirm the correct midnight transition in both summer and winter.
v15 July 17, 2026

Daily Challenge Team Variety
Daily Rotation
  • Stopped same-franchise stacks. Future Daily Challenges now use 14 different NFL franchises within each challenge instead of surfacing multiple seasons from the same team.
  • Added rolling repetition limits. The generator checks the previous seven days, caps exact team-season overlap at two, and prevents any franchise from appearing more than six times in an eight-day window.
  • Regenerated and verified the future slate. All 46 challenges from July 18 through September 1 retain a validated 20–0 roster path.
v14 July 17, 2026

Historical Defender Ratings · Award-Safe Data Builds
Ratings and Data Integrity
  • Corrected historical defender grading. Pre-1999 linebackers and defensive linemen now use era-appropriate formulas that do not punish seasons missing modern tackle, TFL, or quarterback-hit fields.
  • Restored elite defensive seasons. Mike Singletary, Reggie White, and other Defensive Player of the Year winners are selected into their team pools and protected by verified rating floors.
  • Made award enrichment mandatory. The data build now runs awards after every roster rewrite and fails regression validation if awards or known elite seasons disappear.
v13 July 16, 2026

Floating Back to Game Navigation
Subpage Navigation
  • Added a branded floating Back to Game button. It stays bottom-center on the Leaderboard, Past Challenges, Changelog, and Privacy pages, with extra scroll clearance so it cannot cover the final content.
v12 July 16, 2026

Football Is Live · Site Status Updated
Release Status
  • Football has graduated from beta to Live. The main game portal, About page, and site-wide game navigation now show the current release status consistently.
v11 July 15, 2026

Recorded Draft Counter · Views Counter Retired
Draft Totals
  • The home counter now reports recorded drafts only. The views total has been removed from the Football home page.
  • The total comes from actual leaderboard records. Football adds Classic, All-Pro, and Daily Challenge submissions.
  • A lightweight count response was added to the leaderboard API. Football and the main APerfectDraft.com portal can load accurate totals without fetching every leaderboard entry.
  • Privacy wording was corrected. The Football privacy page no longer describes a visitor counter that is no longer active.
v10 June 23, 2026

Daily Ball Centered · Daily Challenge Difficulty Tuned
Home Screen
  • Daily ball is now center stage. The Daily Challenge ball has moved to the center position and is larger than the Classic and Hard Count balls.
Daily Challenge
  • Daily challenges rebalanced. Each daily file now guarantees a minimum of 7–11 elite teams (11+ wins) and no more than 2 sub-.500 teams. Previous files had too many weak teams, making it nearly impossible to find a 20–0 path. All challenges through August 31 have been updated.
  • Balance penalty eased. The scoring penalty for a lopsided roster (e.g. all offense, no defense) has been reduced. You still get punished for ignoring a position entirely, but a well-rounded team with one weak slot is no longer crushed.
v9 June 21, 2026

Data Integrity Fix · Duplicate Player Block
Data
  • 204 duplicate player entries removed. The data set contained players listed twice per team — once in their primary position (e.g. CB) and once in a secondary position (e.g. S). These duplicates allowed the same player to appear in two roster slots simultaneously. All duplicates have been removed; only the primary-position entry is kept.
  • Bad confidence-3 ratings corrected. Several auto-generated player ratings were wildly inflated: Doug Evans (2001 Panthers) had 99 coverage despite playing on a 1–15 team, Walt Harris (2006–07 49ers) was rated 99 despite being a solid but unremarkable starter. These have been corrected to accurate period ratings.
Rules
  • Same player can no longer be drafted twice. Players from different team-years with the same name (e.g. Emmitt Smith 1991 and Emmitt Smith 2000) were both draftable onto the same roster. The draft now blocks any player whose name is already on your team.
v8 June 21, 2026

Daily 20–0 Path Guarantee · iPhone Assign Modal Fixed
Daily Challenge
  • 20–0 path guaranteed in every daily file. Each pre-baked daily challenge is now validated to contain a viable 20–0 roster under the same one-player-per-roll constraint the real game uses. A greedy + swap optimizer finds the best possible roster from that day’s 14 rolls and confirms it clears all scoring thresholds before the file is saved. If no seed yields a valid path, the generator switches to an elite-fallback mode that specifically ensures strong teams at every composite scoring position. Challenges extended through August 31.
Mobile
  • Assign dialog no longer cut off on iPhone. The player assign modal now fills the screen correctly on iOS Safari. The formation field and all 14 position circles are fully reachable. Root cause: iOS Safari needs an explicit height (not just max-height) to establish a definite size for flex children — the formation field was collapsing and being hidden by the overflow clip.
v7 June 20, 2026

Scoring Model Recalibrated · Daily Challenge System
Scoring
  • Scoring model recalibrated (v8). Win thresholds and category floors have been tuned against single-season roster data, matching how the real draft works. A balanced draft now averages around 82–83 points with a realistic 20–0 hit rate near 0.4%.
  • Sim accuracy fix. The internal draft simulator was using era-aggregated player pools (5 years of rosters per roll), inflating scores by ~8 points. It now mirrors the real game: one team-season per roll.
Daily Challenge
  • Pre-baked daily rolls. Football daily challenges now use pre-generated team lists (same as baseball), so every player worldwide sees the exact same 14 rolls on a given date — no client-side RNG drift.
  • Required position coverage. Each daily file is generated to guarantee at least one roll per required position (QB, RB, WR, TE, EDGE, DT, LB, CB, S) across the 14 rolls.
v6 June 20, 2026

Public Beta Launch · Draft Dialog Overhaul · Award Data · Result Screen Redesign
Site
  • Public beta launch. Football is now live on APerfectDraft.com alongside Baseball, accessible from the new multi-sport portal home page.
  • Nav bar hover fix. Moving the mouse from the Games menu down to a game link no longer closes the dropdown before you can click.
Draft Screen
  • Formation field reworked. All 14 position circles now sit in their correct spots with no overlapping. Safety moved to the top, LB and DT separated, and every circle shows its numbered label: WR1/WR2, RB1/RB2, CB1/CB2, DE1/DE2.
  • Position circle text. Labels use a new font with a text shadow, making them readable against any background. “LINE OF SCRIMMAGE” label removed.
  • Stat boxes redesigned. Stats in the assign dialog are now compact inline label + value pairs instead of individual bordered boxes, showing all stats without wasted space.
  • Player card header. Position and team name now appear on the same line below the player’s name instead of stacked separately.
  • Roster labels. The depth chart and post-game roster now show WR1/WR2, RB1/RB2, and other numbered distinctions so you know which slot each player fills.
Result Screen
  • Full redesign. The end-game result screen now uses a dark navy, red, and white color scheme with the APD logo in the corner and the win–loss record displayed large in white.
  • Mobile fit. On phones the result screen now fills the full viewport without requiring any scrolling.
Player Data
  • Real NFL award history added. Over 1,200 players in the dataset now carry their real career awards — MVP, DPOY, OPOY, ROY, Super Bowl Champion, AFC/NFC Champion — from 1978 through 2024. Award badges now appear on player cards during the draft.
  • Pro Bowl badge corrected. Pro Bowl-tier players now display the Pro Bowl logo instead of the All-Pro badge.
v5 June 17, 2026

UI Polish · Draft Screen Inner Scroll · Play Clock Repositioned
Draft Screen
  • Inner scroll on player list. Only the draftable player area scrolls now — the position filters, team header, and play clock all stay pinned in place as you browse the roster.
  • Mobile fills full screen. The draft panel now stretches from below the nav bar all the way to the top of the footer with no gap, giving you more visible player cards per screen.
  • Play clock repositioned. On desktop, the play clock and challenge flag now float outside and to the right of the draft panel instead of overlapping it. On mobile they pin fixed above the footer.
Team Card
  • Mode logo in team header. The current game mode logo now appears as a full-height badge on the right side of the team card — Classic, Hard Count, or Daily — so you always know which mode you're in.
  • APD shield logo added. The A Perfect Draft shield logo is used as the default mode badge on the team card head.
Home Screen
  • Updated logos. How to Play and Leaderboard buttons now use V2 artwork throughout the home screen and footer.
  • Depth chart filler. The depth chart panel's empty space is now filled with a stadium silhouette image instead of dead white space.
v4 June 15, 2026

Scoring Model v3 · FLEX Slot · Auto-Assign · Award Badges
Scoring Model v3
  • Average 1.0 win error — the scoring model was retrained and now predicts team wins within 1 win on average across the full 1978–2024 dataset.
  • Era normalization improved — stats are now compared against league averages for that specific season, so a dominant 1980s defense and a modern pass-heavy offense are evaluated on equal footing.
Roster Slots
  • FLEX slot added. A 16th roster slot lets you start any eligible skill player (WR, RB, or TE) — like real fantasy football, your best available weapon fills the flex.
  • K and OL now included. Kicker and Offensive Line slots are part of the roster, reflecting their real contribution to a team's performance.
Quality of Life
  • Auto-assign button. Tap the auto-assign icon to automatically fill your open slots with the highest-rated available players from each rolled team.
  • Re-roll button added to draft screen. In Classic mode, one re-roll per draft is available directly from the player panel header.
  • Award badges on player cards. Pro Bowl, All-Pro, Offensive Player of the Year, and other awards appear as badges on player cards when applicable.
  • White card mode. Player cards show a clean white background option for improved readability.
v3 June 14, 2026

Home Hero · Draft Screen Polish · Postgame Tiers & Share
Home Screen
  • Stadium hero section. The home screen now opens with a full-width stadium background image and the main APD Football logo as a hero above the mode cards.
  • Cleaner mode card layout. Classic, Hard Count, and Daily mode cards are spaced and styled more consistently.
Draft Screen
  • Conference badge on team card. Each rolled team now shows their conference logo (AFC/NFC) alongside the team name and year.
  • Roll pulse animation. The team card animates with a brief pulse when a new team is rolled, drawing your eye to the new card.
  • Dynamic hint text. The hint below the player list updates based on how many slots you've filled, guiding you toward your open positions.
Postgame
  • Tier color system. Result cards are color-coded by performance tier — Super Bowl Champ, Playoff Contender, Wild Card, etc.
  • Share button. Tap Share to copy your final roster and record as text to share with friends.
  • Reveal animation. The final record reveals with a short countdown animation before displaying your win-loss total.
v2 June 14, 2026

Position Filters · Play Clock · Challenge Flag
Draft Screen
  • Position filter chips. QB, RB, WR, TE, OL, K, DL, LB, DB filter buttons let you quickly narrow the player list to your open slots.
  • Collapsible position sections. Players are grouped by position with collapsible headers so you can quickly scan the roster by unit.
Play Clock & Challenge Flag
  • 40-second play clock. In Hard Count mode, a 40-second play clock runs on each roll. If it expires, the best available player is auto-drafted into an open slot.
  • Challenge flag. Each draft gets one challenge — a chance to re-roll and get a different team if you don't like what you see.
v1 Foundation June 2026

Football Prototype Launched
Game Engine
  • NFL team-season data 1978–2024. Every real NFL franchise from the modern era, with real player stats from the official record books.
  • 15 roster slots. QB, RB×2, WR×3, TE, OL, K, DL×2, LB×2, DB×2 — one player per slot, drafted from a different real NFL team-season on each roll.
  • Win simulation. Your roster's stats are run through a model trained on actual NFL win totals to predict your season record.
  • 20–0 target. The goal is to assemble a roster good enough to go a perfect 20–0 through the regular season and playoffs.
Game Modes
  • Classic mode launched. Full stats shown for every player — build the perfect team with complete information.
  • Hard Count mode launched. No stats displayed. Draft on name, team, and season alone. Pure football knowledge required.
  • Daily mode launched. Everyone gets the same rolls each day — compete with other players using an identical player pool.
Features
  • Leaderboard. Submit your win-loss record and full roster after each game. See where you rank globally.
  • How to Play. Full in-game tutorial covering all modes, scoring, and strategy.
  • Depth chart view. Browse the full depth chart for each rolled team to find hidden gems or confirm your pick.
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