American football has a 53-man roster and a 22-man game. Every Sunday, everything outside those 22 jobs — the backup quarterback, the third cornerback, the long snapper, the practice-squad call-up — exists only to protect the starters. All 22 NFL is the shorthand for the version of that idea this game runs on: one board, 11 offensive starters, 11 defensive starters, and no bench.
Why a 53-man roster reduces to 22 jobs
Professional rosters are built around substitutions, not around starters. Snap counts decide games, and the players who never leave the field are the ones who decide them. The game takes the same view: it does not ask who your third safety is, because a third safety is a coverage package, not a starter.
- Specialists fold into one slot. A real roster carries a kicker, a punter and a long snapper. In the pool those three jobs become one kicker slot that grades on HP, defense and speed with a tiny 0.3 to 1.0 m frame.
- Backups are not modelled. There is no rotation, so every slot carries its full grade all season. A weak right guard is not a player you can hide behind a rotation; the grade is on the field for all 17 weeks.
- Sub packages do not add slots. Nickel and dime defenses in the NFL bring on extra defensive backs. The all-22 board answers that with the second cornerback and both safety slots instead of a fifth job.
- The offensive line is five separate jobs. Left tackle does not grade the same as center, even though both are big bodies. Center reads defense, HP and sp. attack; the tackles read defense, HP and attack with a wider mass band.
The all 22 NFL depth chart, job by job
The table below pairs the familiar NFL job names with the exact slot used on the board and the grading inputs behind it. Read the last column as a scouting note: those are the three or four things the position formula actually weighs.
| NFL position | All 22 slot | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | QB | Sp. attack first, then speed and attack; 1.5–2.1 m frame. Top grade 68 (Deoxys Normal) |
| Running back | RB | Speed and attack, with HP as the contact balance; 25–80 kg band. Top grade 66 (Annihilape) |
| Split end / flanker | WR1, WR2 | Speed 0.5, sp. attack 0.25; light frames win. Top grade 72 (Zeraora) |
| Tight end | TE | Attack, sp. defense and weight; 1.4–2.1 m, 60–220 kg. Top grade 65 (Slaking) |
| Left tackle | LT | Defense and HP in a 120–960 kg frame; the widest band on the board. Top grade 74 (Avalugg) |
| Left guard | LG | Same band as the tackle with more attack weight. Top grade 74 (Avalugg) |
| Center | C | Defense plus sp. attack: the line-call read. Top grade 72 (Avalugg) |
| Right guard | RG | Guard profile, slightly more attack than the center. Top grade 74 (Avalugg) |
| Right tackle | RT | Tackle profile; mass matters, height matters more than expected. Top grade 74 (Avalugg) |
| Kicker | K | HP, defense and speed in a 3–45 kg frame; no body grades above 62 |
| Edge rusher (3-4 OLB) | LE, RE | Attack, speed and weight; 80–300 kg. Right edge is one deep at the top (Crabominable 65) |
| 3-technique tackle | DT1 | Defense, HP, attack; penetration duty. Top grade 73 (Avalugg, Aggron 71) |
| Nose tackle | DT2 | Same inputs, more mass; 150–960 kg band. Snorlax and Great Tusk clear 65 |
| Sam linebacker | LOLB | Attack, defense and speed; 60–190 kg. Top grade 68 (Iron Leaves) |
| Mike linebacker | MLB | Defense 0.35, attack 0.30, speed 0.15; the second-highest ceiling on defense. Cloyster 70 |
| Will linebacker | ROLB | Speed-heavy outside profile; Machamp and Cloyster both clear 65 |
| CB1 shadow corner | CB1 | Speed 0.5 and sp. defense 0.25; no body grades above 64 |
| CB2 / nickel corner | CB2 | Same formula, thinner pool: six bodies grade 60 or better |
| Free safety | FS | Speed, attack and sp. defense; range wins. Tornadus and Landorus both grade 65 |
| Strong safety | SS | Speed, attack and sp. defense with a heavier 40–130 kg band. Top grade 66 (Genesect) |
Scheme fit changes who is worth drafting
Real defenses are named by their front, and the front changes what each job is asked to do. The board does not have a scheme selector, so scheme fit lives in your head: it is the reason two good football minds can build two different boards and both be right.
| Front | Edge jobs | Interior jobs | Secondary lean |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-4 | LE and RE stand up and rush from a two-point stance; attack and speed matter more than mass | DT1 and DT2 eat two gaps: defense and HP over penetration | Heavier strong safety to support the run |
| 4-3 | Hand in the dirt, one-on-one wins: attack carries a 0.40 weight, the heaviest attack weight on the defensive side | Tackles shoot gaps; attack climbs above HP | Two coverage safeties, faster free safety |
| Nickel-heavy | Both edge jobs must hold up against the run alone | Only one true nose; DT2 becomes a penetrator | CB2 and both safeties carry the coverage load |
The offensive side has its own scheme question. A vertical passing game wants the two receiver slots loaded with speed and sp. attack, and receiver is the deepest premium pool on the board: seven bodies grade 65 or better at the first receiver job. A run-first build spends those same picks on guards and a heavier tight end, and lets the receiver slots settle for 60-grade speed later.
Reading a scouting report like the grader does
Every grade on the board comes from three inputs: a weighted stat score, a body-type fit score, and a typing modifier. The stat score is 62% of the total, the body fit is 28%, and typing contributes the final 10%. That means a scouting note about a 40-yard time maps to speed, a bench-press number maps to attack, and a weigh-in maps to the fit score.
- Height is 45% of the body score. The fit peaks in the middle of a slot's frame and falls away toward both edges, which is why the extreme bodies fail. Cosmoem weighs 999.9 kg but stands 0.1 m tall and grades 35 at left tackle; Eternatus is 20 m long and grades 50 as a receiver.
- Weight is 55% of the body score. Mass is the bigger half of fit, so line and interior jobs are won on the scale first, then on the stat sheet.
- Typing is a tiebreaker, not a philosophy. Fighting, steel, rock and ground bodies get a lift in the trench jobs, while fairy typings take a penalty there. It is worth ten points of grade at most.
- Stats are capped high. Base stats above 180 are treated as elite and no longer separate one body from another, so two 180-speed athletes grade nearly the same at cornerback.
NFL logic is a good filter for this pool: build the trenches first, protect the quarterback, and never let the second cornerback and the free safety both be afterthoughts. The position guide lists every slot's grading formula, and the roster rules guide explains the size bands in plain terms.
Where the NFL comparison stops being useful
The game borrows structure, not administration. There is no salary cap, no draft pick compensation, no free agency and no injury report. A finished board plays 17 games as submitted, and the season is decided by grades, schedule and week-to-week variance. The comparison that survives is the interesting one: in both the real sport and on this board, the teams that last are the teams whose fifth offensive lineman is not a liability.
If the fantasy-football reading of roster value is more your angle, the Pokémon fantasy football page translates the same grades into value over replacement and positional scarcity. If you want to test a depth chart against other managers instead of building alone, take the snake draft route.
Build the 22, then play the season
Set the trenches, spend the premium picks where the pool is thin, and simulate 17 games. The board grades every job the moment a body lands in it.