All 22 Football exists because of a simple observation: the all-22 boards people were already sharing online were fun to read and impossible to settle. Everyone had a different idea of what the best 22 looked like, and nobody could prove a board actually worked. So this project turned the argument into a game. Pick the 22 starters, grade every position, simulate the season, and let the record be the answer.
What the project is
At its core All 22 Football is three tools stacked together. The first is a roster builder that holds 22 slots — the eleven offensive jobs and eleven defensive jobs that make up a starting lineup. The second is a grading model that reads every filled slot and returns a position grade, so a board is never just a pile of names. The third is a season simulator that turns those grades into a full 17-game schedule and a win-loss record.
It is deliberately free and deliberately simple. There is no account, no download and no paywall anywhere in the game. The whole thing runs in the browser, and your saved roster sits in your own device rather than on a server. If you want to see the game itself rather than read about it, the roster builder is the full experience.
Why the name is “all 22”
The all-22 is a coaching term that predates the game by decades. When a team reviews film, the tight, broadcast-style angle only shows a handful of players near the ball. The all-22 angle — sometimes called the coaches' film — widens out to show every one of the 22 players on the field at once, including the ones far from the play. It is the only way to see whether a receiver actually got open, whether a lineman missed a block, or whether a safety took a bad angle.
That framing is the whole point of the game. A highlight reel flatters famous names; a full 22-slot board exposes every weak link at once. When you have to fill the left guard and the strong safety as well as the quarterback and the edge rusher, you stop picking stars and start building a team. The name fits the format exactly, so it stuck.
How the rating model is built
Every Pokémon in the pool brings the same three kinds of information, and the grading model uses all three together. Base stats alone would reward pure attackers at every slot, so body type and typing are weighted in to make each job its own puzzle.
Base stats
The six canonical stats — HP, attack, defense, special attack, special defense and speed — are the foundation. Different positions lean on different columns: quarterbacks live on special attack and decision-making inputs, linemen on defense and HP, skill players on speed.
Body type
Height in metres and weight in kilograms decide scheme fit. A 1,000 kg wall is an anchor at nose tackle and a liability at cornerback; a light, fast species is a weapon at receiver and a wasted slot at guard. Each job has a body-type sweet spot, and being outside it costs grade.
Typing
A species' type informs the role it plays best. Physical, aggressive typings read well at the line and in the box; fast, ranged typings read well in space. Typing is the tie-breaker that separates two players with near-identical bodies.
Combining the three is what makes the board interesting. Two Pokémon with the same speed can grade a full tier apart at the same position once weight and typing are added. The result is a model where no single stat wins a slot, and where a balanced 22 beats a top-heavy 22 more often than not.
The honest disclosure
All 22 Football is an independent fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or officially connected to Nintendo, Creatures Inc., GAME FREAK inc., The Pokémon Company, or the National Football League. All character names, species names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. The game is a free, non-commercial strategy project that uses publicly documented species attributes, and it claims no ownership over any of them.
Simulation results are estimates produced by a game, not predictions of real sporting outcomes. The season scores, records and grades are for entertainment and are generated by the model described above. Nothing on this site is betting advice or a forecast of any real event.
How to get the most out of it
- Read the 22 positions before your first draft so you know which jobs read which stats.
- Try a single-generation filter for a themed challenge, then open the pool up for a serious run.
- Publish a finished board to the lineup wall and compare records with other builds.
- Start with the position explainer and the 17-0 guide if you want a head start.
For anything not covered here, the FAQ answers the most common questions and the contact page explains how to reach the team directly.