If I'm throwing short, obviously my distribution on short throws affects the play. Does my vs or m distribution also impact the play in any way?

I don't know for sure but I think your distribution settings for other depths could possibly have an impact by removing a receiver from your intended depth.

For example, say you have your WR1 set to get 60% of the passes at Medium and also 100% of the passes at Long. That *might* result in WR1 being at Long and then if your QB makes another progression read, and decides to throw it to the Medium depth, then WR1 *might* be out of the equation.

I don't know if this happens. I think it could be happening sometimes, because it sometimes seems to be the only explanation for some of PbP details that I have seen on some of my pass plays . . . But I cannot say for sure.

I have had situations where my WR1 was supposed to get 99% of the pass targets at a particular depth, but then in the actual game results, my WR2 ended up getting 90% of the targets at that depth even though he was only supposed to get 1%. I have had this happen many times.

This is a great question and there might not be a definite answer. I've messed around with different settings on certain playbooks and yardage with mixed results. The only logic I can come up with is that the opposing defense CB locked down my #1 target or WR1 and my QB had to do an additional read/check down. Then again Defensive pressure not giving your QB enough time to make the read or pass to WR1 and has to dump it off or tack the sack/incompletion.

for what it's worth i think armchair is right. lets assume you have a play that calls medium or long routes, but mostly medium. you have a guy set to 90 medium and 90 long in distribution. when the engine calls a pass medium it rolls to see who is getting the first read, but 1 out of 10 times that guy won't get the first read. when that happens, he can be pulled out of the medium zone for the next check the qb makes. if he gets the first read but isnt open, the same thing can happen.

if you have a play that only calls medium routes, he will stay in medium and 9/10 times he will get the first look. most often he will get the 3rd look too.