For those that use PFF rankings

[cdumler7]

Whether football teams analyze film more intently than some website isn't really relevant. Williams argument was that no one outside of the Bills organization could properly grade his play.

PFF's grading system may be terrible but that doesn't make Williams point completely accurate.

Yes you can grade a player. It may not be perfect but if you have knowledgeable people grading the players they will, at the very least, be able to give a decent baseline.

The problem is though I would question how knowledgeable the people they hire truly are towards the game. They are not people who have actually worked in the NFL but fans that have time on their hands to watch a bunch of game film. Then I would question a bit of what they would even consider game film. AS you suggested they struggle on the grades for WR's and such because most plays they go off screen so they could be wide open but you would never know. So if they do not have the coaches film (one of my favorite investments this year) then hard to really get an accurate grade. And considering they are releasing most grades for the game before the coaches film is made available to us the fans they are not watching what they need to be.

Heck if I wanted right now I could go and put in an application. They are now hiring people from overseas to watch games and make these kinds of game grades. To me they have expanded beyond what the original intent of the website is and that means a lesser quality and more diverse eyes making judgments. What I see reminds me of my 7th grade science fair. They had different categories you could put your item in for and then they had a different judge for each of them. I had a friend who put in hours upon hours of work but because he had a much harsher judge for his section he ended up getting like a 75% on his project (highest of the group). My group no one got below an 88%. Too many eyes yet trying to use the same data to make subjective judgments means a lower quality of product.

 

[flyerhawk]

I'm going to have to disagree a bit here. They clearly value a 1-gap style DT more so than a 2-gap style DT. It is much harder to really tell on a 2-gap DT how much of a true impact they are having because they register so few stats.

Perhaps I was unclear. I wasn't trying to suggest that the PFF grades were good or bad in this context. I was responding to Kyle Williams assertion that they have no way of knowing what he was supposed to and I think that is an overstatement. They may grade 1-gap DTs higher than 2-gap DTs but that is more a flaw in their methodology, which I agree is a flaw.

Just looking at their list of mid-season All-Pro players by their count the 4 DT's they have listed are all attacking style type guys. Heck even the NT they included it was more about the solo stops they made instead of how they have helped set up other players to go and make plays. I understand the attacking style guys look like the bigger impact players but just depending on the system I would argue if you use a 2-gap DT right and they are high quality they can be just as impactful. A great example is the 2000 Ravens with Sam Adams and Tony Siragusa. Neither were known as great pressure guys but the work they did in the trenches was phenomenal. If I remember right Ray Lewis did an interview where he said that season he only had one time where an OL player actually made it to him to block because those big guys up front just ate up so much space and made it to where he could flow to the ball unhindered.

Completely agree. Honestly, I think it is very difficult to create a consistent measurement for DL players in general.

 

[flyerhawk]

The problem is though I would question how knowledgeable the people they hire truly are towards the game. They are not people who have actually worked in the NFL but fans that have time on their hands to watch a bunch of game film. Then I would question a bit of what they would even consider game film. AS you suggested they struggle on the grades for WR's and such because most plays they go off screen so they could be wide open but you would never know. So if they do not have the coaches film (one of my favorite investments this year) then hard to really get an accurate grade. And considering they are releasing most grades for the game before the coaches film is made available to us the fans they are not watching what they need to be.

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of reasons to criticize PFF grades. But given that there are not other tools out there even TRYING to grade non-skill players, it's hard to get too hard on them. IOW, would we better off not having any services grading players instead of having PFF's grades?

Heck if I wanted right now I could go and put in an application. They are now hiring people from overseas to watch games and make these kinds of game grades. To me they have expanded beyond what the original intent of the website is and that means a lesser quality and more diverse eyes making judgments. What I see reminds me of my 7th grade science fair. They had different categories you could put your item in for and then they had a different judge for each of them. I had a friend who put in hours upon hours of work but because he had a much harsher judge for his section he ended up getting like a 75% on his project (highest of the group). My group no one got below an 88%. Too many eyes yet trying to use the same data to make subjective judgments means a lower quality of product.

I agree and I think there product has fallen off over the past season or two. But I also think they are trying to move to a more objective qualitative system and rely less on subjective analysis. If you task someone with measuring the number of times a DL player got pressure on the QB you could hire someone with only a basic understanding of the game to measure that.

The Elias Bureau has been doing similar stuff for decades.

 

[cdumler7]

Perhaps I was unclear. I wasn't trying to suggest that the PFF grades were good or bad in this context. I was responding to Kyle Williams assertion that they have no way of knowing what he was supposed to and I think that is an overstatement. They may grade 1-gap DTs higher than 2-gap DTs but that is more a flaw in their methodology, which I agree is a flaw.



Completely agree. Honestly, I think it is very difficult to create a consistent measurement for DL players in general.

I agree. They are trying to use similar parameters for players being asked to do very different things in my opinion. I would be interested to see them actually release a scoring sheet for a player in a certain game and just see how it would line up with how others would judge it.

I'm not saying that PFF is the worst thing ever when it comes to stats. I look at it and I know other NFL teams have actually used it some in making some evaluations on players. So it has value. I just question a lot of their methodology in how they arrive at some of the grades because it does suggest bias towards certain things and sometimes a lack of understanding what is happening. They really should release a score sheet just so fans can see what they are looking for.

 

[cdumler7]

Don't get me wrong. There are lots of reasons to criticize PFF grades. But given that there are not other tools out there even TRYING to grade non-skill players, it's hard to get too hard on them. IOW, would we better off not having any services grading players instead of having PFF's grades?



I agree and I think there product has fallen off over the past season or two. But I also think they are trying to move to a more objective qualitative system and rely less on subjective analysis. If you task someone with measuring the number of times a DL player got pressure on the QB you could hire someone with only a basic understanding of the game to measure that.

The Elias Bureau has been doing similar stuff for decades.

Oh I agree very little out there to truly grade how those trench players are doing. So we live with what we got. And again I do look at what they have to say and many times what they have to say lines up with what I see.

I also remember though them actually saying they docked Manning a point on a screen pass a few years back because it wasn't a difficult throw and they couldn't credit him with a positive grade on the play even though it ended in a 70 yard touchdown. Again though how much do you factor in difficulty of the play? Such as sometimes with a QB they throw that off shoulder fade on purpose or try to throw up a jump ball type pass. So it might not look perfect but it is where the QB meant to go with it. Does a 30 yard pass down the field on target equal the same score as a 5 yard pass on target. Part of why they docked Manning on that throw was it was a bit low but many times on those screen passes he would do that to help protect the WR and keep it from being an easy pick.

Anyway I'm done ragging on them. They are a decent site that has worked hard to give us something that was very much missing from the game and helping OL and DL guys get a bit more recognition than in the past.

 

[flyerhawk]

Oh I agree very little out there to truly grade how those trench players are doing. So we live with what we got. And again I do look at what they have to say and many times what they have to say lines up with what I see.

I also remember though them actually saying they docked Manning a point on a screen pass a few years back because it wasn't a difficult throw and they couldn't credit him with a positive grade on the play even though it ended in a 70 yard touchdown. Again though how much do you factor in difficulty of the play? Such as sometimes with a QB they throw that off shoulder fade on purpose or try to throw up a jump ball type pass. So it might not look perfect but it is where the QB meant to go with it. Does a 30 yard pass down the field on target equal the same score as a 5 yard pass on target. Part of why they docked Manning on that throw was it was a bit low but many times on those screen passes he would do that to help protect the WR and keep it from being an easy pick.

Anyway I'm done ragging on them. They are a decent site that has worked hard to give us something that was very much missing from the game and helping OL and DL guys get a bit more recognition than in the past.

I agree with all of these things which is one reason I don't take their QB ratings very seriously because I disagree with their degree of difficulty adjustment. This is Olympic diving. Results matter more than style.

 

[richig07]

Not completely true. A great example is a DE in the 3-4. Some teams look more for guys with bigger size to eat up blocks to help the Linebackers go and make plays. But they still ask them every once in a while to shoot a gap just to keep the offense off guard of what they are doing. So you could see a DL player actually make a great play in the back field where they look like they split two OL players but actually that could be completely against their assignment on the play and they just got lucky that they were where the ball carrier was coming. So when they go back and watch film the coaches will say "you got lucky that worked out but don't do it again" where PFF looks at that and says "wow what a play!"

Eh... I don't know about that. I am quite familiar with the 3-4. It is largely a gap control defensive scheme. It's pretty straightforward most of the time. What you're saying actually makes more sense for the 4-3.

 

[cdumler7]

Eh... I don't know about that. I am quite familiar with the 3-4. It is largely a gap control defensive scheme. It's pretty straightforward most of the time. What you're saying actually makes more sense for the 4-3.

Broncos actually play a 3-4 1-gap attacking system. Phillips has been known if he has the pieces to use this style of defense quite a bit. I've seen others do similar things. Houston when JJ Watt is healthy has done the same thing.