Vikings PFF grades against Rams

[MaroonBells]

lol, they do? Listen, never heard that before. But I've seen plenty of people bashing it. I'm open to revision with my opinion but it doesn't appear to align with putting eyes on the games often. The people 'reviewing' is where the issue lies and that's where the skepticism resides from many.

Yes, they do. Like I said, it's not perfect, especially in small sample sizes, but over the course of several games or a season, it becomes more and more accurate. That's just the nature of data. 

Be skeptical all you want, but it has value, especially for people who tend to label data "horseshit" when it doesn't sync with their preconceptions.

[Kentis]

Fun Fact: good old Cris Collinsworth is the majority owner of PFF, he paid $6M for it in 2014, it is now valued at $160M+…

[MaroonBells]

Fun Fact: good old Cris Collinsworth is the majority owner of PFF, he paid $6M for it in 2014, it is now valued at $160M+…

What's really interesting is that their intention is to eventually do grades in real time, live as it happens. Not sure how that will work though. There's just no way that can be accurate without the double review.

[DH11]

Sorry, but PFF is mostly horseshit.

Not really it’s highly respected

[medaille]

What's really interesting is that their intention is to eventually do grades in real time, live as it happens. Not sure how that will work though. There's just no way that can be accurate without the double review.

The thing I don’t understand is how they would do it without all 22.  You literally can’t see what half the players are doing from broadcast angles.  Do they have access to the All-22 before everyone else does?

Logstically, I don’t think the real time thing is a huge issue if they are adequately staffed for it and could have a deal with the NFL to get sufficient camera angles in real time.  There’s a lot of dead time in a football game.  What I think would be the biggest challenge is being adequately staffed for it.  Like, if you have something dumb like 6 games happening at the same time on a fall Sunday early slot.  You can maybe get each reviewer to do 2-3 players.  So there’s 22 people on the field to review, so you need a team of 7-11 people per game + support people, so maybe you have something like a team of 75 reviewers. 

What are you going to have them do the rest of the week?  You probably can’t just gig this out and maintain credibility, because each of these people need to be trained to their standards and whatnot, and probably don’t want to work one or two days a week for partial pay. 

It’d also be interesting to see who this data would be for.  Like are teams watching the scores in literal real time and being like Robinson’s getting abused, how do we solve that, rather than solely watching the game?

[Greylock]

They need to do a separate PFF grade for officials in each game. Maybe they do it to help with who refs in the playoffs but if they do make it public just like the one for players.

[MaroonBells]

The thing I don’t understand is how they would do it without all 22.  You literally can’t see what half the players are doing from broadcast angles.  Do they have access to the All-22 before everyone else does?

Logstically, I don’t think the real time thing is a huge issue if they are adequately staffed for it and could have a deal with the NFL to get sufficient camera angles in real time.  There’s a lot of dead time in a football game.  What I think would be the biggest challenge is being adequately staffed for it.  Like, if you have something dumb like 6 games happening at the same time on a fall Sunday early slot.  You can maybe get each reviewer to do 2-3 players.  So there’s 22 people on the field to review, so you need a team of 7-11 people per game + support people, so maybe you have something like a team of 75 reviewers. 

What are you going to have them do the rest of the week?  You probably can’t just gig this out and maintain credibility, because each of these people need to be trained to their standards and whatnot, and probably don’t want to work one or two days a week for partial pay. 

It’d also be interesting to see who this data would be for.  Like are teams watching the scores in literal real time and being like Robinson’s getting abused, how do we solve that, rather than solely watching the game?

They do use the all 22. 

PFF employs over 600 full or part-time analysts, but less than 10% of analysts are trained to the level that they can grade plays. Only the top two to three percent of analysts are on the team of “senior analysts” in charge of finalizing each grade after review. Our graders have been training for months, and sometimes years, in order to learn, understand and show mastery of our process that includes our 300-page training manual and video playbook. We have analysts from all walks of life, including former players, coaches and scouts. We don’t care if you played. Each grade is reviewed at least once, and usually multiple times, using every camera angle available, including All-22 coaches’ tape.

This is mostly marketing-speak, but if you're interested....
https://www.pff.com/grades

[medaille]

They do use the all 22. 

PFF employs over 600 full or part-time analysts, but less than 10% of analysts are trained to the level that they can grade plays. Only the top two to three percent of analysts are on the team of “senior analysts” in charge of finalizing each grade after review. Our graders have been training for months, and sometimes years, in order to learn, understand and show mastery of our process that includes our 300-page training manual and video playbook. We have analysts from all walks of life, including former players, coaches and scouts. We don’t care if you played. Each grade is reviewed at least once, and usually multiple times, using every camera angle available, including All-22 coaches’ tape.

This is mostly marketing-speak, but if you're interested....
https://www.pff.com/grades

That's not the point I was making.  I'm asking, when do they currently get access to the All-22?  Doesn't the All-22 come out after the game or a day or two later?  For them to do it real-time they would need to have immediate access to it.  They'd have to have some sort of deal with the NFL for it to pipe it directly to their facility.  They certainly couldn't do their real-time analysis using the broadcast streams that are publicly available.

---

They need to do a separate PFF grade for officials in each game.  Maybe they do it to help with who refs in the playoffs but if they do make it public just like the one for players.

That's something we'd all be interested in.

[greediron]

That was my take as well. Bradbury was actually pretty good in pass pro. Risner was OK, Brandel was bad, O'Neill wasn't his usual self and Cam Robinson was flat awful. And when I went back to watch again, all of that seemed to hold true in my eyes. 

I guess if there's good news to take from this it's that the worst of it (Robinson) isn't returning and will be replaced by Darrisaw next year.

you went back and watched that again?  Not a fan of PFF, but when your best run blocking grades are WRs, you might have an issue.

Best run blocking grades
Jordan Addison 72.8
Dalton Risner 66
Justin Jefferson 62.5



Best pass blocking grades
Aaron Jones 81.9
Garrett Bradbury 73.2
C.J. Ham 73.1