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One of the great innovations over the last 5 years or so has been the use of PFF to judge players, especially in leagues like ours. Prior to PFF, most team owners really had no way to anticipate where the “normal” guys would be ranked the following season; every team will tell you their LG played great, even if your eye balls seemed to see something different, and nobody has the time to look at the All-22 and grade players on their own. That said, PFF has its shortcomings, and here are 5 areas I see where PFF falls short.
1) Players who tend to have specific roles on their teams
How many times have you seen a player leave the Patriots and go shine elsewhere, who wasn’t named Tom Brady? Regardless of whether you love him or hate him, Belichick is a master at figuring out how to get the most out of a player discarded by other teams. Excellent example; Legarrette Blount signs onto the Bucs, but falls asleep at a team meeting, and misses a block that almost gets Josh Freeman decapitated; Schiano lets him go, where he proceeds to sign with New England, where Blount won’t fall asleep at any meeting where Tom Brady is nearby, isn’t asked to block, and gets 18 TD’s one season. PFF grades are higher on teams like the Patriots, where the coaching staff is smart enough to only ask guys to do things they are successful at, and PFF typically rewards them with better grades; just beware of those guys when they take the money and run the next season.
2) Rookies with veteran coaches
There are some coaches that tend to favor veterans, regardless of how good the young guys play (looking at you Todd Bowles); as almost an opposite of the above, these rookies are often given assignments that don’t suite their skills, which in turn is reflected in their PFF scores. Going back to the Bucs for an example, Joe Tryon-Shoyinko was a rookie this past season, and during the pre-season, he exploded as a rookie. That said, Bowles liked having JPP out there and played him despite obvious signs age and/or injuries were slowing him down. Bowles did slowly start giving reps to Tryon, but not always on passing downs, and often more on the inside, where he wasn’t nearly as effective. If you were going to grade Tryon-Shoyinko solely from his PFF grade, you might think he was just an average rookie, but Tryon-Shoyinko should be due a good sophomore season, especially with Jason Pierre-Paul a free agent.
3) Interior linemen just seem to be downgraded compared to Tackles
15 OT’s this past season were graded 80+ by PFF; there were only 8 guards graded that high. I’m not sure how guards seem to get graded lower in this pass-happy NFL, especially since teams are usually beaten by edge rushers, but the guys inside seem to really take a hit to their grades during the season. Centers are even worse, with only 4 centers rated over 80, with one of them only logging 490 snaps last year (Chase Roullier). Whatever the exact criteria is, guys who play inside seem to get the shaft, so if you see a tackle moved inside for any reason, expect their PFF number to reflect that.
4) PFF has never figured out how to grade LB’s
I’ve actually seen Sam Monson on one of PFF’s videos actually admit PFF has trouble putting a grade on linebackers. Example…if PFF were to be believed, then Devin White should be sitting on the bench, with Kevin Minter the starter…yet Devin White also just played in his 2nd Pro Bowl. Now, I tend to think that Devin White’s play is probably somewhere in the middle (he really got exposed when David was hurt), but PFF’s grading doesn’t take into account that he plays next to a potential HOF ILB in Lavonte David; in short, when the two of them are out there, White has the luxury of just going balls out and not worrying as much about missing a tackle or getting burned during play action. With David there to clean up any messes and just play sound defense, it allows White to make the splash plays that he is known for despite PFF counting his swings and misses. PFF doesn’t have a good way to grade a player as it relates to the duties of all the guys acting as a unit and playing a particular role, and they tend to give more credit to coverage LB’s rather than run stoppers.
5) PFF doesn’t delineate between slot corners and outside corners.
In today’s NFL, teams tend to play nickel at least 60% of the time, and use various schemes to man that inside slot, whether it is a 3rd safety, a safety/linebacker hybrid or just a 3rd LB like Seattle did a few years back. That said, PFF grades each corner by the same system, even though a nickel corner has to come out of the game more times. Excellent example of that CB Nate Hobbs for the Raiders; now he had an excellent rookie season, and you might say he was the best slot corner in the NFL last year, and had a 79.4 PFF grade (as an aside….CB’s also get lower scores than other positions, but then again, in today’s NFL they tend to get burned more). Now I don’t know if APCFB actually penalizes you for using a slot corner on the outside, but the actual grades you see given really don’t reflect that part of the game. All in all, I am a big fan of PFF, but they aren’t perfect by any stretch.
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