Mistake #1: using PFF as a source.
Mistake #2 is posting copyrighted material from sites like that, which IIRC is strictly prohibited
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Mistake #1: using PFF as a source.
PFF's not terrible, it's just not good to use to rank players against one another because all those grades were awarded by different people who cover each team. It's like comparing an A from one professor to another one without having any inkling of how difficult a grader that professor is. However, PFF is useful in that the people doing the analysis watch the players very closely, meaning a player with a good grade almost certainly performed well. It's just not possible to use those grades to rate players against one another. PFF's analysis of a single game is much better than their season-long "metrics" for this reason.
Basically, PFF lets us know that Marcus Easley, Justin Bethel, and Matt Slater were all very good coverage players last year, but because each player was graded by a different person, there's no way of saying that one is definitively any better than the others despite the obfuscation by faux-quantification.
Why do you always make these fantasy football comments when you do not appear to have any clue how it works. Fantasy football is one of the most simplistic things a football fan can do. You get points for basic stats like yardage, touchdowns, sacks, etc. PFF is all about advanced stats. These things could not be more different.Disagree completely, PFF is the most worthless site out there on the subject of football. It is a garbage site with make believe metrics, it's strictly for those who play fantasy football and believe that their make believe metrics actually have some relevance when in truth they have zero value.
It is prohibited to post an image from a website with the websites name referenced on the image?Mistake #2 is posting copyrighted material from sites like that, which IIRC is strictly prohibited
It is prohibited to post an image from a website with the websites name referenced on the image?
I actually did not get it off the site, it was an image from a Google search.If it's a free website, you should post a link to the page it came from.
Why do you always make these fantasy football comments when you do not appear to have any clue how it works. Fantasy football is one of the most simplistic things a football fan can do. You get points for basic stats like yardage, touchdowns, sacks, etc. PFF is all about advanced stats. These things could not be more different.
It's not "advanced stats." It's qualitative analysis made up to look like statistics. Think grading essays using a rubric. That doesn't mean I think PFF is useless, it just means I think it tries to be something it's not.
For the record, I agree entirely with what you're saying about PFF.
I do find it mildly amusing that even they had to have realized their own errors prior to posting ridiculous articles about how no-name NFL players are at the top of their "list," while a future first ballot HOF candidate leading his team to a 14-2 record (at the time) is at the bottom of the list.
Had they decided to just nix idiotic reports such as that one, they'd likely have a lot more credibility in my opinion.
For the record, I agree entirely with what you're saying about PFF.
I do find it mildly amusing that even they had to have realized their own errors prior to posting ridiculous articles about how no-name NFL players are at the top of their "list," while a future first ballot HOF candidate leading his team to a 14-2 record (at the time) is at the bottom of the list.
Had they decided to just nix idiotic reports such as that one, they'd likely have a lot more credibility in my opinion.
It is also the site that named Kareem Mckenzie the best player in football a few years back, and named Ryan Wendell one of the best centers in football two years ago. It's aa joke of a football site
It is not pitcher against hitter it is eleven guys executing in sync that determines whether or not a play is run successfully and the numbers that come from that, none of it is done in the kind of vacuum that sites like PFF try to pretend it is done in.
PFF embodies everything that i think is wrong with the current state of analysis some people try to perform on football. They believe that like baseball football is subject to some kind pf sabermetric analysis and that it is just a matter of numbers, when in truth, at least imo, football is a sport that is completely interdependent and that kind of approach strips it of the necessary context to analyze what happens on the field. It is not pitcher against hitter it is eleven guys executing in sync that determines whether or not a play is run successfully and the numbers that come from that, none of it is done in the kind of vacuum that sites like PFF try to pretend it is done in. For me that approach is completely worthless and as such I pretty much dismiss anything that utilizes it to make or support an argument, or attempts to analyze it with that approach. That said the use of it is only going to grow because of the role it plays in fantasy analysis and all people like me who reject it can really do is ignore the use of it and other lame attempts at reducing football to phony metrics.
This isn't even what PFF tries to do analytically, and you're making the mistake they want you to make by equating numbers with true statistical analysis - which, I'll add, is very powerful even in football. Statistical analysis generally requires probabilistic statements - we can never be one hundred percent sure that X is true, but we can say that it will occur given A, B, and C with N degree of certainty. Generally, there's a great deal of statistical error - randomness - in these models when it comes to sports (or anything, really) and the job of the statistician/sabermetrician is to find what other variables can go into the model to better explain phenomena. To get this sort of analysis, you need to read research papers of the kind that are presented at the Sloan MIT Analytics conference. DVOA and DYAR and the like come closer because they use a model to generate advanced analytics, and those analytics feel reliable, but outside of QBs, they're mostly team metrics.
Pro Football Focus, on the other hand, has volunteers sitting there and watching each play of a game and grading players on every play. This is inherently valuable. I don't watch every play to see if Dan Connolly messed up, but the PFF folks do. Now, of course, they're working with incomplete information so they have to make subjective calls as to whether someone screwed up. We don't know what the rubric they're grading from looks like. Like any grading, it's subject to individual preference - an A in one class is not an A in another class, just like a +10 for one grader at PFF may not be a +10 for another grader. Tom Brady and Drew Brees could have the same exact game but the former could receive a +8 and the latter a +11 just because the Patriots grader is more stingy or critical than the Saints grader.
Moreover, the numbers aren't really scalar metrics, despite appearing as such. There's no logical way to differentiate said +11 from +8; does it mean that Brees was "3" better than Brady? 3 of what? It's really just a nominative stand-in to say "this player performed very well" or "this player was slightly above average" or "this player was crap." This is why presenting their grades as sortable and rankable is total bunk, done to generate conversation and website clicks (Brady is #98 and Rivers is #44, for example)
However, the value is that you know that players who were awarded good grades or bad grades for a given game probably played well or played poorly because their performance was pored over by people who have a lot more free time than any of us (except maybe Brady6). PFF's volunteers are the sort of weird OCD people who spend an hour grading the performance of a right guard 16 weeks a year. Just by virtue of having their eyes on every play multiple times, they see performances that we don't just because we don't have time to rewatch games over and over. It's an alternative to a lot of the narrative-driven analysis you get at places like ESPN, where groupthink about a particular player overrides the truth. "Tony Romo isn't clutch" is the perfect example of that. You just have to triangulate PFF analysis with other sources.
That's why I like the site, but it's important to keep in mind that their grades aren't statistics (some of their advanced statistics are indeed statistics, but it's hard to differentiate them and they aren't transparent with their calculations or rubric) and that the grades should be used as a general guide to who's a good player rather than as a way to say good player X is better than good player Y because that's an exercise in futility no matter what stats you're using to justify it.
For example, JJ Watt, Lavonte David, Darrelle Revis, and Richard Sherman all graded out extremely well in PFF and they're known to be outstanding players anyways. Revis is interesting because the narrative analysis was that he had "a down year" last season, but this analysis says Devin McCourty graded very well. Then there are some guys you never really hear about who graded very well like Stephen Tulloch, Dontari Poe, Damon Harrison, and Jason Kelce. That's interesting, and it encourages me to take a closer look at those players from other sources, like their local media or fanbase who may already know that they're a diamond in the rough who you never hear about because they're not part of the narrative.
I voted & posted that Slater was a near lock. The only caveat being some unexpected youngun' who could do the job nearly as well, an unlikely 2014 scenario in my limited view.
I would like to move the discussion to what Reiss alluded to, a possible extension in this, his last contract year. This is a quandary because as patsfanken and Brady6 have mentioned, Slater is cap pricey for a guy whose opportunity to make plays has been reduced by rule changes. I do not expect to see him extended, and if not he's likely on another team with high cap space in 2015. I say this as someone who values his contribution as a player and very much wants him on the 2014 Patriots. It will be interesting to see what the Pats decide regarding an extension.
Great post PWP – I agree completely with what you have said here, I personally, like Slater and what he brings to the team and I have no problem with his cap hit being what it is. I just would not label him inexpensive by any stretch of the imagination; he is well compensated for his duties. As far as extending him, that is a tough call, he relies a lot on his speed, and I have to believe that will diminish as he enters his 30s. Will he still be an effective player if that happens is really the questions. I personally, see Slater as a player who had a window of time in his mid 20s where he would receive a multiyear deal and after this deal I think because of the role he plays he is looking at a year-to-year existence in the NFL. I could be wrong, time will tell, I do remember Kraft saying something about Slater being a player deserving of an extension at one point not too long ago.I voted & posted that Slater was a near lock. The only caveat being some unexpected youngun' who could do the job nearly as well, an unlikely 2014 scenario in my limited view.
I would like to move the discussion to what Reiss alluded to, a possible extension in this, his last contract year. This is a quandary because as patsfanken and Brady6 have mentioned, Slater is cap pricey for a guy whose opportunity to make plays has been reduced by rule changes. I do not expect to see him extended, and if not he's likely on another team with high cap space in 2015. I say this as someone who values his contribution as a player and very much wants him on the 2014 Patriots. It will be interesting to see what the Pats decide regarding an extension.
How is that? Show me another player that does what Slater does that makes more than him, to make Slater inexpensive?
No you are wrong about everything, including my changing the story, we opted to draft players to replace veterans in lieu of resigning them.
2011
Light – Solder
Hoyer – Mallett
Green-Ellis – Ridley
Woodhead – Vereen
2012
Carter – Jones
Anderson – Bequette
Chung – Wilson
2013
Spikes - Collins
Mesko – Allen
Gregory – Harmon
Scott - Buchanan
2014 (Potentially)
Mallett – Garopollo
Connolly – Stork
Cannon – Fleming
White – Ridley or Vereen
What is your point, we could have resigned them, we did not. We opted for the less expensive rookie contract.
So Collins is not going to be in the starting lineup instead of Spikes this season? That would make him the replacement, just because they have different styles of play does not mean he was not drafted to fill the hole in the starting lineup left by Spikes.
Why do you draft a LB in the 2nd round? Because your team doesn't have depth at the position and you have no one on your roster that has the ability to cover TEs/RBs out of the backfield. So you add a talented player like Collins in hopes that he can bring depth and coverage skills.No then why do you draft a LB in the second round the year before one of your starters is slated to become a free agent? Wow, it is hurting my head talking to you, I need to stop now.