The Giants' Secret Weapon Against the Pats? Pro Football Focus.

[NEP4Life]

In Super Bowl, Giants Go Long for a Number Cruncher - WSJ.com

INDIANAPOLIS—A secret strategist for the New York Giants won't be in Indianapolis for Sunday's Super Bowl bout against the New England Patriots. He won't even be in the U.S.

Neil Hornsby will be watching the game on television from his home about 30 miles from London. A north England native, Mr. Hornsby never played a down of football. Not until the age of 42 did he attend his first professional football game.

Then, in 2007, he launched his website, called Pro Football Focus. At first it made no splash. But gradually football junkies saw it offered unusual detail, including grades of how specific players performed in each game in each facet of the game.

Perhaps something for the Pro Football Focus bashers to consider.

 

[BritPat]

All you need to know about PFF is that ALL their grading is done from the same pictures you and me watch whilst sitting on the couch eating pretzels.

It's flawed, therefore untrustworthy.

 

[IcyPatriot]

So for the next week every d-bag story written will get posted as a thread ... wonderful. :bricks:

 

[Sciz]

A north England native, Mr. Hornsby never played a down of football. Yet from watching games broadcast over the Internet

This is the only sentence and a half that you need to bother reading. All this crap is done by a guy who has never played football and gets no better film than we do. All he has that we don't is the time to watch everything and write his opinion down. This is the site that awards "degree of difficulty" points to quarterbacks. They've flat out said that completing a pass into double or even triple coverage earns a better grade than throwing a pass into single coverage.

 

[Deus Irae]

In Super Bowl, Giants Go Long for a Number Cruncher - WSJ.com




Perhaps something for the Pro Football Focus bashers to consider.

PFF is garbage. Perhaps that could be considered.

 

[NEP4Life]

What most amazes [Jon] Berger, [the Giants' director of football information,] is that Mr. Hornsby gathers his data using the television footage available to everyone. That footage is highly limited compared with the proprietary film—known as All 22—that the NFL gathers at each game and makes available only to team officials.

Mr. Berger says it is now customary for him to seek information from Mr. Hornsby about coming opponents.

Quite a success story, IMHO.

 

[BlueThunder]

Actually...

THIS is the Giants Secret Weapon against Patriots...

 

[Joker]

I heard Reggie from Liverpool has made his own Jet site using the Pro Football Focus model...yeah, he calls it Pro Footfungus Focus...guess he's looking for a toe hold in the burgeoning overseas market...

 

[VrabelJr]

Wait, so the Giants beat us because someone in their organization subscribes to PFF? Get real dude, have you ever been high up in a business or started your own? You subscribe to so much random crap/people give you so much **** for free that you never use or even think about.

 

[JackBauer]

I believe this is the difference between correlation and causation.

I'm sure if BB subscribed to Men's Health we could make an equally compelling argument had the Patriots won.

 

[VrabelJr]

I know people who have done work for NFL Football teams. NFL teams know they have so much leverage outside of cash because of their brand. You can give them almost anything Football related and they pay you in perks (free tickets, food, a box suite, etc.) as opposed to cash. You can seriously make any product you want. Go pitch it to an NFL team and 99% of the time they will take it. Will they give you their sacred cash for it? Hell no. But will they give you a bunch of franchise related perks or apparel. Absolutely. I'm willing to bet the Giants do not use this product.

 

[Ivan]

Anyone who cites Pro Football Focus should be flagged with a short bus.