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[Whatever]

(02-24-2022, 04:30 PM)Au165 Wrote: That’s because PFF bends the truth on their every player every play claim, especially when it comes to coverage, but also is loose at times at who is qualified to grade things. When I talk to really smart football minds it’s people who’ve been tied to the NFL who watch a lot of tape from a team perspective. I think PFF is a great place for advanced stats but grades you must be VERY VERY careful with. I once talked to a scout who told a story about their grades on a player in a game who was graded really high by PFF was trash because he wasn’t doing what they asked him to do and he fluked into a couple plays because the QB made some dumb decisions.

When people say every team uses PFF it’s a bit misleading, every team uses their advanced stats basically none of them use their grades that fans like to quote.

Thing is, last year PFF was one of the only outlets drumming up Bates as an elite S.  I mean, he was only voted the 7th best S by his peers in the NFL 100.  I don't disagree that their methods for player grades are flawed, but that same method touted him as a football god last year and one of the worst players at his position this year.  If you look at other sources like PFR's Passer Rating Allowed When Targeted or even just his raw stats, every data point you can find indicates that his play dropped off sharply this year.  With any rating or statistic generated by human perception, there will be some margin for error.  Sometimes, that will work against a player, other times it will play to his advantage, but it will typically balance out given a large enough sample size.  

The other reality is that without that PFF rating from last year, he isn't 2nd team All Pro.  How many Bengals games do we really think the writers that voted watched?  It's not like Bates is a flashy highlight machine like Troy Polamalu or putting up crazy interception stats.  In regards to his contract leverage, he has to take the bad with the good from PFF.

Apart from all that, anybody with eyes could tell the Jessie Bates we got in the playoffs was a far cry from the one we got in the regular season.  It's very obvious he tanked it during the regular season.