This is an interesting thread to follow. Contextualizing how a person evaluates a player's talent is important and this thread shows there are many ways to look at on field success. We have traditional back-of-the-football card stats, advanced metrics, PFF ratings, the 'ole eye test, and I assume other tools for fans to use.

I don't want to go overboard with a diatribe suggesting we, as forum posters, have a sense of responsibility to better clarify our arguments when using any of the frameworks I mentioned for discussing a player; however, it does seem important to contextualize one's view to ensure everyone is having the same discussion.

Chase is sweet bro, yard and TD records or Chase is sorta sweet bro, PFF rating lower than Tee is like having two separate discussions where arguments conflict and become clouded.

PFF sure does give a vibe from time to time as being made up nonsense, I contend.

(01-11-2022, 10:20 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: It could definitely go a long way. I think they have a product that could be valuable, but I catch their mistakes from time-to-time and it makes me skeptical of what I am seeing. For instance, they credited Jonah Williams with a sack on this play. I've brought this up a couple of times since then, but it's wrong and having it affect his grade when it wasn't his assignment can be frustrating if you're trying to genuinely use those grades. 

I'm assuming you're saying it's wrong to give Jonah the sack because he didn't even try to engage the guy who sacked Burrow?
If so, who should that sack go to?
Williams was the closest OL to that defender.
EDIT - Or maybe it was Spain who blocked the wrong guy. Hard to tell with these angles.

(01-11-2022, 10:20 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: It could definitely go a long way. I think they have a product that could be valuable, but I catch their mistakes from time-to-time and it makes me skeptical of what I am seeing. For instance, they credited Jonah Williams with a sack on this play. I've brought this up a couple of times since then, but it's wrong and having it affect his grade when it wasn't his assignment can be frustrating if you're trying to genuinely use those grades. 

Bottom line on oline grading.....if you're not in the film room on Monday, you have no way of definitively making those calls.

(01-12-2022, 10:39 AM)ochocincos Wrote: I'm assuming you're saying it's wrong to give Jonah the sack because he didn't even try to engage the guy who sacked Burrow?
If so, who should that sack go to?
Williams was the closest OL to that defender.

Looks to me like someone missed an assignment. Jonah was clearly blocking down on that play (if it's the same one I remember). Now, it may have been him that blocked the wrong guy, but he did not even try as you mentioned. That looks like a back or TE didn't get the call right....or Jonah possibly.

(01-12-2022, 10:44 AM)Wyche Wrote: Looks to me like someone missed an assignment. Jonah was clearly blocking down on that play (if it's the same one I remember). Now, it may have been him that blocked the wrong guy, but he did not even try as you mentioned. That looks like a back or TE didn't get the call right....or Jonah possibly.

There's no TE on that side on that play, and Mixon ran right.
So it wouldn't be either of them.
It would have had to have been either Jonah or Spain who missed that block.

If you're saying perhaps Mixon messed up by running right instead of left, there's no way someone not on the team would know that.
So they have to assess the play based on what they see, and in this case, one can rightfully assume one of the OL blocked the wrong guy.

(01-10-2022, 11:25 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Bengal "fans" disliked Lawson more than the rest of the league.

Who disliked Lawson? Everyone was pissed when the Bengals didn't bring him back. 

Do you just make this shit up? 

(01-12-2022, 10:36 AM)Wyche Wrote: Kinda like using their grades to endorse certain former position coaches.

I did not use their subjective grades of individual players

I used objective stats that they use to grade O-lines as a unit.  And I usually try to give PFF credit for the objective stats they use.  For example I believe they were the first ones I remember coming up with stats for defensive backs like "yards per target" and some others.

(01-12-2022, 10:45 AM)ochocincos Wrote: That's what I'm not sure of.
But someone clearly didn't bother blocking him, and he came in untouched.
So someone messed up.
It could have been Jonah.

Yes, although that's rarely the case....not to trying to show bias as an ex lineman....lol. Often enough, TEs,WRs, and RBs can't hear the play call in the huddle....or hear it wrong I should say the farther away from the QB they are. Also, they'll have a couple responsibilities on plays and a blocking assignment is what gets forgotten. Whereas the beef has one job....block. 

(01-12-2022, 10:49 AM)WeezyBengal Wrote: Who disliked Lawson? Everyone was pissed when the Bengals didn't bring him back. 

Do you just make this shit up? 

There were many posts about how he was not really that good because he had low sack totals.

I am surprised you don't remember them.  It was not just in one random thread.  It was an ongoing debate.

(01-11-2022, 04:41 PM)Nepanyrush Wrote: Yes, Ja"Marr Chase has 11. But for some context, Travis Kelse, Deebo Samuel, and DJ Moore have 10 and even Cooper Kupp has 8 -- not a huge gap. And in 2020, Diontae Johnson had 13 and in 2019 Edelman had 13.

Yeah, but how do those drops compare to their targets? I feel like all those guys were probably targets a lot more than Chase which makes his drop % higher. 

(01-12-2022, 10:45 AM)ochocincos Wrote: There's no TE on that side on that play, and Mixon ran right.
So it wouldn't be either of them.
It would have had to have been either Jonah or Spain who missed that block.

If you're saying perhaps Mixon messed up by running right instead of left, there's no way someone not on the team would know that.
So they have to assess the play based on what they see, and in this case, one can rightfully assume one of the OL blocked the wrong guy.

Ah, good catch...yeah, then I'd say Williams messed up. Not as likely that Mixon went the wrong way. It doesn't seem like you'd want the G to come around the T to make that block. I'm going with Jonah on that one. If the TE lined up on the wrong side, (which happens) I'd think Burrow would've caught that.

(01-11-2022, 06:20 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: If you really, truly don't understand how this works, that's a you problem. You're wasting your time trying to cancel it based on what (little) you understand about it. 

Just stop arguing with him. Fred it the laziest poster on this board and at this point he's becoming a straight up troll. 

(01-12-2022, 10:52 AM)Wyche Wrote: Yes, although that's rarely the case....not to trying to show bias as an ex lineman....lol. Often enough, TEs,WRs, and RBs can't hear the play call in the huddle....or hear it wrong I should say the farther away from the QB they are. Also, they'll have a couple responsibilities on plays and a blocking assignment is what gets forgotten. Whereas the beef has one job....block. 

I completely understand that people are given assignments and so it may seem like they blocked the wrong guy but they actually did block the one they were assigned.
This goes back to how I wish they graded play calling too.
If the play calling dictated that, then that's on the playcaller.
But since A) We don't fully know the assignments, and B) they don't grade the playcaller, you can reasonably assume that an OL (Jonah or Spain) could have missed their block.

(01-12-2022, 10:45 AM)ochocincos Wrote: There's no TE on that side on that play, and Mixon ran right.
So it wouldn't be either of them.
It would have had to have been either Jonah or Spain who missed that block.

If you're saying perhaps Mixon messed up by running right instead of left, there's no way someone not on the team would know that.
So they have to assess the play based on what they see, and in this case, one can rightfully assume one of the OL blocked the wrong guy.

The more I watch that, the more it looks like it's on Williams. I mean, Spain goes inside to help Hopkins, and Jonah kinda....follows him?

(01-12-2022, 10:56 AM)ochocincos Wrote: I completely understand that people are given assignments and so it may seem like they blocked the wrong guy but they actually did block the one they were assigned.
This goes back to how I wish they graded play calling too.
If the play calling dictated that, then that's on the playcaller.
But since A) We don't fully know the assignments, and B) they don't grade the playcaller, you can reasonably assume that an OL (Jonah or Spain) could have missed their block.

Yeah, see my post below this one....that just looks like Jonah effed up. We had three guys blocking one. I don't think even Zac is that green....lol.

(01-12-2022, 10:38 AM)TecmoBengals Wrote: This is an interesting thread to follow. Contextualizing how a person evaluates a player's talent is important and this thread shows there are many ways to look at on field success. We have traditional back-of-the-football card stats, advanced metrics, PFF ratings, the 'ole eye test, and I assume other tools for fans to use.

I don't want to go overboard with a diatribe suggesting we, as forum posters, have a sense of responsibility to better clarify our arguments when using any of the frameworks I mentioned for discussing a player; however, it does seem important to contextualize one's view to ensure everyone is having the same discussion.

Chase is sweet bro, yard and TD records or Chase is sorta sweet bro, PFF rating lower than Tee is like having two separate discussions where arguments conflict and become clouded.

PFF sure does give a vibe from time to time as being made up nonsense, I contend.

IMO you need to take into account both traditional stats and PFF grades. Stats tell us everything we already know. PFF ratings tell us things that we don't pick up on during games. Run blocking, drops, mistakes, etc. 

Take both into account to make your decision. 

Is PFF weighted, though? Because I can damn sure tell you what Chase did receiving against the Chiefs should be weighted higher than some poor run blocking grade or a dropped pass during the game. This is where I get confused. 

(01-12-2022, 10:57 AM)Wyche Wrote: The more I watch that, the more it looks like it's on Williams. I mean, Spain goes inside to help Hopkins, and Jonah kinda....follows him?

It kinda looks like Williams is almost tasked with blocking two guys - The edge guy and Chris Jones.
Jonah looked like he tried to get just a bit of a hand on the edge guy and then try to bounce over to Jones or something, but Jones was already past him.
As you said, Spain went right to help Hopkins, didn't even try to engage Jones.

Regardless, no one really blocked Jones, so it's either on Jonah or Spain.

(01-12-2022, 10:56 AM)ochocincos Wrote: I completely understand that people are given assignments and so it may seem like they blocked the wrong guy but they actually did block the one they were assigned.
This goes back to how I wish they graded play calling too.
If the play calling dictated that, then that's on the playcaller.
But since A) We don't fully know the assignments, and B) they don't grade the playcaller, you can reasonably assume that an OL (Jonah or Spain) could have missed their block.

Just to add a little more, you'll have to make a block or a chip as you know, and then release into a route. Sometimes a younger player (and even vets occasionally) will forget that blocking part, looking to get a target. Although, it's obviously way more rare at this level.

(01-12-2022, 11:01 AM)ochocincos Wrote: It kinda looks like Williams is almost tasked with blocking two guys - The edge guy and Chris Jones.
Jonah looked like he tried to get just a bit of a hand on the edge guy and then try to bounce over to Jones or something, but Jones was already past him.
As you said, Spain went right to help Hopkins, didn't even try to engage Jones.

Regardless, no one really blocked Jones, so it's either on Jonah or Spain.

Yes. Just going off of what we're looking at there, I would assume Jonah had Jones, and the rollout was designed to kinda freeze the edge guy, assuming he's going to keep contain. If he comes up field in a hurry, should be a hot read to neutralize that, if he keeps contain, you have a bit to throw elsewhere. Or maybe Spain AND Jonah screwed up.

(01-12-2022, 11:00 AM)WeezyBengal Wrote: IMO you need to take into account both traditional stats and PFF grades. Stats tell us everything we already know. PFF ratings tell us things that we don't pick up on during games. Run blocking, drops, mistakes, etc. 

Take both into account to make your decision. 

Is PFF weighted, though? Because I can damn sure tell you what Chase did receiving against the Chiefs should be weighted higher than some poor run blocking grade or a dropped pass during the game. This is where I get confused. 

I don't disagree at all. You can definitely frame an argument about a player's talent or worth to a team based on both traditional stats and PFF grades. You can isolate both ways of examining a player or develop an argument using both tools. I think it needs to be a well-crafted take, when using both, because it seems, at least from my perspective anecdotally reading discussions on this forum, that traditional stats and PFF grades might suggest different opinions about a player's worth during a game. Of course, maybe I've just not taken the time to better understand how PFF works.