Weak Links (According to PFF Ratings)

[THE PISTONS]

So what positions/players have been underperforming on our team? Lets look at the PFF ratings to date.

Defense
DT next to Atkins - Glasgow 57.0 or Poor, Billings 61.5 or Below Average, Sims 60.8 or Below Average.
LB Nick Vigil - Rated 47.6 or Poor.
CB Adam Jones - Rated 67.1 or Below Average.
CB Dre Kirkpatrick - Rated 47.6 or Poor.

So we essentially have 3 positions on defense where we start guys rated Poor. 2 of which rank REALLY BAD. (Kirkpatrick is the #86 ranked CB. Vigil is the #54 ranked LB.)

Offense
Tackle - Andre Smith - Rated 49.3 which is Poor, Jake Fisher - Rated 42.6 which is Poor (60th ranked Tackle), Cedric Ogbuehi - Rated 40.6 or the #62 ranked Tackle.
Guard - TJ Johnson - Rated 44.3 or the #51 ranked Guard. Hopkins rating is 35.0 from when he played which is Terrible.
Center - Bodine - Rated 43.3 or the #29 ranked Center.
WR2 - LaFell - Rated 44.1 or the #98 ranked WR.

On Offense we have 5 players ranked among the worst in the league at their position.

So out of 22 starting positions on the team, we have 8 ranked near the absolute worst in the league. We can change coordinators and get a boost from that...but to talk playoffs, we need some of these guys to atleast improve towards becoming average players.

[J24]

Billings, Glasgow, and Sims do not play that much so that's not a huge concern. Virgil sorry pff saying he is poor seems to be a reach from what I am seeing. The Offensive line is a major concern and really my only concern but there is nothing the Bengals will do about it. Lafell is a good player but shouldn't be our #2 right now.

[Brimey]

Vigil has looked pretty good...so his rating is absurd

[Yojimbo]

What’s their rating on Marv? The obvious weak link.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-19-2017, 10:23 PM)Brimey Wrote: Vigil has looked pretty good...so his rating is absurd

I'm a bit surprised how low he was ranked...but fans only see Tackles. They don't really see the guy when he's not making a Tackle.

Mixon who has a really low ypc average has above an 80 rating...so I think the ratings are a little more accurate than fans think.

How about Kirkpatrick rating so bad too?

[THE PISTONS]

This is an interesting read from a few years ago:

'What makes a Super Bowl contender? When Pro Football Focus analyzed the 28 teams that played in the conference championship games for the 2007 to 2013 seasons, it found that, on average, 40 percent of those rosters were composed of good/elite players (you had to play 250-plus snaps to qualify). Using that methodology, PFF determined how many above-average players stood between your team and contending for this year's Super Bowl.'

So essentially to get to a conference championship, you need 8-9 guys rated Good/Elite. Our roster has maybe 4-5. And we have a shocking amount of guys rated Poor.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12179331/how-many-players-away-super-bowl-was-team

[Luvnit2]

(10-19-2017, 08:50 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: So what positions/players have been underperforming on our team? Lets look at the PFF ratings to date.

Defense
DT next to Atkins - Glasgow 57.0 or Poor, Billings 61.5 or Below Average, Sims 60.8 or Below Average.
LB Nick Vigil - Rated 47.6 or Poor.
CB Adam Jones - Rated 67.1 or Below Average.
CB Dre Kirkpatrick - Rated 47.6 or Poor.

So we essentially have 3 positions on defense where we start guys rated Poor. 2 of which rank REALLY BAD. (Kirkpatrick is the #86 ranked CB. Vigil is the #54 ranked LB.)

Offense
Tackle - Andre Smith - Rated 49.3 which is Poor, Jake Fisher - Rated 42.6 which is Poor (60th ranked Tackle), Cedric Ogbuehi - Rated 40.6 or the #62 ranked Tackle.
Guard - TJ Johnson - Rated 44.3 or the #51 ranked Guard. Hopkins rating is 35.0 from when he played which is Terrible.
Center - Bodine - Rated 43.3 or the #29 ranked Center.
WR2 - LaFell - Rated 44.1 or the #98 ranked WR.

On Offense we have 5 players ranked among the worst in the league at their position.

So out of 22 starting positions on the team, we have 8 ranked near the absolute worst in the league. We can change coordinators and get a boost from that...but to talk playoffs, we need some of these guys to atleast improve towards becoming average players.

#1 - Why do you think PFF rankings are 100% accurate? You seem to insinuate these rankings are the only site that should be used to rank players.

#2 - Absolute worst at their positions? Are all 5 ranked offensive players dead last or are you embellishing again to make a point?

#3 - We have a top 2 defense by every standard so far, so hard to understand how this many of the defenders are so bad?

It would be helpful for those of us who don't have access to PFF if you gave us the ranking + the number of guys ranked.

I am not saying PFF is total BS, but it is one ranking site ranking based on having no clue of the responsibility of a player on every given play and why ML and others like Zimmer has said their rankings are not close to PFF, they have their owns systems which of course we are not privy to that info.

[Luvnit2]

(10-20-2017, 01:48 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: This is an interesting read from a few years ago:

'What makes a Super Bowl contender? When Pro Football Focus analyzed the 28 teams that played in the conference championship games for the 2007 to 2013 seasons, it found that, on average, 40 percent of those rosters were composed of good/elite players (you had to play 250-plus snaps to qualify). Using that methodology, PFF determined how many above-average players stood between your team and contending for this year's Super Bowl.'

So essentially to get to a conference championship, you need 8-9 guys rated Good/Elite. Our roster has maybe 4-5. And we have a shocking amount of guys rated Poor.

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12179331/how-many-players-away-super-bowl-was-team

I like this, but question.

If 40% of the 53 man roster needs to be good/elite, wouldn't that call for a minimum of 10.6 (11) good or elite. If I ready this correctly it says the Bengals needed 8 more so they only had 3 considered good or elite. If so, in 2014 ML must have been doing a great job coaching a bunch of bad players and getting them to the playoffs.

Or I misread something which is possible.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-20-2017, 01:57 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: #1 - Why do you think PFF rankings are 100% accurate? You seem to insinuate these rankings are the only site that should be used to rank players.

#2 - Absolute worst at their positions? Are all 5 ranked offensive players dead last or are you embellishing again to make a point?

#3 - We have a top 2 defense by every standard so far, so hard to understand how this many of the defenders are so bad?

It would be helpful for those of us who don't have access to PFF if you gave us the ranking + the number of guys ranked.

I am not saying PFF is total BS, but it is one ranking site ranking based on having no clue of the responsibility of a player on every given play and why ML and others like Zimmer has said their rankings are not close to PFF, they have their owns systems which of course we are not privy to that info.

You misinterpreted a lot of what I wrote. I'll respond none-the-less.

1) No ratings are ever 100%. But I think these are fairly accurate? Do you dispute that the offensive line is bad? Well what do you know...our offensive line guys rate Poorly.

2) I said 'ranked among the worst'. I didn't say absolute worst. They're rated Poor and for instance Bodine is the #29 ranked Center. Lafell the #98 ranked WR. Fisher and Ced the #58 and #60 ranked Tackles.

Our #2 WR has 97 Wide-receivers rated better than him!

3) The defense overall? I'm sure every team has a guy or 2 rated poorly somewhere. Plus, our defensive line has dominant guys in Atkins and Dunlap. That covers up for guys like Billings/Sims/Glasgow. Same thing at LB. Burfict and Minter rank highly while Vigil ranks poorly. In the secondary, Kirkpatrick ranks bad, but Dennard and Jackson rank good.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Every guy on our defense doesn't have to be great.

Plus, you seem to be big on the rankings are subjective. Our ranking of #2 defense in the league based on yardage is subjective too. Play style factors in. How our offense plays. For instance, if we got huge leads teams would pass more which tends to equate to more yards.

There's nothing about football that is absolute. I get positive feedback from a lot of people when I post these for dialogue. And it is fairly time consuming to research these.

[Truck_1_0_1_]

(10-20-2017, 01:57 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: #1 - Why do you think PFF rankings are 100% accurate? You seem to insinuate these rankings are the only site that should be used to rank players.

#2 - Absolute worst at their positions? Are all 5 ranked offensive players dead last or are you embellishing again to make a point?

#3 - We have a top 2 defense by every standard so far, so hard to understand how this many of the defenders are so bad?

It would be helpful for those of us who don't have access to PFF if you gave us the ranking + the number of guys ranked.

I am not saying PFF is total BS, but it is one ranking site ranking based on having no clue of the responsibility of a player on every given play and why ML and others like Zimmer has said their rankings are not close to PFF, they have their owns systems which of course we are not privy to that info.

I agree with everything written, save for this.

I debunked this back in like 2011, as you DON'T need to know people's assignments and the like; its not too difficult.

PFF is now absolutely horrid, ratings-wise and yet again, no context to the numbers; the old system was defined and it worked. This one is just inconsistent and flat out wrong at times.

[Luvnit2]

(10-20-2017, 02:07 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: You misinterpreted a lot of what I wrote. I'll respond none-the-less.

1) No ratings are ever 100%. But I think these are fairly accurate? Do you dispute that the offensive line is bad? Well what do you know...our offensive line guys rate Poorly.

2) I said 'ranked among the worst'. I didn't say absolute worst. They're rated Poor and for instance Bodine is the #29 ranked Center. Lafell the #98 ranked WR. Fisher and Ced the #58 and #60 ranked Tackles.

Our #2 WR has 97 Wide-receivers rated better than him!

3) The defense overall? I'm sure every team has a guy or 2 rated poorly somewhere. Plus, our defensive line has dominant guys in Atkins and Dunlap. That covers up for guys like Billings/Sims/Glasgow. Same thing at LB. Burfict and Minter rank highly while Vigil ranks poorly. In the secondary, Kirkpatrick ranks bad, but Dennard and Jackson rank good.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Every guy on our defense doesn't have to be great.

Plus, you seem to be big on the rankings are subjective. Our ranking of #2 defense in the league based on yardage is subjective too. Play style factors in. How our offense plays. For instance, if we got huge leads teams would pass more which tends to equate to more yards.

There's nothing about football that is absolute. I get positive feedback from a lot of people when I post these for dialogue. And it is fairly time consuming to research these.

No, that is a fact, It adds to other facts like #2 scoring defense in the NFL in spite of taking more defensive snaps than others in the top 5.

Again I ask, please give us the total guys ranked so we can see for ourselves. Is Bodine 28 out of 32 or 28 out of 40? Neither is good, but one is much better than the other for example.. I have no idea how many guys they rank at each position so that would add more clarity in my opinion.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-20-2017, 02:06 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: I like this, but question.

If 40% of the 53 man roster needs to be good/elite, wouldn't that call for a minimum of 10.6 (11) good or elite. If I ready this correctly it says the Bengals needed 8 more so they only had 3 considered good or elite. If so, in 2014 ML must have been doing a great job coaching a bunch of bad players and getting them to the playoffs.

Or I misread something which is possible.

The tricky thing with the article is they talk about how many 'Above Average' players a team is away. So we were 8 'Above Average' players away.

In their intro, they talked about needing 40% of your roster to be Elite or Good. Above average is a tier below them so they must have used a different formula to calculate it.

(If you click on the Bengals it breaks it down.)

We have 1 Elite Player in Whitworth. Then, 3 Good players in Green, Zeitler, and Iloka). Then 21 Average players. From that group of guys who performed Average...we needed to get higher levels of production from 8.

Green only finished with 1041 yards and 69 catches that year. It was also Atkins 1st season after an ACL injury.

[*ochocincos*]

(10-19-2017, 08:50 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: So what positions/players have been underperforming on our team? Lets look at the PFF ratings to date.

Defense
DT next to Atkins - Glasgow 57.0 or Poor, Billings 61.5 or Below Average, Sims 60.8 or Below Average.
LB Nick Vigil - Rated 47.6 or Poor.
CB Adam Jones - Rated 67.1 or Below Average.
CB Dre Kirkpatrick - Rated 47.6 or Poor.

So we essentially have 3 positions on defense where we start guys rated Poor. 2 of which rank REALLY BAD. (Kirkpatrick is the #86 ranked CB. Vigil is the #54 ranked LB.)

Offense
Tackle - Andre Smith - Rated 49.3 which is Poor, Jake Fisher - Rated 42.6 which is Poor (60th ranked Tackle), Cedric Ogbuehi - Rated 40.6 or the #62 ranked Tackle.
Guard - TJ Johnson - Rated 44.3 or the #51 ranked Guard. Hopkins rating is 35.0 from when he played which is Terrible.
Center - Bodine - Rated 43.3 or the #29 ranked Center.
WR2 - LaFell - Rated 44.1 or the #98 ranked WR.

On Offense we have 5 players ranked among the worst in the league at their position.

So out of 22 starting positions on the team, we have 8 ranked near the absolute worst in the league. We can change coordinators and get a boost from that...but to talk playoffs, we need some of these guys to atleast improve towards becoming average players.

[sandwedge]

I've never agreed with this stuff but to say Vigil is playing poor is ridiculous.

[leonardfan40]

(10-20-2017, 01:44 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I'm a bit surprised how low he was ranked...but fans only see Tackles. They don't really see the guy when he's not making a Tackle.

Mixon who has a really low ypc average has above an 80 rating...so I think the ratings are a little more accurate than fans think.

How about Kirkpatrick rating so bad too?

I’d say Vigil is so low because of the first few games. He had a lot of bad plays early on and just a few good ones. He’s definitely improving each week and I doubt his current rating will stand by seasons end. I’ve seen drastic improvements just over the last 5 games, still a ways to go but he’s learning from every mistake which is all you can ask of a young player 

[Benton]

I don't think Vigil and Kirk are doing that bad. I think they're not playing as dominant as some of the other guys, but that doesn't make them bad.

It's like when you've got two dominant WRs. It doesn't mean the 3-5th options are bad, they just likely aren't getting the same opportunities as 1-2.

[*Synric*]

(10-20-2017, 02:10 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I agree with everything written, save for this.

I debunked this back in like 2011, as you DON'T need to know people's assignments and the like; its not too difficult.

PFF is now absolutely horrid, ratings-wise and yet again, no context to the numbers; the old system was defined and it worked. This one is just inconsistent and flat out wrong at times.

Yea. 

Under the old management they had a section that explained all +/- to each rating for every position. Under thr new management their is no explanation to their ratings.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-20-2017, 02:38 PM)Benton Wrote: I don't think Vigil and Kirk are doing that bad. I think they're not playing as dominant as some of the other guys, but that doesn't make them bad.

It's like when you've got two dominant WRs. It doesn't mean the 3-5th options are bad, they just likely aren't getting the same opportunities as 1-2.

We do currently have the 12th best record in the AFC...so every single player that we have isn't perfect. It's not like we're 5-0.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-20-2017, 06:58 PM)Synric Wrote: Yea. 

Under the old management they had a section that explained all +/- to each rating for every position. Under thr new management their is no explanation to their ratings.

Transparency would be nice to see on the ratings.

I'll stop posting them if people don't want to see them. It takes more of my time than the value that people are apparently getting from them.

[GreenCornBengal]

Who cares when the Defensive unit is #2 overall. Vigil and Glasglow are sucking in the right ways.

And oh, the O-line grades poorly, what a surprise!