Pro Football Focus Top 101 Graded Players for 2013

Originally posted by Quest4six:
Also, they talked about how Vontae Davis was in the top 5 last year even though 72% of his positive grades came from one good game.

True, but conventional stats have the same problem. For example, Aldon Smith racked up 5.5 of his of his 19.5 sacks (28%) in one game against the Bears in 2012. Even though 14 sacks in 15 games is still a great total, his one game still skewed his season total quite a bit.

This ranking system automatically favors players with better players around them, and weaker schedules.

I agree. I do think this is a problem with their system. I don't think their grades are useless, but I do think people put too much stock into them. I think they are a nice way to get a rough estimate on a player, but I do think they are far from perfect.

The biggest issue I have with PFF ratings is that they do not consider quality of competition. From reading about their rating system, they do not take into account who the player they are grading lined up across from. Simplest example I can think of is if Aldon beats Trent Williams (a very good left tackle) for a sack, he gets the same grade as if he had beaten the second string LT from the Jaguars for a sack. This immediately causes me to omit the rating system when using it to compare players to each other since the NFL plays an unbalanced schedule. For example, "is Aldon better than RMathis"? This cannot be answered using PFF ratings. However, it can answer, "who had the better season?"

We cannot use PFF in a discussion to see which player is better head to head since they played against different opponents. PFF is best used to see whether a player had a good season, given his team's schedule, in a vacuum. Still, since no one has the time to watch every single game and watch every single player, it's probably the best rating system available.

PFF offers many different tools that can be used to evaluate players.

They do look at every play, or in other words they watch the tape.

No rating system considers all the possible factors, such as scheme, quality of teammates, or quality of opponents.

No tool used for player evaluation is perfect.

PFF does have a description of how they evaluate for those who want to know. It is possibly the most referenced and well-respected grading system in the game. Each team will have an independent grade they use for evaluation, but PFF is considered a benchmark site for player preference around the league.

I think a lot of people get worked up over PFF, but it seems to be the most complete player evaluation site out there.

People also need to remember that it is an annual rating system. People will often flip out saying that "Player X is way better than Player Y, how can they possibly have him rated higher, PFF sucks!" When what the site is really saying is that player X rated higher that season than player Y. Which could be for any number of reasons.

The only issue I really see with their site, is this list. I think they do as fair a job as they can rating and comparing players in a certain position group. i/e offensive linemen ratings, or similar. When they list the best players in the league regardless of position group, they invite more variables and allow feelings/opinions, etc to get in to it. But it's splitting hairs, as who can really say if an offensive lineman is better than a LB, or WR, etc. etc.

Originally posted by thl408:
The biggest issue I have with PFF ratings is that they do not consider quality of competition. From reading about their rating system, they do not take into account who the player they are grading lined up across from. Simplest example I can think of is if Aldon beats Trent Williams (a very good left tackle) for a sack, he gets the same grade as if he had beaten the second string LT from the Jaguars for a sack. This immediately causes me to omit the rating system when using it to compare players to each other since the NFL plays an unbalanced schedule. For example, "is Aldon better than RMathis"? This cannot be answered using PFF ratings. However, it can answer, "who had the better season?"

We cannot use PFF in a discussion to see which player is better head to head since they played against different opponents. PFF is best used to see whether a player had a good season, given his team's schedule, in a vacuum. Still, since no one has the time to watch every single game and watch every single player, it's probably the best rating system available.

The question is, does it matter if Smith lines up vs Williams or Mcquistan filling in for Okung? His goal on the play is to get to the QB. If he records a sack vs both LT, he achieved his goal. While it will take more skill to beat Williams, the end result is the same.

Originally posted by JoRo:

Originally posted by thl408:
The biggest issue I have with PFF ratings is that they do not consider quality of competition. From reading about their rating system, they do not take into account who the player they are grading lined up across from. Simplest example I can think of is if Aldon beats Trent Williams (a very good left tackle) for a sack, he gets the same grade as if he had beaten the second string LT from the Jaguars for a sack. This immediately causes me to omit the rating system when using it to compare players to each other since the NFL plays an unbalanced schedule. For example, "is Aldon better than RMathis"? This cannot be answered using PFF ratings. However, it can answer, "who had the better season?"

We cannot use PFF in a discussion to see which player is better head to head since they played against different opponents. PFF is best used to see whether a player had a good season, given his team's schedule, in a vacuum. Still, since no one has the time to watch every single game and watch every single player, it's probably the best rating system available.

The question is, does it matter if Smith lines up vs Williams or Mcquistan filling in for Okung? His goal on the play is to get to the QB. If he records a sack vs both LT, he achieved his goal. While it will take more skill to beat Williams, the end result is the same.

Whether it matters or not depends on the analysis you are trying to make. In the PFF article, it mentioned that JJ Watts' best game came against the Jaguars. I'm not too impressed. Had his best game came against the Pats or Eagles (two good OLines), that's making a statement. I bolded your statement that shows why it does matter to consider who a player lines up across from.

If you are trying to answer "who had a better season"? Then quality of competition doesn't matter. The player wins/loses against who they line up against, and it's black and white how well he did.
If you are trying to answer "who is the better player between playerX vs playerY", then quality of competition definitely matters and it is necessary to see who they played against. Something PFF does not account for in their player rating system.

I don't know how many of you guys are hockey fans, but in hockey advanced stats there is the Corsi Rating system that does account for who a player is on the ice against and how they do against their direct competition. I hope that one day PFF will take the end of the year ratings and somehow adjust them based on quality of competition. For example, if Aldon beats up on Jake Long (good LT for Rams), and Long had a good year, then at the end of the year adjust Aldon's rating in that game to account for the good LT he was beating up on - give him a bump up in the rating for that game. It's never going to be exact, but I feel it will be more accurate if this is done.

Willis at 24
Bowman at 31

lol what a joke

bowman is top ten and he was actually better than Willis in '13