Offensive lineman rankings...

[MichaelWinicki]

Originally Posted by honyock

if it is impossible, then why do teams bother scouting, or evaluating players for the draft?

I get it that a system like PFF doesn't supply context. That's the job for humans to do. But to throw out their rankings because "you can't do it" overlooks that ranking systems can reveal things over the course of a season that are useful.

I get it, a blown assignment by a fellow lineman (say, Cook) can give someone else (say, Livings) a bad grade on a play. But over the course of full season, the rankings should reveal trends for a player anyway.

And if you only want to use your eyes and your gut, is that any more useful? Especially if your eyes are maybe a little biased towards your pre-existing opinion of a player. Goodness knows, we humans often have a little bias working against us in these kinds of evaluations.

[View Full Quote]So what do your eyeballs tell you about the Cowboys O-linemen (and I mean something beyond "our line sucks!) I look at those PFF rankings for the Cowboys, and they don't look too far off to me. One thing they can't tell is how one players poor play is affected over time by anothers poor play. But relatively speaking, it can speak to that as well. If Cook has been bad (and the rankings reflect that about him), and that should affect the entire interior of the line, then why has Livings graded out significantly better than Bernardeau? Because Smith has been better than Free? Maybe that's part of it. But it sure seems to fit the eyeball test that Livings has been much better than Bernardeau this year...he's been better able to overcome poor center play than Bernardeau has.

A ranking system like PFF isn't MEANT to provide context. That's up to a team to do (or in this case, it gives us fans a chance to play armchair GM). For example, both Smith and Free have struggled this year, Free much moreso. Does that mean we should move Smith back to right tackle, or look for a replacement (my answer is absolutely not). The context is, he's young, talented, should continue to improve, struggling with a move to LT, showed his promise last year. You give him time. But that's not PFF's job to do. It's up to us people to provide the context, and crazy me, I sometimes hope for more nuanced context than "they suck", "it can't be done", "they're garbage".

One thing that will be interesting...say Costa comes back, and he can play several games without getting hurt again (a big IF), and he grades out higher than Cook. Will that affect Bernardeau's ranking? You'd expect it might, but it would shed some light on how much Bernardeau's bad play is because of who surrounds him, or because he's just bad.

If PFF's O-line rankings are useless, then regarding the Cowboys, where do you disagree with them? Cook too high? Smith too low? And I don't buy the argument that no one can say because you can't evaluate every lineman in the league. If a lineman's play improves, you'd expect their ranking to improve and reflect that over time.

Great reply.

Hopefully some folks read it two or three times until they "get it".

[Idgit]

Originally Posted by MichaelWinicki

Great reply.

Hopefully some folks read it two or three times until they "get it".

It is a great reply, but I'm not sure he's got it right. If there are too many variables to measure, then it doesn't matter if or how they're able to normalize the results of their measurement if what they're measuring is not meaningful. Unless you know how to properly interpret the measurements, you can't recognize trends and instead what you get up with is an attempt to describe the wind. An admirable attempt, maybe, but not helpful.

If there were a way to know what each players' responsibility were, definitively, for each play, then I'd agree, this would be great data, but as it is, I'm afraid it relies on too many uncertain assumptions, which is why legitimate statistical models don't even bother to try to measure it.

[StanleySpadowski]

Originally Posted by jterrell

Also effected by LTs being far better blockers than RTs

There is no great mystery that you put your best pass blocker at LT and your best pass rusher at RE. At least for a good majority of snaps.

Peppers draws the most attention on that Bears defense and is their best pressure player by far. Maybe not in a given game or after being neutralized by studs but certainly when all things are equal as proven over time.

I think you're falling into the history trap. Once upon a time that was certainly the case but the NFL evolves. OLB is where the best pass rushers are today, not RE and with seemingly the exception of Dallas (but that's a different debate) that great pass rusher is moved around and seldom is left to beat the LT one on one.

[StanleySpadowski]

Originally Posted by honyock

if it is impossible, then why do teams bother scouting, or evaluating players for the draft?

I get it that a system like PFF doesn't supply context. That's the job for humans to do. But to throw out their rankings because "you can't do it" overlooks that ranking systems can reveal things over the course of a season that are useful.

I get it, a blown assignment by a fellow lineman (say, Cook) can give someone else (say, Livings) a bad grade on a play. But over the course of full season, the rankings should reveal trends for a player anyway.

And if you only want to use your eyes and your gut, is that any more useful? Especially if your eyes are maybe a little biased towards your pre-existing opinion of a player. Goodness knows, we humans often have a little bias working against us in these kinds of evaluations.

[View Full Quote]So what do your eyeballs tell you about the Cowboys O-linemen (and I mean something beyond "our line sucks!) I look at those PFF rankings for the Cowboys, and they don't look too far off to me. One thing they can't tell is how one players poor play is affected over time by anothers poor play. But relatively speaking, it can speak to that as well. If Cook has been bad (and the rankings reflect that about him), and that should affect the entire interior of the line, then why has Livings graded out significantly better than Bernardeau? Because Smith has been better than Free? Maybe that's part of it. But it sure seems to fit the eyeball test that Livings has been much better than Bernardeau this year...he's been better able to overcome poor center play than Bernardeau has.

A ranking system like PFF isn't MEANT to provide context. That's up to a team to do (or in this case, it gives us fans a chance to play armchair GM). For example, both Smith and Free have struggled this year, Free much moreso. Does that mean we should move Smith back to right tackle, or look for a replacement (my answer is absolutely not). The context is, he's young, talented, should continue to improve, struggling with a move to LT, showed his promise last year. You give him time. But that's not PFF's job to do. It's up to us people to provide the context, and crazy me, I sometimes hope for more nuanced context than "they suck", "it can't be done", "they're garbage".

One thing that will be interesting...say Costa comes back, and he can play several games without getting hurt again (a big IF), and he grades out higher than Cook. Will that affect Bernardeau's ranking? You'd expect it might, but it would shed some light on how much Bernardeau's bad play is because of who surrounds him, or because he's just bad.

If PFF's O-line rankings are useless, then regarding the Cowboys, where do you disagree with them? Cook too high? Smith too low? And I don't buy the argument that no one can say because you can't evaluate every lineman in the league. If a lineman's play improves, you'd expect their ranking to improve and reflect that over time.

PFF's rankings are crap, not because it can't be done, but because they do such a crappy job with them.

If one person was evaluating every player, the ranking system would have some merit but it would be a full time job just to do NFC or AFC teams, let alone the entire NFL if you wanted to do it correctly. It takes me several hours to look at the Cowboys each week.

[MichaelWinicki]

Originally Posted by StanleySpadowski

PFF's rankings are crap, not because it can't be done, but because they do such a crappy job with them.

If one person was evaluating every player, the ranking system would have some merit but it would be a full time job just to do NFC or AFC teams, let alone the entire NFL if you wanted to do it correctly. It takes me several hours to look at the Cowboys each week.

Do I think PFF's ratings could be more relevent when it comes to offensive linemen?

You bet.

But once you finish with it, their ratings pretty much parallel what most are seeing and saying meaning that Livings has performed better than any of the other offensive linemen to date and the tackles have not played well.

From that aspect their ratings do seem to have merit.

If their ratings suggested Smith and Free were having decent seasons and that Livings was playing badly...

Well then I'd be right there with many others saying that their ratings are not valid.

[theogt]

Originally Posted by StanleySpadowski

PFF's rankings are crap, not because it can't be done, but because they do such a crappy job with them.

Well, I would say it can't be done on an individual basis. But they do a crappy job, even with what they're attempting to do.

[theogt]

Originally Posted by honyock

if it is impossible, then why do teams bother scouting, or evaluating players for the draft?

Teams don't use a ranking system like PFF, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.

[RXP]

Originally Posted by honyock

if it is impossible, then why do teams bother scouting, or evaluating players for the draft?

I get it that a system like PFF doesn't supply context. That's the job for humans to do. But to throw out their rankings because "you can't do it" overlooks that ranking systems can reveal things over the course of a season that are useful.

I get it, a blown assignment by a fellow lineman (say, Cook) can give someone else (say, Livings) a bad grade on a play. But over the course of full season, the rankings should reveal trends for a player anyway.

And if you only want to use your eyes and your gut, is that any more useful? Especially if your eyes are maybe a little biased towards your pre-existing opinion of a player. Goodness knows, we humans often have a little bias working against us in these kinds of evaluations.

[View Full Quote]So what do your eyeballs tell you about the Cowboys O-linemen (and I mean something beyond "our line sucks!) I look at those PFF rankings for the Cowboys, and they don't look too far off to me. One thing they can't tell is how one players poor play is affected over time by anothers poor play. But relatively speaking, it can speak to that as well. If Cook has been bad (and the rankings reflect that about him), and that should affect the entire interior of the line, then why has Livings graded out significantly better than Bernardeau? Because Smith has been better than Free? Maybe that's part of it. But it sure seems to fit the eyeball test that Livings has been much better than Bernardeau this year...he's been better able to overcome poor center play than Bernardeau has.

A ranking system like PFF isn't MEANT to provide context. That's up to a team to do (or in this case, it gives us fans a chance to play armchair GM). For example, both Smith and Free have struggled this year, Free much moreso. Does that mean we should move Smith back to right tackle, or look for a replacement (my answer is absolutely not). The context is, he's young, talented, should continue to improve, struggling with a move to LT, showed his promise last year. You give him time. But that's not PFF's job to do. It's up to us people to provide the context, and crazy me, I sometimes hope for more nuanced context than "they suck", "it can't be done", "they're garbage".

One thing that will be interesting...say Costa comes back, and he can play several games without getting hurt again (a big IF), and he grades out higher than Cook. Will that affect Bernardeau's ranking? You'd expect it might, but it would shed some light on how much Bernardeau's bad play is because of who surrounds him, or because he's just bad.

If PFF's O-line rankings are useless, then regarding the Cowboys, where do you disagree with them? Cook too high? Smith too low? And I don't buy the argument that no one can say because you can't evaluate every lineman in the league. If a lineman's play improves, you'd expect their ranking to improve and reflect that over time.

Good post

[MichaelWinicki]

Originally Posted by theogt

Teams don't use a ranking system like PFF, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.

I'm not sure anyone of us knows what type of system is used by all the teams, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out that some form of modified PFF system is used. Teams have the advantage of knowing what the assignments of the play are or were, which would inherently make their (the team's) ratings more accurate.

But I have to belief some sort of rating system is used.

[jterrell]

Originally Posted by Clove

I'm sure we'll draft another receiver. Jones isn't a proponent of build inside out.

And if they do just that they can cut Miles Austin and use his salary slot on an OL.

Building a team isn't all that complicated. You need to get what you pay for. Both in terms of draft production and salary cap dollars.

I am not advocating a WR in r1 by any means here but we have no idea what players will be present when we pick. Anyone married to an OL or any position at this point is silly.

Ideally, we'd draft an RT who could walk in and replace a cut Doug Free. But we don't know who will be there.

Ask ATL how bad it is when you have two stud WRs?

[honyock]

Originally Posted by StanleySpadowski

PFF's rankings are crap, not because it can't be done, but because they do such a crappy job with them.

If one person was evaluating every player, the ranking system would have some merit but it would be a full time job just to do NFC or AFC teams, let alone the entire NFL if you wanted to do it correctly. It takes me several hours to look at the Cowboys each week.

Well, if they do a crappy job, it should show up in their results. That's why I'm curious...just looking at the Cowboys rankings in the OP, I couldn't find a big argument with any of them. From what I remember being discussed here over the past couple of years, they seem to done a fairly good job with our o-line, or at least they seemed in the ballpark. If they are as crappy as you're saying, we'd be expecting some whacky results, and from the very limited sample I've seen posted here, I'm not see anything crazy enough to deserve the level of PFF dismissive ness that happens every time they get mentioned.

I'm assuming those of you who dismiss then have seen them produce results that just don't make sense. I haven't followed them other than the few discussions here at CZ, and I'm more than willing to believe you. But all we hear on these threads is that they're terrible, followed by some explanations of why their system can't work. Are there consistent examples of their results being way out of whack?

Sounds like you do a lot of homework on the team. How have you rated the individual o-linemen so far?

[jterrell]

Originally Posted by honyock

Well, if they do a crappy job, it should show up in their results. That's why I'm curious...just looking at the Cowboys rankings in the OP, I couldn't find a big argument with any of them. From what I remember being discussed here over the past couple of years, they seem to done a fairly good job with our o-line, or at least they seemed in the ballpark. If they are as crappy as you're saying, we'd be expecting some whacky results, and from the very limited sample I've seen posted here, I'm not see anything crazy enough to deserve the level of PFF dismissive ness that happens every time they get mentioned.

[View Full Quote]I'm assuming those of you who dismiss then have seen them produce results that just don't make sense. I haven't followed them other than the few discussions here at CZ, and I'm more than willing to believe you. But all we hear on these threads is that they're terrible, followed by some explanations of why their system can't work. Are there consistent examples of their results being way out of whack?

Sounds like you do a lot of homework on the team. How have you rated the individual o-linemen so far?

They have certainly been guilty of some head scratchers.
1 point illustrating this was their rating of Livings prior to this season. Brian Broaddus openly debated them on twitter and radio about it. Livings played his butt off last year versus some of the best DTs in football and more than held his own without any help blocks. They scored those games as basically even for him while heavily penalizing him for penalties and second level misses so that he had these crazy negative scoring games versus scrub DT that never made any plays at all.

In a nut shell they punished him because of scheme fit (he isn't a puller or great second level guy)and didn't credit him when he won 1 on 1 battles versus the league's best.

Stats are very useful tools but they like a phillips head screwdriver are not helping much when you need a flat head, stats have to applied properly. The factual pieces of data are correct but assumptions about how they apply are NOT fact and in fact are often just subjective drivel.

MY biggest pet peeve with their methodologies is their pressures stat and the way they weigh pass rushers. Not all agree but I hate to see a pressure count the same on a play as an actual sack. As if a play that dies for negative yardage is somehow equivalent to getting near a QB. Most of Romo's best plays have come when pressured. He doesn't do a whole lot when he is actually sacked....

[Idgit]

Originally Posted by jterrell

...Most of Romo's best plays have come when pressured. He doesn't do a whole lot when he is actually sacked....