Zeke’s PFF Grade Explained

[cern]

CGA?

cerns gridiron analytics

 

[SportsGuru80]

Two issues you can possibly argue is the elusiveness and long runs. I think Zeke is playing with too much weight. He needs to get down to around 218 to regain some of that explosiveness and quickness.

 

[mattjames2010]

And if you give Zeke yhe same number inside yhe 10 he mayne has 2 or 3 more, and the total difference is not much. You can't make a huge argument about TDs and then ignore the biggest TD area on the field.

Zeke is the engine of this offense. Without him it is one of worst in the league.

You have falsely bought into the QB is all that matters, RBs are nothing nonsense.

> He may have 2 or 3 or more

Except he didn't. Again, I will repeat for the last time: Take out the rushes from within 10 yards, and Barkley still almost totaled Zeke's rushing TDs

> Zeke is the engine of this offense. Without him it is one of worst in the league.

I don't deny Zeke being the "engine" - it's an engine that isn't getting us to our destination - which is scoring TDs and getting a trophy.

> You have falsely bought into the QB is all that matters, RBs are nothing nonsense

It's a passing league, genius. All rules revolve around the pass - QB isn't "all that matters", it's simply the most valuable position on offense. Because of this, offensive line takes priority over skill positions. And if you don't have a QB, you then need to build a defense that can stop the pass. If you don't have those things, you aren't winning.

Teams have won, routinely, without elite QBs since the rule changes in the modern NFL.

 

[mattjames2010]

You have an argument? I dont think so, there is no word or words for the person who thinks zeke isnt a HOF caliber player. And is easily replaced. It dosent take a genius to see that. Dak isnt the long term answer, and is a cheap stop gap for finding a legitimate QB. Dak will not and should not be extended regardless of how well he does next season in which I doubt he wins a Superbowl. This team is close though, get a highly talented thrower and this offense become high powered and almost unstoppable. But until then teams will play CB and LB close to the LOS and shut dowb the offense before it can get going and never allowing zeke to see the kind of holes he did when the universe didnt know dak had so many throwing limitations.

Yet again, elite RBs don't win you championships. I have an entire thread on this with people trying to reach - Stop your lame love affair with Zeke, it's embarrassing.

 

[cern]

Yet again, elite RBs don't win you championships. I have an entire thread on this with people trying to reach - Stop your lame love affair with Zeke, it's embarrassing.

You put forth a very good argument. While most recently Emmett Smith and Terrell Davis played on superbowl winning teams, both were in the 90's. Then rb's fell out of favor due to short careers. As rb's are becoming vogue again, perhaps the pendulum will swing back in their favor. But for now great qb's and defenses rule.

 

[kskboys]

You put forth a very good argument. While most recently Emmett Smith and Terrell Davis played on superbowl winning teams, both were in the 90's. Then rb's fell out of favor due to short careers. As rb's are becoming vogue again, perhaps the pendulum will swing back in their favor. But for now great qb's and defenses rule.

Those two have always ruled, and I really haven't seen anything say otherwise. However, RB's are still playing a huge role in super bowl runs. Ray Rice, James Starks, Blount, Michel, Lynch, Anderson, all were very important in their team's super bowl runs. No, you cannot overpay them, just like you cannot overpay CB's, WR's, OLB's, etc..........

 

[jterrell]

For the record, I do think he’s top 3, maybe even top 2 with Barkley being 1. Obviously that can change year to year based on several factors.

Going to try to say this nicely.. but if you believe this you have zero idea how to rate running backs.

Barkley was special at times and is a truly gifted athlete but he was terrible in between the tackles doing what is job A of any RB.

And this is an area you van combine stats with game views and be like yup, it all fits.
Barkley lacks vision in the interior but is superior to Zeke by far in space.
Issue is very few "winning" moments involve your RB in space.
3rd or 4th and short, goal line line to go.

Next Gen Stats measures the amount of time a ball carrier spends (measured to the 10th of a second) before crossing the Line of Scrimmage. TLOS is the average time behind the LOS on all rushing plays where the player is the rusher.
Avg Time Behind Line Of Scrimmage (TLOS)
Barkley is tied for 10th worst behind mostly back up level players. Zeke is 9 spots better,
And keep in mind Zeke is actually SUPER PATIENT.
He follows blocks and allows them to develop.
Barkley is simply very poor and reading the play develop right now and hitting it.

Football outsiders also does advanced stats for RB.
The simple version: DYAR means a running back with more total value. DVOA means a running back with more value per play.

DYAR rank: Zeke 9th, Barkley 15th.

Effective Yards, listed in red, translate DVOA into a yards per attempt figure. This provides an easy comparison: in general, players with more Effective Yards than standard yards played better than standard stats would otherwise indicate, while players with fewer Effective Yards than standard yards played worse than standard stats would otherwise indicate. Effective Yards are not the best way to measure total value because they are more dependent on usage than DYAR.

eYDs: Zeke 2nd, Barkley 7th

The final statistic is Success Rate. This number represents the player's consistency, measured by successful running plays (the definition of success being different based on down and distance) divided by total running plays. A player with higher DVOA and a low success rate mixes long runs with downs getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage. A player with lower DVOA and a high success rate generally gets the yards needed, but doesn't often get more. Success Rate is further explained here. It is not adjusted for opponent.

Success Rate: for players with 900 or more yards rushing.. Zeke 9th at 50%, Barkley 14th all the way down at 41%.

You add up all these stats and what it tells you is on paper Barkley simply isn't very good at the core function of being a RB. He looks great on highlights where they cherry pick 3 or 4 plays a game and he is an excellent receiving option because he's deadly in space. But between the tackles he is not very good yet.

------
So then why does PFF rate Zeke so poorly.
Fumbles.
Zeke had 6.
BUTTTTTTT he only lost 1 of those.
He is literally being penalized by PFF for fumbles his team or himself recovered.

Much like with Dak and his 12 fumbles -- Dak recovered 7 fumbles himself on the year.

 

[kskboys]

Yet again, elite RBs don't win you championships. I have an entire thread on this with people trying to reach - Stop your lame love affair with Zeke, it's embarrassing.

No positions win you championships, but all help. Even a great Qb is not going to win it all w/o a team. See John Elway. Hades, when Elway won his last one, he was a shell of his former self.

 

[kskboys]

Two issues you can possibly argue is the elusiveness and long runs. I think Zeke is playing with too much weight. He needs to get down to around 218 to regain some of that explosiveness and quickness.

The most important RB trait: The ability to get to and through the LOS. That one ability trumps all. Any Rb can run through a gaping hole(See Randle). It's the RB who gets a few yards when nothing is there, when met at the LOS or in the backfield, that's the guy you want. And that's the reason NE kept Blount and then picked him up the next year when PITT cut him. Because Belly knows Blount is a great 0-5 RB. He takes the ball and mostly get positive yardage. And he's one of the most one dimensional RB's in the NFL, but that one dimension is the most important, w/ everything else taking a back seat. And Zeke is also great at that, and that's what sets him apart.

 

[mattjames2010]

No positions win you championships, but all help. Even a great Qb is not going to win it all w/o a team. See John Elway. Hades, when Elway won his last one, he was a shell of his former self.

And yet, here are the QBs that have won the Super Bowl since 2007

Eli Manning 2x
Tom Brady 3x
Peyton Manning
Drew Brees
Aaron Rodgers
Russel Wilson
Joe Flacco
Nick Foles

5 of those QBs will be in the HOF, Wilson is the very least, a top 7 QB in this league. Nick Foles and Joe Flacco are the outliers here obviously.

Let's then break down the defenses

2007 and 2011 Giants defenses didn't allow more than 20 points scored in the playoffs
2009 Saints led the league in turnovers
2010 Packers were top 5 in turnovers and had healthy and talented defensive line to apply pressure
2013 Seahawks had the legion of boom
Joe Flacco had a Ray Lewis and Reed led defense

You win the Super bowl by having elite QBs or elite defenses. End of story. Trade Zeke.

 

[mattjames2010]

Going to try to say this nicely.. but if you believe this you have zero idea how to rate running backs.

Barkley was special at times and is a truly gifted athlete but he was terrible in between the tackles doing what is job A of any RB.

And this is an area you van combine stats with game views and be like yup, it all fits.
Barkley lacks vision in the interior but is superior to Zeke by far in space.
Issue is very few "winning" moments involve your RB in space.
3rd or 4th and short, goal line line to go.

Next Gen Stats measures the amount of time a ball carrier spends (measured to the 10th of a second) before crossing the Line of Scrimmage. TLOS is the average time behind the LOS on all rushing plays where the player is the rusher.
Avg Time Behind Line Of Scrimmage (TLOS)
Barkley is tied for 10th worst behind mostly back up level players. Zeke is 9 spots better,
And keep in mind Zeke is actually SUPER PATIENT.
He follows blocks and allows them to develop.
Barkley is simply very poor and reading the play develop right now and hitting it.

Football outsiders also does advanced stats for RB.
The simple version: DYAR means a running back with more total value. DVOA means a running back with more value per play.

DYAR rank: Zeke 9th, Barkley 15th.

Effective Yards, listed in red, translate DVOA into a yards per attempt figure. This provides an easy comparison: in general, players with more Effective Yards than standard yards played better than standard stats would otherwise indicate, while players with fewer Effective Yards than standard yards played worse than standard stats would otherwise indicate. Effective Yards are not the best way to measure total value because they are more dependent on usage than DYAR.

eYDs: Zeke 2nd, Barkley 7th

The final statistic is Success Rate. This number represents the player's consistency, measured by successful running plays (the definition of success being different based on down and distance) divided by total running plays. A player with higher DVOA and a low success rate mixes long runs with downs getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage. A player with lower DVOA and a high success rate generally gets the yards needed, but doesn't often get more. Success Rate is further explained here. It is not adjusted for opponent.

Success Rate: for players with 900 or more yards rushing.. Zeke 9th at 50%, Barkley 14th all the way down at 41%.

You add up all these stats and what it tells you is on paper Barkley simply isn't very good at the core function of being a RB. He looks great on highlights where they cherry pick 3 or 4 plays a game and he is an excellent receiving option because he's deadly in space. But between the tackles he is not very good yet.

------
So then why does PFF rate Zeke so poorly.
Fumbles.
Zeke had 6.
BUTTTTTTT he only lost 1 of those.
He is literally being penalized by PFF for fumbles his team or himself recovered.

Much like with Dak and his 12 fumbles -- Dak recovered 7 fumbles himself on the year.

What the hell does "our team recovered the fumbles" have to do with the fact that Zeke still fumbled the ball? It doesn't take away from the fact that Zeke isn't holding onto the ball - that's a problem, despite us getting lucky and recovering LOL What a weak as crap point. Get that out of here.

 

[aria]

Going to try to say this nicely.. but if you believe this you have zero idea how to rate running backs.

Barkley was special at times and is a truly gifted athlete but he was terrible in between the tackles doing what is job A of any RB.

And this is an area you van combine stats with game views and be like yup, it all fits.
Barkley lacks vision in the interior but is superior to Zeke by far in space.
Issue is very few "winning" moments involve your RB in space.
3rd or 4th and short, goal line line to go.

Next Gen Stats measures the amount of time a ball carrier spends (measured to the 10th of a second) before crossing the Line of Scrimmage. TLOS is the average time behind the LOS on all rushing plays where the player is the rusher.
Avg Time Behind Line Of Scrimmage (TLOS)
Barkley is tied for 10th worst behind mostly back up level players. Zeke is 9 spots better,
And keep in mind Zeke is actually SUPER PATIENT.
He follows blocks and allows them to develop.
Barkley is simply very poor and reading the play develop right now and hitting it.

Football outsiders also does advanced stats for RB.
The simple version: DYAR means a running back with more total value. DVOA means a running back with more value per play.

DYAR rank: Zeke 9th, Barkley 15th.

Effective Yards, listed in red, translate DVOA into a yards per attempt figure. This provides an easy comparison: in general, players with more Effective Yards than standard yards played better than standard stats would otherwise indicate, while players with fewer Effective Yards than standard yards played worse than standard stats would otherwise indicate. Effective Yards are not the best way to measure total value because they are more dependent on usage than DYAR.

eYDs: Zeke 2nd, Barkley 7th

The final statistic is Success Rate. This number represents the player's consistency, measured by successful running plays (the definition of success being different based on down and distance) divided by total running plays. A player with higher DVOA and a low success rate mixes long runs with downs getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage. A player with lower DVOA and a high success rate generally gets the yards needed, but doesn't often get more. Success Rate is further explained here. It is not adjusted for opponent.

Success Rate: for players with 900 or more yards rushing.. Zeke 9th at 50%, Barkley 14th all the way down at 41%.

You add up all these stats and what it tells you is on paper Barkley simply isn't very good at the core function of being a RB. He looks great on highlights where they cherry pick 3 or 4 plays a game and he is an excellent receiving option because he's deadly in space. But between the tackles he is not very good yet.

------
So then why does PFF rate Zeke so poorly.
Fumbles.
Zeke had 6.
BUTTTTTTT he only lost 1 of those.
He is literally being penalized by PFF for fumbles his team or himself recovered.

Much like with Dak and his 12 fumbles -- Dak recovered 7 fumbles himself on the year.

You know what’s funny, you throw all these stats out there and criticize Barkley for having no vision for reading holes/blocks but you fail to mention one critical factor that gave Zeke a HUGE advantage, the O line.

I admit, Barkley tends to dance around a little more but if you have ever watched him play in the NFL you would see that he hits holes when they’re there but for most of the season they weren’t. Zeke would be even worse than Barkley behind the Giants O line because he runs north and south, if Barkley didn’t have the moves to make defenders miss (or less moves like Zeke), he wouldn’t have even cracked 1K yards.

Who cares if Zeke recovered his own fumbles, he should still be penalized. Even if he didn’t turn it over, he most likely lost potential yards at the least and I would still much rather have a RB who didn’t fumble the ball once than a guy that fumbled it 6 times and say “hey, but he recovered all but one”.

It’s also funny how the Cowboys had a top 10 O line all season but when Zeke had a bad game it was always because of the O line, never him. Barkley ran behind an O line for most of the season that was still much worse than the Cowboys O line on their worst day and still averaged more ypc.

So you’re basically giving props to Dak for recovering his own fumbles rather than having enough awareness to get rid of the ball or protect it. Lol, nice.

BTW, I never said I supported PFF’s ranking, I even said I would put Zeke top 3 with Barkley being first. So regurgitating the stats and their meanings, especially with no mention of the O line, is pointless to me.

 

[GenoT]

“But how does he grade-out on Pro Football Focus?”...

...said no NFL scouting dept, FO or coaching staff, ever.

 

[kskboys]

And yet, here are the QBs that have won the Super Bowl since 2007

Eli Manning 2x
Tom Brady 3x
Peyton Manning
Drew Brees
Aaron Rodgers
Russel Wilson
Joe Flacco
Nick Foles

5 of those QBs will be in the HOF, Wilson is the very least, a top 7 QB in this league. Nick Foles and Joe Flacco are the outliers here obviously.

Let's then break down the defenses

2007 and 2011 Giants defenses didn't allow more than 20 points scored in the playoffs
2009 Saints led the league in turnovers
2010 Packers were top 5 in turnovers and had healthy and talented defensive line to apply pressure
2013 Seahawks had the legion of boom
Joe Flacco had a Ray Lewis and Reed led defense

You win the Super bowl by having elite QBs or elite defenses. End of story. Trade Zeke.

It's like you don't even read the post you're responding to.

 

[kskboys]

You know what’s funny, you throw all these stats out there and criticize Barkley for having no vision for reading holes/blocks but you fail to mention one critical factor that gave Zeke a HUGE advantage, the O line.

I admit, Barkley tends to dance around a little more but if you have ever watched him play in the NFL you would see that he hits holes when they’re there but for most of the season they weren’t. Zeke would be even worse than Barkley behind the Giants O line because he runs north and south, if Barkley didn’t have the moves to make defenders miss (or less moves like Zeke), he wouldn’t have even cracked 1K yards.

Who cares if Zeke recovered his own fumbles, he should still be penalized. Even if he didn’t turn it over, he most likely lost potential yards at the least and I would still much rather have a RB who didn’t fumble the ball once than a guy that fumbled it 6 times and say “hey, but he recovered all but one”.

It’s also funny how the Cowboys had a top 10 O line all season but when Zeke had a bad game it was always because of the O line, never him. Barkley ran behind an O line for most of the season that was still much worse than the Cowboys O line on their worst day and still averaged more ypc.

So you’re basically giving props to Dak for recovering his own fumbles rather than having enough awareness to get rid of the ball or protect it. Lol, nice.

BTW, I never said I supported PFF’s ranking, I even said I would put Zeke top 3 with Barkley being first. So regurgitating the stats and their meanings, especially with no mention of the O line, is pointless to me.

Not a Giants fan so I don't know exactly how their OL played, but ours was not great. I highly doubt it was top 10.

PFF does a good job in some areas, and a not so good of a job in others. They seem to be pretty off in ranking OL's.

 

[aria]

Not a Giants fan so I don't know exactly how their OL played, but ours was not great. I highly doubt it was top 10.

PFF does a good job in some areas, and a not so good of a job in others. They seem to be pretty off in ranking OL's.

You don’t have to be a Giants fan but nice try. If you have any interest in NFCE rivals, like to watch football and live in the DFW area you would know we get 3 afternoon games a day, one being an AFC team on CBS and the other two being a Cowboys game and another NFC team (usually an NFCE team). I think we got all but a few of the Giants games so that’s what there was to watch.

So PFF is good in some areas just not the ones that serve your purpose, how convenient.

 

[McKDaddy]

Zeke had 50+ more carries than the RB behind him. That's why he led the league in rushing - if Barkley had similar carries, he would have topped Zeke. Barkley is awesome, no debate there.

And when did 1,400 rushing yards become spectacular? When did getting 6 rushing TDs on 300+ TDs become anything more than mediocre? Compared against most other years, 1400 yards isn't spectacular. Whatever factors played into that existed for all other RB's that played in 2018. However in 2018, he's the only one to accomplish the feat (in 15 games).

What exactly did Zeke do in 2018 that makes you think he was anything more than just a good RB with large amount of carries?

Same things he has done since I first started watching him in college. His balance, vision & feel for the game are top notch. His speed is very deceptive. He doesn't compound bad situations by losing more yardage. But maybe more than anything, he gets yardage that isn't blocked. Every game you see him turn what should be losses into gains. Every game you see him pick up those short yardage situations where there is a lot of contact that he simply refuses to yield to. In the first giants game, we faced a short yardage situation (thinking 1.5-2 yds). He had a little opening to left of Center, but it wasn't a clean hole. He hit the hole (while being contacted by other players from the sides) only to find Snacks Harrison squared up right in front of him. He put his shoulder into Snacks mid section lifted him up & drove him back. First down. I don't think there is another RB in the league right now who could have done that.
My original post was in rebuttal to the discussion of Zeke being ranked 30th. Do you really think he is the 30th best back in the league? Anything outside the top 3?

 

[mattjames2010]

Same things he has done since I first started watching him in college. His balance, vision & feel for the game are top notch. His speed is very deceptive. He doesn't compound bad situations by losing more yardage. But maybe more than anything, he gets yardage that isn't blocked. Every game you see him turn what should be losses into gains. Every game you see him pick up those short yardage situations where there is a lot of contact that he simply refuses to yield to. In the first giants game, we faced a short yardage situation (thinking 1.5-2 yds). He had a little opening to left of Center, but it wasn't a clean hole. He hit the hole (while being contacted by other players from the sides) only to find Snacks Harrison squared up right in front of him. He put his shoulder into Snacks mid section lifted him up & drove him back. First down. I don't think there is another RB in the league right now who could have done that.
My original post was in rebuttal to the discussion of Zeke being ranked 30th. Do you really think he is the 30th best back in the league? Anything outside the top 3?

Did he pick up the short yardage needed against the Rams?

 

[glimmerman]

Those two have always ruled, and I really haven't seen anything say otherwise. However, RB's are still playing a huge role in super bowl runs. Ray Rice, James Starks, Blount, Michel, Lynch, Anderson, all were very important in their team's super bowl runs. No, you cannot overpay them, just like you cannot overpay CB's, WR's, OLB's, etc..........

Having a running game makes a Offense go. Ball control is a key to winning games. But they are wanting some huge money. Still can’t believe bell left 14.5 million on the table.

 

[McKDaddy]

Did he pick up the short yardage needed against the Rams?

Why do you always want to change the narrative? and not answer the questions that are posed to you?

A lot of us enjoy a well debated topic and are willing and able to be persuaded by well thought out arguments. Even if we aren't swayed we can respect the thought process. But you seem to have an axe to grind on this one and aren't really listening to the points I or anyone else are making. So, no point in continuing.