I hate when fans and media use their ratings as if they are the same as sabermetrics in baseball which are based on inarguable cold hard statistics. PFF's ratings are based on an inexact science. Basically it's guys watching tape and grading things they see on every play that you can't put any stat on. It's a tool and can be useful. But too many act like it's gospel when in reality it is totally subjective. Someone watching a play might see something completely different.
Like people are asking is the Giants OL better this year? So someone writes an article on that and then peppers the entire thing with PFF grades and their write ups on players. Using PFF grades is not going to tell you if our OL is better and too many in the media just get lazy and quote them as if they are the only authority.
Because a lot of people have a hard time deciphering what they're seeing and PFF provides a neat little "rating" for everything that makes arguments easier for them.
PFF does some interesting stuff, but a lot of their ratings are garbage.
PFF was Good for snap counts and for charting things like formational tendencies. Their player ratings are bullshit. I don’t care who they use to rate players. Some HS coach knows every players responsibilities? They parlayed their selling verifiable analytical data like snap counts to NFL teams to the masses to the general public. As said before. Their player ratings and a joKe.
Good for them. They make money off of the desperate stat who nerds buy their subscription stuff to they can tell me Tom Brady is a great QB. Or poor over them for their fantasy teams.
PFF was Good for snap counts and for charting things like formational tendencies. Their player ratings are bullshit. I don’t care who they use to rate players. Some HS coach knows every players responsibilities? They parlayed their selling verifiable analytical data like snap counts to NFL teams to the masses to the general public. As said before. Their player ratings and a joKe.
Good for them. They make money off of the desperate stat who nerds buy their subscription stuff to they can tell me Tom Brady is a great QB. Or poor over them for their fantasy teams.
I agree. I've heard several Oline guys state that unless the scorer knew each mans' assignment, there is no way to rate that play. It's true. Very subjective. PFF comes out with rankings that are just far from what we actually see over the course of a season.
NFL teams use their snap count data and other specific data - I'm fairly certain they don't use their ratings. There's a big difference.
"It allows people to use it to support their argument". Lol
Seriously as an older fan, other than the old standby stats, especially in baseball, I ve never taken the time to really embrace analytics.
Seems to be no doubt they have merit though
However, people do consider their ratings a data point and one of the few available to quantify performance of non-stat based positions beyond the eye test so they are often cited.
And while I don't like their ratings nor do I subscribe to them anymore, I once did subscribe to their annual service because of the snap count data which has been verified by NFL teams to be 99% accurate (or higher).
You're oversimplifying it. They'd factor for the WR only being targeted once during those 10 plays. They'd factor for whether the WR was open but the QB went to someone else. They'd factor for whether the WR was the primary read or was a secondary/tertiary option in the progressions. It's not as simple as a single stat, like completion percentage allowed If it was, anyone could just go to pro-football-reference for free.
I'm not saying that PFF has unlocked some secret algorithm that delivers consistently accurate ratings (by their own admission, they make a lot of contextual assumptions in their game reviews), but they do put a lot more into it than the simple example you gave.