[omahacolt]

Originally Posted by Chaka

Agreed - any grading system that isn't completely transparent needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Here's the description that PFF gives of how it's grades are reached, in case anyone was curious:

https://www.profootballfocus.com/pff-player-grades

Basically, their team of "300 plus staff" give a grade to each player of between -2 and +2 on each play, and then they tweak and "normalize" those numbers in some way that makes sense to them, and finally they convert it all onto a 0-100 scale. As Dam points out, subjective input factors HEAVILY in these analyses and, by the way, what makes the -2 to +2 initial scale appropriate to begin with?

People just like this stuff because it attaches a number to a player's performance that give the impression of significance and objectivity, but looking under the hood reveals that it really doesn't and often the PFF numbers simply do not make sense - such as Leonard being ranked behind Vander Esch. These kind of things then generate lots of discussion, which has the unintended effect of boosting PFF's profile even more - so PFF isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Fantastic post. Couldn’t agree more