7thFloorRA
Cheesehead
The rock pounder was in warm ups on the sideline!!! It is going to be glorious when he plays during the regular season in that same situation.
Oshkoshpackfan
YUT !!!
I know, but from the description that I got, 1st down was a run to the 2 yard line, I would have not waited until 4th down to run again......sounds like the timing on passing issues is off more than slightly. Am I seeing the start of the 2012 season all over again? Hope not. They have a ton of work to do.
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
jaybadger82
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
- Messages
- 837
- Reaction score
- 83
We've had this discussion before. I've acknowledged that these aren't perfect stats, that the definition of a "pressure" or a "hurry" may vary between services or that an evaluator's judgment in awarding these on some plays might differ from my own.
This seems to alarm you while I simply take this into account when considering pressures in a vacuum: in my mind, player A's 118 pressures do not definitively make him a better pass rusher than player B, with 112 pressures. But they're both probably more disruptive than player C who's listed with 87 pressures.
You're free to proselytize on this as much as you like as I'm not really interested in defending PFF's product. As I've said before, I don't think the imprecision that accompanies these stats renders them useless nor do I think evaluating pressures with an eye on the outcome corrects many of the flaws you seem fixated on (imprecision, subjective quality).
P.S. Justice Stewart's line about *********** is not acknowledged as an absurdity in law (I should know). It's widely understood as a frank acknowledgment that some things escape clear and precise definition.
Last edited:
Oshkoshpackfan
YUT !!!
Thanks for that link.....wow, what happened to Starks being the "beast" in training camp? His line stats are not-so-impressive in my book....he ran for crap.
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
Several posters have noted that PFF counts this or that in creating their stats. Can somebody provide a link to their guidelines for subjective stats? Or any one stat? Piecemeal responses to piecemeal questions 140 bytes at a time off of twitter is only marginally helpful.
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
Do they really credit guys with 100 or more pressures in a season? I find that highly suspect in that it is a low bar. If that is the case, it would explain why Raji gets a decent pass rush grade...he creates minor disturbances without actually getting home.
I agree that subjective judgements are an inevitable requirement of human existance. My objection is to opaque black box stat-ification of the subjective realm...for about the tenth time...with a particular emphasis on the non-transparent aspects of the process.
PS: What Steward thought was *********** in his eye (or more rightly the eyes of local authorities or juries in his day) looks pretty tame in today's world. Sensible prosecutors don't bring local norm cases any more...they work off of objective criteria established by legislatures...is there a child involved, is it a snuff film, etc. The absurdity of which I spoke is the idea that "I know it when I see it" can preempt First Amendment rights.
Luca
Cheesehead
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
No holes.
PFanCan
That's MISTER Cheesehead, to you.
Starks is a "beast" against the Packer run defense. The Packer defense make lots of players, including rookie QBs, look like "beasts".
Sunshinepacker
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2013
- Messages
- 5,766
- Reaction score
- 896
Ok, hurries are pretty cut and dry; if the defensive player forces the quarterback to hurry, then it's a hurry. If you're looking for exact formulas with the specificity of a physics equation, you're going to to be disappointed. Football is full of subjective plays. If you refuse to count subjective stats then the only real players you'll ever be able to evaluate are those who have the football, and those that tackle the guy with the football.
It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than what many fans do, which is to make snap judgments on a player's relative skill even though they don't watch many other players. How do you know Burnett isn't one of the better safeties in the NFL when you don't watch every other safety in the NFL? Yeah, the scoring may not be perfect, but a guy with a +10 grade at the end of the year is probably better than the guy with a +2.
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
Thanks for that. I'll comment when I get a chance to study it and think on it. Just scanning it, though, I don't think it will answer some key questions relating to the herding of the cats (i.e., analysts) in quantification of subjective judgements.
For just one of the subjective elements, "hurry", I would expect there to be a document of approximately that length with perhaps a dozen or more clips of plays considered "hurries" and plays considered not.
But it should help some.
Last edited by a moderator:
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
That's a problem, Justice Stewart.
I'm looking for the guidelines, not a physics equation. See comments on game calling by officials above.
Or to put a finer point on it, my skepticism stems from PFF putting equations on subjective judgements of undisclosed provenance. THEY are making a physics formula out of it, not me.
TJV
Lifelong Packers Fanatic
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2011
- Messages
- 5,389
- Reaction score
- 954
No stat is “perfect” even for a specified purpose. For example all sacks aren’t “equal” in evaluating the sacker. (caution: exaggeration approaching) Compare the value of one sack which occurred 6 seconds after the snap while the QB stood statue-like in the pocket and only after the blocker slipped and fell, versus another which occurred in less than three seconds after beating a double team. Yet each defender gets credit for one sack. Hell, even the most “objective” stat – the score – doesn’t always tell the story – see the “Fail Mary” game last season.
So what about “pressures”? Of the three elements stated by PFF, sacks and hits – although not perfect are the least subjective of the three. In each case we know at least the defender had contact with the QB before the whistle blew. “Hurries” is the most nebulous but I believe it’s reasonable to assume that at the very least the defender defeated the blocker (or the blocker fell down) or drove him back towards the QB before the ball was thrown. Certainly a defender controlled by a blocker at the LOS wouldn’t get credit for a hurry.
An analogy: IMO baseball is more “stat centric” than football but consider another exaggerated example regarding the batting average stat: Player one hits the ball incredibly ******* 10 consecutive trips to the plate, all but one is directly hit to an outfielder. Player two in 10 trips to the plate squibs two mishits just beyond an infielders reach and then closes his eyes, swings as hard as he can and barely hits the ball which dribbles bunt-like in front of the third baseman as the batter reaches first base. Which is the better hitter? The answer to this statistical anomaly is over the course of a 162-game season, it’ll even out and player one will emerge with the better batting average. In the same way while the value of each play characterized as a sack, hit, or hurry may be questioned, over the course of a season the imperfect stat of pressures will have some value in evaluating defenders.
IMO the best stats are those compiled by the individual teams because only they know with precision the responsibility of each of their players on every play. But even those stats have at least two problems: They are compiled by imperfect individuals using their own judgment. And worse, they aren’t available to us. But we can see the outcome of teams’ evaluations based partially on their in-house stats. For example, many of us were surprised with the deal Brad Jones received and with Bishop’s release. I believe it was PFF which assigned what many Packers fans saw as a surprisingly high grade to Jones’2012 performance. If it was PFF, I think it is fair to say their evaluation of Jones more closely matched that of the Packers than the evaluations of most Packers fans.
Of course anyone is free to ignore a stat like hurries and/or ignore stats compiled by a certain source. I see the stats published by PFF as one tool among many in evaluating players even though I don’t subscribe to their site or know their guidelines for volunteers.
So what about “pressures”? Of the three elements stated by PFF, sacks and hits – although not perfect are the least subjective of the three. In each case we know at least the defender had contact with the QB before the whistle blew. “Hurries” is the most nebulous but I believe it’s reasonable to assume that at the very least the defender defeated the blocker (or the blocker fell down) or drove him back towards the QB before the ball was thrown. Certainly a defender controlled by a blocker at the LOS wouldn’t get credit for a hurry.
An analogy: IMO baseball is more “stat centric” than football but consider another exaggerated example regarding the batting average stat: Player one hits the ball incredibly ******* 10 consecutive trips to the plate, all but one is directly hit to an outfielder. Player two in 10 trips to the plate squibs two mishits just beyond an infielders reach and then closes his eyes, swings as hard as he can and barely hits the ball which dribbles bunt-like in front of the third baseman as the batter reaches first base. Which is the better hitter? The answer to this statistical anomaly is over the course of a 162-game season, it’ll even out and player one will emerge with the better batting average. In the same way while the value of each play characterized as a sack, hit, or hurry may be questioned, over the course of a season the imperfect stat of pressures will have some value in evaluating defenders.
IMO the best stats are those compiled by the individual teams because only they know with precision the responsibility of each of their players on every play. But even those stats have at least two problems: They are compiled by imperfect individuals using their own judgment. And worse, they aren’t available to us. But we can see the outcome of teams’ evaluations based partially on their in-house stats. For example, many of us were surprised with the deal Brad Jones received and with Bishop’s release. I believe it was PFF which assigned what many Packers fans saw as a surprisingly high grade to Jones’2012 performance. If it was PFF, I think it is fair to say their evaluation of Jones more closely matched that of the Packers than the evaluations of most Packers fans.
Of course anyone is free to ignore a stat like hurries and/or ignore stats compiled by a certain source. I see the stats published by PFF as one tool among many in evaluating players even though I don’t subscribe to their site or know their guidelines for volunteers.
jaybadger82
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2012
- Messages
- 837
- Reaction score
- 83
I just made some numbers up to illustrate my point. I'm not a PFF or Stats consumer and I don't know what kind of pressure totals are exceptional, normal, or below average.
I agree with your criticism of those that want to evaluate players based solely on the stats. Football doesn't lend itself to the same moneyball analysis that has taken baseball by storm in recent years. But there's a place for numbers in football and I believe stats like pressures/hurries can be one useful metric for evaluating players in conjunction with game film and an understanding of what they're are being asked to do on the field by the coaching staff (e.g., our DTs are often asked to eat up blockers and they rarely put up gaudy stats as a result).
I'm far more skeptical of attempts to reduce a player's game performance to a single number (as with the player ratings discussed further above) and, by and large, I suspect we're not that really that far apart on the subject of football statistics. I'll leave further debate for others.
P.P.S. Re: ***********: Yep, I believe courts primarily apply the three-part Miller test to evaluate whether speech falls outside First Amendment protection as obscenity, which includes ***********. The first two prongs are evaluated using local standards but the third is analyzed under a much broader national standard, which is almost difficult to fail (with some obvious bright-line exceptions like child ***********). As long as speech doesn't fail that third prong, it is basically protected under the First Amendment regardless of whether a local or state legislature thinks it's obscene.
I understand your point about Steward's "know it when I see it" line as failing to describe any sort of applicable standard. The Miller test at least offers a framework for analysis but, IMO, it's still remarkably vague. Not much of an improvement on Steward's observation when the test basically boils down to whether the court thinks the speech has "some serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value."
From a practical standpoint, American courts have been erring on the side of protecting questionable speech for some time (I think the mantra goes "let the marketplace of ideas sort it out") and prosecutors are hesitant to commit limited resources to prosecuting this kind of stuff when there are so many non-violent drug offenders to incarcerate. Nonetheless, when the Westboro Baptist Church exercises its First Amendment right to picket American soldiers' funerals it still strikes me as obscenity, regardless of its constitutionality. Thanks for indulging me on this digression.
Last edited:
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
There is an underlying presuppostion in this argument and others that PFF MUST know what they're doing, their subjective assessments are consistent, and how they quantify subjective assessments is actually meaningful. Yet, there is no disclosure about methods, quality control, or much of anything else. You "assumed" something about what must be considered a hurry. Other posters had other definitions. Mine would be stricter, heavily weighted toward outcome. You don't know what they measure.
A dribbling bunt-like hit has a clearly measurable outcome. Fans or analysts can overlay a batting average with other stats, such as OPS, to assess whether a guy has a habit of such dribbling and blooping...a banjo hitter.
Certainly anybody can use anything they want for whatever purpose. That's not the point. The point is transparency of process and methods so we can tell what's what.
I've seen enough of these PFF stats that have apparent outliers to question the methods. To take the recently discussed example, that PFF grade for Bakhtiari's run blocking in this last game seems unjustified. Or at least unjustified in being worse than any other first team offensive lineman at work that day. Or the highly suspect decent pass rush grade grated to Raji last season which is evidently is built on accumulation of "hurries" when at the same time the eye test would indicate he was more late in those hurries than impactful.
HyponGrey
Caseus Locutus Est
You really want to take the ball out of AR's hands and give it to James Starks? IMO just running it on 4th was a big improvement.
HyponGrey
Caseus Locutus Est
Also, let's remember that the Cardinals started off 4-0 last year, and it wasn't because of their offense.
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
While somewhat helpful around the margins of my questions, the link is not particularly helpful in answering core questions about process, consistency or quality control. The run blocking example is helpful, but it is just one example.
Here's an example of an apparent flaw in methodology gleaned from reading this:
Let's say Sam Shields blankets his receivers to such an extent he's never thrown at during a game. This has happened, by the way. He would receive a 0.0 pass defense grade for that game because evidently PFF takes the stance there is nothing to evaluate. Unlike O-Line run blocking where 0.0 is a "perfect" grade, we can assume that is not the case with pass defense because we've seen them produce positive and negative scores.
On the one hand I agree with PFF's 0.0 grade in my Shields example because, in my opinion, you can't guess about hypothetical outcomes. One might note a receiver got separation on Shields but the ball was not thrown that way. It is conjecture what recovery Shields might have made and what the end result would be. He might actually pick it.
On the other hand, being a shut down corner in the purest sense (no targets) should not get a 0.0 neutral grade.
Quite a quandary, I must say, to such an extent that one must view these pass defense stats with a pound of salt.
It gets worse. Lets say Shields puts up one those Aeneas Williams/Asomugha/Revis seasons where he's thrown on as few as 25-30 times. But on one of those targets he slipped on a bad field and gave up a TD and on another he was expecting safety help deep and it did not arrive, surrendering a second TD. Though we do not have PFF's formulas, we could conjecture that might result in a neutral-to-negative grade. Getting burned for a TD on 7% of the targets might get a heavy weighting in PFF's view.
Now, I would not conclude from Shields' league-leading fewest targets per snap last season that he's the best cover corner in the league simply because he covered #2's and #3's almost exclusively. However, a strong argument can be made that he is the best and most feared #2 cover corner in the league. Looking forward, one of the bright spots in the AZ game was Shields making Fitzgerald a non-factor. But wait, what was Shields' PFF grade for that game? I dunno but it could be negative...1 target for 17 yards or 2 targets for 21, I'm not entirely sure which, but I think it was the 1 target. One measurable play and he got beat.
I have one final thought on this subject, until other facts are provided, pertaining to the following quote from the PFF link:
"There are exceptions and limitations with regards to positions such as wide receiver and defensive backs, where our grading is limited by what the television broadcasters show. Unfortunately, we will continue to be at their mercy until we are able to gain access to coach’s game film."
That certainly puts a little different paint job on things. For $40 for the season, they can subscribe to nfl.com and get coach's game tapes. In the mean time, they should beg off rating safeties altogether.
Last edited by a moderator:
OP
OP
HardRightEdge
Guest
Here's some additional PFF facts:
https://www.profootballfocus.com/about/get-involved/
I've cited this information and finally got around to finding the link.
And to think I was challenged with such certainty on these facts. This should give one pause.
I'm also skeptical of the earlier contention that PFF grades a DB negatively for getting burned but saved by an overthrow. Indications are it is graded 0.0.
https://www.profootballfocus.com/about/get-involved/
I've cited this information and finally got around to finding the link.
And to think I was challenged with such certainty on these facts. This should give one pause.
I'm also skeptical of the earlier contention that PFF grades a DB negatively for getting burned but saved by an overthrow. Indications are it is graded 0.0.
It's pre-season...pre...season. It has almost zero correlation to regular season performance.
We had the #1 offense in for 1 drive where they easily drove down inside the 5 and then couldn't convert a 4th down. After that, it was scrubs.
This dialogue takes place every year.
Oshkoshpackfan
YUT !!!
Yeah yeah yeah, I know it's only pre-season and all, but it would have been nice for our 2nd team offense to be able to score going up against the main portion of their 2nd team defense. I fully understand pre-season has nothing to do with regular season, but from a mental standpoint it has to be nice for the young guys to get a score or two, right? Pre-season/regular season/post season.....I like to see wins
Oshkoshpackfan
YUT !!!
we have more people to run than just starks......
Sunshinepacker
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2013
- Messages
- 5,766
- Reaction score
- 896
No pause. People understand it's not perfect. Some are willing to accept the relatively minor uncertainties involved for a better understanding of how players throughout the league are performing. Perhaps if there were documented instances of the site being waayyy off base on player evlauations those uncertainties would become material in others' eyes; but the site does a very good job of providing relative player performance rankings and does it in a fashion to make it accessible to most people. The NFL isn't a black and white league. You can't evaluate things like hurries based on formula; if you say the defensive player must be within X feet of QB for a hurry to take place then we also have to include things like which way the defensive player's momentum is carrying him, how long are the defensive player's arms, does the offensive lineman still have contact with the defensive player (maybe he can redirect him slightly). Football isn't science or baseball. There aren't immutable laws and there are numerous players involved doing things that don't have perfectly definable outcomes.
Sunshinepacker
Cheesehead
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2013
- Messages
- 5,766
- Reaction score
- 896
Like Rodgers!
Similar threads
