Off Season News

[OldSchool101]

I think we probably all can think of some example of a player who seems to generally grade well and/or pads out the stat sheet but watch them play with your own two eyes and you might struggle to find much of an impact from them. Maybe it is someone who tends to log "empty" stats or who is more adept at cleaning up for others than producing for themselves. Born on third base and thinking they hit a triple, if you will.

But at the same time our own eye test often fails as well. Frankly in many situations people just don't watch the game(s) that closely, or at least not on a player-by-player, per-play basis. We have an easy time remembering the "pop" plays but much of what happens in a given game is just noise to our brains. The stats or algorithms or performance metrics or whatever you want to call it aren't perfect or an end-all, be-all, but at the same time...a player who consistently LOOKS good and passes the "eye test" will almost always see that reflected in measurable data.

It’s a good 2 cents imo.

A good example of the latter “players does not log ideal stats but they pass the eye test” are Rashan Gary or Erik Stokes. As I’ve pointed out in several occasions, Stokes went 3 YEARS (to be fair condensed it was 2 full seasons) of literally ZERO INT, ZERO PD, ZERO TFL, ZERO Sacks. Now while none of that is a deal breaker by its lonesome.. because their role isn’t Blitz Defender etc.. they still defend the Run game and eventually you ooh a TFL or a FF or something. Anything! (See Valentine he’s a terrible tackler but he’s logged these). it shows a historical level of inefficiency in GAME CHANGING PLAYS. It’s not enough in this league to disappear as a starting CB snd just survive. Maybe it was system maybe just a lull idk. He averaged a 115% Passer rating, 3TD per full season in his last 3 years in GB. Zero game changing plays EXCEPT for allowing our opponents to score.

Now did Stokes grade F like his stats show? Of course not. However we’re talking a RD1 draft pick also. To your point, his stats didn’t show a C- graded player (on C scale). Stokes finally revived himself with a nice solid B graded type season (5 PD 77.7% Passer rating) in 2025 and got a nice $10m deal. So there’s that to be fair. Eric likely isn’t a D grade player.. He’s probably just a higher floor C grade and not much ceiling B grade.

Rashan was similar. He was unable to log a Sack for 10 straight games. It just doesn’t even sound right. Yet if you look at other angles, such as he took on an increased % of double teams and actually was still registering some hurries and hits etc. He was also always very good at Run D. I know that’s not a fancy stat and it’s not why Edge gets paid $20Mil+ annual, but it’s still a factor. Guys like him and Preston often force teams to cut inside into traffic and that Doesn’t always show up on a stat sheet (unless you dig deeper into rankings you’ll see it).

I like to apply the overall D ranking to the equation after applying individual. If you’re Rashan not logging stats but your D Pass game is just stifling teams for 3.4 yards per pass? He’s part of that.