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PFF’s highest graded QBs in the country week 7

I like Grant Wells a lot, I think we all do, but graphics like this simply show that PFF grades are a garbage statistic...

Trevor Lawrence – By a mile the best QB in all of college football – 24-32, 404 yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT (pulled after the first drive of the third quarter in a game his team won 73-7) Rating of 226.4

Grant Wells – Our guy, we love him, tons of potential – 19-24, 277 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, Rating of 177.8

A metric that grades Wells above Trevor Lawrence for last Saturday is a shitty metric.
 
I like Grant Wells a lot, I think we all do, but graphics like this simply show that PFF grades are a garbage statistic...

Trevor Lawrence – By a mile the best QB in all of college football – 24-32, 404 yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT (pulled after the first drive of the third quarter in a game his team won 73-7) Rating of 226.4

Grant Wells – Our guy, we love him, tons of potential – 19-24, 277 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, Rating of 177.8

A metric that grades Wells above Trevor Lawrence for last Saturday is a shitty metric.
Trevor Lawrence about to become " Broadway Trevor" this spring! Jet's are a dumpster fire but maybe he can lead them back to the Namath days!
 
I like Grant Wells a lot, I think we all do, but graphics like this simply show that PFF grades are a garbage statistic...

Trevor Lawrence – By a mile the best QB in all of college football – 24-32, 404 yards, 5 TDs, 1 INT (pulled after the first drive of the third quarter in a game his team won 73-7) Rating of 226.4

Grant Wells – Our guy, we love him, tons of potential – 19-24, 277 yards, 2 TDs, 1 INT, Rating of 177.8

A metric that grades Wells above Trevor Lawrence for last Saturday is a shitty metric.
PFF does much more than simply look at a stat line and assign a grade. They literally look at every play and build a rating.

Now, I'm not saying their ratings should be gospel but I find the process they use to calculate them pretty fascinating. You can read up on it here if you're interested: https://www.pff.com/grades
 
PFF does much more than simply look at a stat line and assign a grade. They literally look at every play and build a rating.

Now, I'm not saying their ratings should be gospel but I find the process they use to calculate them pretty fascinating. You can read up on it here if you're interested: https://www.pff.com/grades

I get their process, it's simply a failed methodology... Unless they are watching how a guy hands the ball off, there is no way to put a grade on Wells performance that is better than Lawrence's performance. I watched both games, Lawrence was lights out. If he played it out for four quarters against Georgia Tech he would have thrown for 600+ and 6 TDs.

Using an "analyst" who doesn't know the play calls for either team (by their own admission) and trying to decide on and assign a grade for each player based on that players actions every play doesn't work. You don't know what a guy's actions were supposed to be on any given play, you can only assume the QB made the right read, or that player A was supposed to block player B, etc.

They acknowledge that checkdowns that go for big plays don't benefit QBs grades because those are easy throws, and the WR does most of the work, but I would argue that the checkdown is often the correct read and exactly what the QB should do/execute on that given play.

There's no way for the "analyst" to know if the running back hit the right hole, or if a pre-snap defensive line shift should have changed the blocking scheme, etc.

It's junk science... And yes I know analytics are "so hot right now."

There may be weeks that Wells has a better game than Lawrence, but it wasn't this week.
 
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I get their process, it's simply a failed methodology... Unless they are watching how a guy hands the ball off, there is no way to put a grade on Wells performance that is better than Lawrence's performance. I watched both games, Lawrence was lights out. If he played it out for four quarters against Georgia Tech he would have thrown for 600+ and 6 TDs.

Using an "analyst" who doesn't know the play calls for either team (by their own admission) and trying to decide on and assign a grade for each player based on that players actions every play doesn't work. You don't know what a guy's actions were supposed to be on any given play, you can only assume the QB made the right read, or that player A was supposed to block player B, etc.

They acknowledge that checkdowns that go for big plays don't benefit QBs grades because those are easy throws, and the WR does most of the work, but I would argue that the checkdown is often the correct read and exactly what the QB should do/execute on that given play.

There's no way for the "analyst" to know if the running back hit the right hole, or if a pre-snap defensive line shift should have changed the blocking scheme, etc.

It's junk science... And yes I know analytics are "so hot right now."

There may be weeks that Wells has a better game than Lawrence, but it wasn't this week.
You're one of the best posters on HN and I really respect your opinions, so we will just have to agree to disagree.

I'll say that I've sat in with some PFF folks and watched how they grade plays. It's extremely intricate and involved. They are far from perfect but they get it right on a player far more than they get it wrong.

People (mostly coaches) like to pretend that football is the most complicated thing on earth. In reality it isn't. Most plays are extremely straight forward and the ones that aren't become easier to evaluate the more and more you watch them.
 
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