Just stumbled across a site that breaks down and grades every player based on every play for offense, defense and special teams. It shows how many plays each player participated in as well as their ability to perform various roles in a satisfactory manner (run block, pass block, etc) http://profootballfocus.com/by_week.php?tab=by_week&season=2009&wk=01&teamid=&gameid=&stats= Regarding grading, the site assesses different players performance by different criteria: OFFENSE: Running Passing Pass Blocking Run Blocking Screen Blocking DEFENSE: Pass Rushing Pass Coverage Run Defense In addition to rating the individual categories, the site offers a "cumulative" grade for each player (which is the sum of all the player's category grades for that week). If you really want to delve into the numbers, DONT just look at the cumulative grades; rather, focus on the individual category grades (the site itself admits the cumulative grades are flawed). Some really interesting nuggets of information on the Dolphins-Falcons game. For example: Offense: * Despite an awful game as a pass blocker, Jake Long was by far our best run blocker. * Our Guards (Thomas and Smiley) were the two worst offensive players on Sunday - equally poor in both facets of the game * Bess was our best offensive playmaker. Fasano recieved high grades for his run blocking but his passing grade was understandably poor. * Interestingly, Pennington graded out to having an average game. Im assuming this means that on the majority of offensive plays the OL had a hand in our turnovers and unsuccesful 3rd down conversions. Defense * The entire Def. Line played exceptionally well, with Merling grading out the highest (as I think was apparent to everyone). Starks (who played the most of all the Def. Lineman), Langford and Solai also played above average * Jason Ferguson was the only Defensive Lineman who graded out negatively due to poor play in the run game * Adoyele was our best run stuffer, although he struggled somewhat against the pass * Gbril Wilson and Jeremiah Bell were both very poor in pass coverage * Joey Porter played the run much better than he rushed the passer * Altough Sean Smith started the game, he played only 29 of 68 snaps. He graded out best of all the starting DB's. Vontae Davis played 35 snaps. Anyway, this is a site worth watching and should be a great platform for discussion. Thoughts?
Interesting site, is there an explanation of their grading system? By their method, Grove played okay, Thomas and Smiley both were indeed terrible.
The fact the Fasano turned the ball over twice made him our worst offensive player by a longshot. They should probably take that into account in their formulas, because now I have no faith in the rest of them.
They only have 4 games listed for week 1. I wonder if they will post the rest throughout the week or if they only do a few games each week.
Anyway, one more point about the Fasano grade. You have to dig into their scoring system to understand their rationale. The site grades each player in ~7 different categories. The grade given to each category is between +2 and -2 with an average of 0. The distribution of their grades is like this (taken from their site): +2.0 0.01% +1.5 0.3% +1.0 16% +0.5 37% -0.5 24% -1.0 22% -1.5 0.5% -2.0 0.01% So Fasano received a -1.9 for his passing grade, which puts him in the .001 percentile of worst players of the week. It just so happens that he scored very highly in run blocking and pass blocking. They also give a huge disclaimer: Looking at the final "cumulative" grade of all categories is often misleading (as the Fasano example clearly shows) but that they provide it to fuel discussion. The real value of the site is to look at their grades for the various facets of the game that might otherwise be overlooked by the casual fan.... Their explanations of grading is described below: http://profootballfocus.com/about.php?tab=about
See the underlined part of my original post above. Pay less attention to the cumulative grade and look at the individual category grades. Thats where these guys really leave their mark IMO. Fasano's pass grade is among the worst in the league for week one. His blocking grades are quite high. The site explains that the cumulative grade is simply for discussion purposes and is not rooted in statistics (just a simple sum of all the category grades).
The problem with Week 1 grades is there is no track record established as of yet, a rolling 2 game grade would give a better sense of how players are doing.
BTW, this site has now broken down all the plays by player for 8 games last week. Great site if you play fantasy football or are interested to learn how each player is used in different facets of the game.
very awesome site... as of now it has Merling as the top 3-4 DE against the run and the pass for the week out of the games they've done so far... good stuff!
