Grading PFF's Performance - Greg Van Roten
Using the PFF system. How close does my evaluation come to the experts?
🗽Good morning Jets fans. Today I’m going to do something a little different. Every single week after the game I’ll go to Pro Football Focus to look at their player grades for the Jets. Every week without fail, there are some head-scratching grades given out. I don’t envy someone trying to grade every single player on every single play, but once you put it out in the universe it’s accepted as gospel by some.
Its not an easy task. I asked 5 different people to grade this below play and I got 2 positives, 2 neutrals and 1 negative. GVR’s job here is to get to the 2nd level and get his hands on, he does that and moves well. But then he doean’t sustain his block and a run that could have been much bigger is stopped. Should Coleman have cut back inaide? Not for me, but should have GVR have done more to sustain the block? Absolutely.
So I thought, what the hell, let’s give it a go. I decided to pick one player and watch him on every single play. I have watched each play from the Jets/Buffalo game at least 4 times from two different angles. I then used their grading scale of -2 to +2. Basically, 0 is the mean, so what you’d expect them to do, and then you use .5 grades, either way, to quantify if they did less than expected or more than expected.
I was a little concerned I wasn’t really qualified to do this, but then I read this on the PFF website, and while they indicate that all grades are checked and signed off by ‘the top two to three percent of analysts who are senior analysts’ it feels good to know that I’m as qualified as anyone else:
“PFF employs over 600 full or part-time analysts, but less than 10% of analysts are trained to the level that they can grade plays”
Player Selected: Greg Van Roten, OG
Why: I’m usually quite critical of Greg and so I wanted to watch him to see if that is justified or if I’m missing something. I also thought that PFF was overly generous in the stat line that they gave him for the game:
Sacks: 0
Hits: 0
Pressures: 4
Run Grade: 75.5
Pass Grade: 42.5
Overall: 67.2
So are you ready to get into this? I’m not going to give you a play-by-play breakdown as you’ll likely fall asleep before we got out of the first quarter. But what I will do is provide any video for any of the sacks, hits or pressures that I see. Then at the end we’ll come back to the grades and what we came out with in comparison to what PFF documented.
Sacks: QB dropped with the ball still in his hands.
Pressures: Sacks + Hits + Hurries + Knockdowns.
Hit: QB hit while throwing the football or immediately afterward.
First Quarter
At the end of the first quarter, I had GVR with a +0.5 rating in terms of run blocking and a -4.0 rating in terms of pass blocking. In terms of the key metrics, I had him with 2 QB hits allowed resulting in 2 total pressures for the first quarter. There was a potential 3rd pressure, but I gave GVR the benefit of the doubt on that one as he did just enough.
He was better in run blocking and had a nice open field push on the Tevin Coleman big gain.
First QB Hit (1st pressure)
I’m not sure how you don’t register this as a QB hit, GVR punches and then seems to forget that he needs to maintain the block. The result is Mike White getting hit as he throws and the ball being intercepted as a result.
Second QB Hit (2nd Pressure)
Again, I’m not sure how you don’t count this as a QB hit. GVR is beaten with a small swim move, Mike White is absolutely pummeled just as he is about to release the ball. This is a clear QB hit attributed to GVR and a second pressure.
Second Quarter
The second quarter was really uneventful in terms of GVR. By and large, he did his job to the standard you’d expect of a starting NFL lineman. For the second quarter, I had him at a +2.0 grade for run blocking and a 0.0 for his pass-blocking. He had a couple of really nice running plays in the 2nd quarter and he held up well in pass protection. Being pushed back into the pocket and cramping the QB is qualified as pressure, so there is one that I attributed to GVR:
So for the first half, I have him at 2 QB hits, and 3 pressures on a +2.5 run block rating, and a -4.0 for his pass blocking.
Third Quarter
Very much like the second quarter, this was another solid outing by GVR. Nothing that stood out on either side of positive or negative. In the end I had him at a 0.0 rating for his run-blocking and a -0.5 rating for his pass protection. I didn’t attribute a pressure or hit to him for this play because it’s a stunt that just doesn’t get picked up, but this isn’t great by the offensive line as a unit.
So after three quarters, I have him at a +2.5 rating for run-blocking and a -4.5 for his pass blocking.
Fourth Quarter
Again the fourth quarter was a pretty quiet one for GVR. I ended up grading him with a +0.5 for run blocking and a 0.00 for pass protection. After looking up the definition of pressure as being forced back into the pocket, I attributed one pressure to GVR in the 4th quarter which can be seen below.
Conclusion
So for the game, I have GVR as a +3 in terms of run blocking and a -4.5 in terms of pass-protection. I attributed 4 pressures and 2 QB hits to him. Overall i’d say that GVR is a better run blocker than many give him credit for, but his pass blocking is as problematic as many expected.
Converting those scores into grades is a little mystery because I can’t find a single explanation from PFF around how they do that. But in general, they have him as a positive run blocker and a negative pass-blocker and I would say that matches up with what we saw on coaches film.
PFF attributed 4 pressures on GVR and that’s exactly what I got. PFF gave him 0 QB Hits, but I attributed 2 to him. By and large, my evaluation was largely consistent with what PFF came out with, although I do think they heavily overstated just how good he was in the run-game.
Saying that, there were some really positive plays on tape. GVR is a decent run blocker out in space and he moves well for a man his size. Getting to that next level is imperative in this system and he does that well.
As always I appreciate you checking in with The Jets Way today. If you liked the single player focus, let me know and I’ll make sure to make this a regular feature.