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For those of you who discount PFF, do you disagree with Aaron Donald as the top performer in the NFL?
I think there's an argument for a lot of players being the top guy in the NFL. Aaron Donald is an easy evaluation. He also benefits from PFF's simplistic system.
Did ANY of you break down EVERY PLAY?
I have in the past. And I found PFF's grading to be inaccurate. I've also talked to PFF's founders and others who worked there. I considered working with them back in the day when they had just started out and needed volunteers. I ultimately didn't because I didn't agree with their grading system. I still don't.
PFF's grading system treats football as a game of individual match-ups. PFF's "scouts" only look to see if a player's performance on a given play was a win, a loss, or neutral in his individual match-up. Some of you might say, "What's wrong with that?" Here's what's wrong with it. PFF doesn't attempt to understand schemes or responsibilities. They say they don't do that because it makes things too subjective. The truth is that they don't do it because they're not capable of doing it.(both do to knowledge limitations and time limitations)
Thus, PFF grades what they see as individual match-ups with no consideration to what the player was supposed to be doing. For example, let's say that we tell Aaron Donald that he's responsible for the B Gap. His assignment calls for him to occupy the B gap, tie up his blocker, and allow for Ogletree to shoot the A gap to make the play in the back-field. Let's say that Donald thinks he can make a bigger play by shooting the C gap. Donald shoots the C gap, beats his man, and gets a hand on the HB. However, Donald can't bring the HB down. Ogletree is shooting the A gap as the scheme calls for which makes it appear that Ogletree overran the play and is in the wrong spot. The HB runs right by Ogletree after Donald can't tackle him with an arm tackle, through the unoccupied B gap, and takes it 50 yards before he's tackled by a safety.
How do you think PFF grades that play? They give Donald a positive grade for penetrating into the back-field, beating his man, and forcing the runner to change direction. They give Ogletree a negative play for running through the wrong gap and completely missing the HB.
In real life, how do you think Rams coaches grade that play? They chew Donald out for abandoning his assignment. They tell Ogletree that he did the right thing on the play and would have had a TFL if Donald was where he was supposed to be.
That's the problem with PFF. What they do is analogous to assigning 20 different book critics to each read a chapter in a 20 chapter book, each rate the book based on their 1 chapter, and then average the ratings out for the book as a whole. You all would think that's stupid. In order to grade the book, you have to see the bigger picture. That means reading the entire book. You may get it right on some books based on 1 chapter because you can get a feel for the author's writing style, technical command, and how interesting the story is. But there will be a lot of books where you get it wrong.
That's what happens with PFF. They don't see the big picture. And it's why their grades are wrong on a lot of players.
Donnal was better than GRob but that doesn't take much. I understand why Fisher is pretending this was a "one week break." Maybe Robinson rededicates, maybe he just doesn't have IT. My vote is that he is a Jason Smith clone....all the ability...not mentally cut out for the job. High draft picks are hard to jettison but after a few years, you have to make that hard decision.
It was hard to isolate Donnal's play with the entire OL performing badly. But the OL performed the worst it has in weeks. Maybe the worst it has since the 49ers game. I don't think that's a coincidence. In fact, on that 4th and 1 play late in the game, we ran left behind Donnal, Brown, and Barnes. The play got blown up. We've seen that plenty this year. But I didn't see any improvement with Donnal in the game. In fact, I saw a worse OL.
I'm also not going to make assumptions about Robinson's dedication when I have no inside knowledge of it.
All those that call me wrong here, I will save this. WHEN GRob is out of football like J Smith, I will cram this down your throats. I'm not a Donnal fan but over 50 years of watching football, it's OBVIOUSLY time to move on. He will NEVER be the man we hoped. The best case scenario is Tony Mandarich. Move him inside and hope he becomes serviceable.
I'd say the best case scenario is Leonard Davis. He was a penalty machine at OT but absolutely dominant when moved inside to OG. I actually do agree that it might be time to move Robinson inside to OG. Problem is that we don't have anyone to replace him at LT. And this draft class isn't looking good when it comes to LT prospects based on what I hear.
As for you saving it and cramming it down people's throats, that's an awfully childish and petty response to somebody disagreeing with you. I don't think it's necessary to try and threaten people out of disagreeing with me. But I guess that's just me.
