PFF Team Grades For The 2023 Season

[RiverDog]

Since I'm still paying for premium access to PFF, I thought it would be interesting to share with you guys how they ranked various aspects of our 2023 team, where our strengths and weaknesses lay. Here's how we ranked against the other 31 teams in the league:

Offense: Passing: 11th. Pass blocking: 28th. Receiving: 7th. Running: 11th. Run blocking: 15th. Overall offense: 12th.

Defense: Run Defense: 23rd. Tackling: 31st. Pass rush: 9th. Coverage: 10th. Overall defense: 15th.

Special teams: 3rd.

Team overall: 10th.

If anything sticks out like a sore thumb, it's our tackling, and in my opinion, that sure meets with my eye test. The other painfully apparent weakness is our pass blocking, and injuries to our tackles and the lack of depth all across the OL is something that a lot of us complained about. It's one of the reasons why I want to see us bring Dissly back as he's an excellent blocking tight end and is needed to supplement our bookends.

This likely isn't all that applicable to our future as we're going to have a new coaching philosophy on both offense as well as defense, and there's already been some roster churning. Plus, as we've discussed, PFF is by no means the ultimate authority, but they are the best at what they do.

In any event, I thought it interesting for us to see where Mac and his staff are starting out at.

 

[Seahawkfan80]

Hey buddy, do you know how they get the figures to line up with the ranking? Is it by team output? Just curious how they can mark it as 12th offensive and 15 defensive with the lower rankings in separate categories. I am a little confused.

 

[Hawkamaniac]

Do those defensive numbers look off to anyone else? I really like PFF, but I'm having a hell of a time buying #10 in coverage or #15 D overall. Our pass D was top 1/3 last year? Really?

 

[toffee]

When I spoke to PFF, I was informed that after each game 3 analysts watched the film to form an opinion. A senior analyst will review those opinions of the game and individual grading before publishing. I think PFF is doing well, they must hire additional analysts. The grading used to take days after the game to become available, but just hours nowadays.

 

[HawkRiderFan]

Re. the tacking, the Hawks were famous at one time for bringing in rugby instructors to teach proper tackling form. Did they do away with that?

 

[RiverDog]

Hey buddy, do you know how they get the figures to line up with the ranking? Is it by team output? Just curious how they can mark it as 12th offensive and 15 defensive with the lower rankings in separate categories. I am a little confused.

I don't know what kind of formula they use, but it's pretty obvious that not all attributes are evenly weighted. For example, it seems pretty hard to be 5th worst in pass blocking but 11th best in passing offense.

Obviously, there's quite a bit of subjectivity that goes into these rankings, but for the most part, they seem to meet the eye test. Any Seahawk fan who has watched us play defense can't be surprised that we're 31st in tackling.

 

[RiverDog]

When I spoke to PFF, I was informed that after each game 3 analysts watched the film to form an opinion. A senior analyst will review those opinions of the game and individual grading before publishing. I think PFF is doing well, they must hire additional analysts. The grading used to take days after the game to become available, but just hours nowadays.

Here's a snippet from PFF's website that describes their grading process:

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. Only the top two to three percent of analysts are on the team of “senior analysts” in charge of finalizing each grade after review. Our graders have been training for months, and sometimes years, in order to learn, understand and show mastery of our process that includes our 300-page training manual and video playbook. We have analysts from all walks of life, including former players, coaches and scouts. We don’t care if you played.

Each grade is reviewed at least once, and usually multiple times, using every camera angle available, including All-22 coaches’ tape.

 

[flv2]

It passes the eye test from what I saw. I didn't see enough of Nwosu. Williams and Love were very good. The 2 starting CBs were 'next best'. They could cover but the tackling wasn't great there either. The rest of the defense should be moved on from unless they're cheap depth players.

 

[RiverDog]

It passes the eye test from what I saw. I didn't see enough of Nwosu. Williams and Love were very good. The 2 starting CBs were 'next best'. They could cover but the tackling wasn't great there either. The rest of the defense should be moved on from unless they're cheap depth players.

Dre Mont Jones was a huge disappointment, but we know that he has talent. I'd like to see what our new staff can do with him before we move on from him.