As a former employee of Pro Football Focus, I can confidently tell you that the rating system the company built its reputation on is utter hogwash.
Fans love the idea of crunching an entire player’s skill set into one easily digestible number and using that to measure who ranks who, who deserves what money, and so on. Football is more complicated than that though.
That’s what PFF’s grades try to do though. More often than not, these grades are respectable. The best players tend to be near the top. The worst players fall toward the bottom.
That makes them a good jumping-off point for discussion, but nothing more. The grades are a shallow attempt to catch eyes, and it works.
That’s why when they tweeted out their end-of-year Steelers’ offensive ratings, they had to throw a small prerequisite in.
Analyzing Kenny Pickett, George Pickens, others
Aside from that though, the ratings look pretty solid. Pat Freiermuth emerged as a high-end tight end this season.
It could just be a coincidence, but I’d be willing to bet that the 400 snap prerequisite was thrown in there to keep Mitch Trubisky off this list.
Mitch Trubisky — the more valuable QB, despite being benched?
If the snap count minimum was set to 300 or even 350, Trubisky wouldn’t just be on this list — he’d be at the very top.
I don’t think it would be a great look if the guy who got benched in Week 4 and then came back in Week 13 to throw three interceptions was at the top of the player ratings for a team that finished 9-8.
Oh, and by the way, Jacoby Brissett and Andy Dalton, ranked sixth and seventh respectively in PFF grade this year.