Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play)

What: I've decided to go ahead and grade every prominent Steeler that played in 2011.

When: No timetable yet other than sometime before the draft. I'll work on it when I can. Could be 2 weeks, could be 4, could be 20...

Where: Here. Duh.

Who: I will definitely try to get everyone, including up-and-comers we have our eyes on like C. Allen and C. Brown, even though they didn't see much field. I was going to say I'll start with the most important players, but I'm anxious to get to the more "controversial" guys, like Mendenhall, Redman, Ziggy, Timmons, Gay, Farrior, etc. However, in an effort to make sure my grading is even, I will spread those guys apart. Mendenhall and Redman will be graded weeks apart from one another, I can tell you that. Update: I'm not doing it that way. Everyone at once, week by week.

Why: Besides the fact that I have to pass the time until the draft somehow, I desperately want to educate myself. Example: I think Marcus Gilbert has played very well for a rookie and I hope he's able to take over at LT next year. Is he? I'm going to find out! Did he, in reality, stink it up worse than Sean Mahan? If he did, I'll find that out too!Then it won't be a hunch, it will be knowledge. Obviously I am sharing this, so I'm also hoping to educate anyone here who cares to listen. Hopefully the amount of care and work I'm putting into this will give me a little more credibility than I have now.

How: I will be doing this by looking at every play from every game still on my DVR, and giving them a score of either -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, or 3, based on performance. A horrifyingly bad play results in a score of -3, a spectacular play results in +3, and an average play results in a 0 (perhaps a lineman makes a key block right at the point of attack, but it was only so-so and it's hard for me to call it "good.") He will receive a 0. Zeroes are not recorded and will not be shown in the final score. The other numbers are self explanatory. If a player is in the game but not challenged or away from the play and does nothing of significance, it will be ruled a neutral play, and will also not be graded at all.

There will also be something called the Stink Factor, and something called the Splash Factor. I'll keep an extra tally of scores of -2 and -3, as well as +2 and +3. We may want to know if a guy is simply average all the time, or swings wildly from saving the day and costing us games, on a small scale. For example, Ryan Clark and Troy Polamalu may finish a game with equal scores, but Troy might have a lot of Stinks and a lot of Splashes, whereas Clark maintained a steady stream of good or average scores.

Result of the play will not necessarily impact my scoring. For example, if a running back is stuffed behind the line of scrimmage due to a missed blocking assignment, and he never had a chance to escape, he will not get a negative score. It's more likely he'll get a 0. He might even get a positive score if he makes a guy miss and loses fewer yards than he should have. However, if that running back loses yardage because he passed up a hole looking for more, or ran backwards, he will receive a negative score. If a QB throws a perfect pass that deflects off of a receiver's hands and becomes an interception, the QB will not get a negative score for that play, and might get a positive score. The receiver, however, will not be so lucky.

Grading will be broken up into a couple of components. All defenders will be separately graded for run defense, pass defense, and pass rush**, so that we can get a better idea of not just who is good and bad, but what they are good and bad at. Offensive linemen will be graded separately on run blocking and pass blocking, tight ends will be graded separately for run blocking, pass blocking, and receiving, running backs will be graded separately on running, receiving, and pass blocking, and receivers will be graded separately on running/receiving and blocking.

**For pass rushers, I will likely never hand out a negative score. All pass rushers are unsuccessful almost every single time they rush the passer. There is a massive advantage to the offense. If I were to give someone a negative score because they got blocked, everyone would have a terrible, terrible score. Unless someone gets completely pancaked, all unsuccessful pass rush attempts will receive a score of 0. So keep that in mind, because at the end all defenders will likely have a positive pass rush grade, so what matters is how high the number is.

When I'm done with all of it, the scores will be posted here. I will post the number of plays graded, and the number of each score. I may or may not add comments, which may or may not be short (I see a lot of "Meh"s in my future. It's possible all the effort will go into the grading and I'll have no energy for comments). Here is an example that is not real. I am making it up right now:

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Ramon Foster

Week 7 at Arizona

Plays graded: 22
Overall score: +9
Stink Factor: -3
Splash Factor: +10
Breakdown:

-3 -- 1
-2 -- 0
-1 -- 7
+1 -- 9
+2 -- 5
+3 -- 0

Comments: Overall a good game by Foster. If he hadn't slipped on that banana peel in the 3rd he would have scored much higher. Still slow out of his stance on running plays.

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Wow, Ramon Foster had 5 Splash plays? This MUST be made up. Okay, it is, but then again, we might see surprises like that.

Which games: Every game except the ones played in prime time. I had to delete those because they take up too much DVR space (except the Ravens game. I meant to delete it in disgust but I guess I forgot because I still have it). The Sunday morning/afternoon games are given Short Cuts on DirecTV, so I still have those. We are talking about:

Week 1 at BALTIMORE
Week 2 vs. Seattle
Week 4 at HOUSTON
Week 5 vs. Tennessee
Week 6 vs. Jacksonville
Week 7 at ARIZONA
Week 8 vs. New England
Week 9 vs. Baltimore
Week 10 at CINCINNATI
Week 13 vs. Cincinnati
Week 16 vs. St. Louis
Week 17 at CLEVELAND
Wild Card at DENVER

Missing will be the following games:

Week 3 at INDIANAPOLIS
Week 12 at KANSAS CITY
Week 14 vs. Cleveland
Week 15 at San Francisco

Disclaimers:

-Obviously my statistics will not be perfect, since I will only be grading 75% of the games. It's also clear as day that the games I will not be grading were some of the worst games we played all year. Roethlisberger was hobbled for two of them. Thus, some players' grades may be higher than they should be. But really, if you think about it, if you're grading guys off of 12 games, you should still get a pretty accurate score.

-The scores will also be my opinion. However, I think I am pretty good at it, and I swear to all that is holy that I will do my best to be absolutely honest and fair with everybody on the team. I have guys that I support on the board and guys I condemn, but if there's a game where David Johnson outgrades Lawrence Timmons, then so be it. I'm as interested in surprising myself as I am proving myself right. I'm a supporter of Mendenhall and feel he's been misused so far here and misunderstood by the fans (on the field, not on the tweeter). I also like Redman a lot and think they should both see more of the ball. I've been a supporter of Ziggy, and diehardsteel says he gets owned on nearly every play. I didn't think so, but after watching him closely I noticed he is definitely underperforming and looks unsure of himself a lot of the time. I didn't think he was getting owned necessarily, but more like he was spending more time looking to see what was going on instead of doing something about it. But all of this is gut feeling and hazy memory right now. We will see what the scores say. The bottom line is, I will not be carrying with me any prejudices at all, regardless of how I feel or what I've said about players. If my man Big Snack can't cut it anymore, I will say so. If he can, I hope you'll believe me.

-I don't know yet how I'll display the scores here. Perhaps each position will get a thread, perhaps each player, perhaps all in one. I'll see how much data there is and go from there.

I may add edits here from time to time as I think of things.

Wish me luck!

EDIT: I've already changed the scoring above. Neutral plays will not factor in at all. I realized how much extra, pointless work it would take to add it meaningless plays. So if you see a 0, you know it was average, not neutral.

EDIT: I started this morning, and all those 0s is too much work. So all average plays are now off the grid, as if they were neutral. Only positives and negatives will be recorded. I also added the Denver game to the schedule. Maybe I will be ready to re-watch it if I do it last...

UPDATE: I'm doing week 1, I worked for what seemed like forever... checked the game clock and it said 9 minutes left in the 1st quarter. WHAT?!?!?! The way we are playing, this is agony, and we still have 7 turnovers to go! Anyway, I will definitely be grading week by week, all the players at once, instead of position by position as planned. Just easier this way.

EDIT: Grading has been changed again, to include specific components of offense and defense.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Sounds ambitious. Look forward to seeing the output of your research.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

try logging all of those stats in a database (or excel file) so you can keep track and totals

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

This is a great project.

It will be hard grading, WR are involved in fewer plays than a C and will not have the chance to get many points, for example. Will you give +'s for WR getting open but not getting the ball.

I will volunteer to help. If you post some plays on youtube maybe we could all score each player and compare notes and scores. This would be interesting to get everyone's thoughts. Than again, maybe not.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

I can't wait to see how Ziggy grades out! Don't want to tip my hand but this is what I think of every time I watch him play:

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Ideally, absolutely! But how often is that visible on tv? On the short routes, sure, and maybe a few times per game on replays, but on Short Cuts there are almost no replays.

And yes, the grading will be uneven. OL and DL players can be graded every play. Safeties and receivers? Not so much.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Your hand was tipped loooong ago. You even got a blurb in my op!

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Man Snack, you are good! I missed that the first time I read it!

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Haha, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I just finished rationalizing why it's ok to do just 12, and now you want me to do more work???? Just kidding, I would love all 16 games.

What's NFL game rewind?

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

snack , if memory serves me correctly, steelers depot has a running total of plays for the line and has it broke down into good plays , bad plays and nonfactor plays. i'm curious to see if you agree with their assesments compared to yours. it may help you with this momentous job you are taking on. good luck.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Thanks, I'm making an effort not to read anyone else's official breakdowns until I'm done with mine. Otherwise I'll be like, "Wait, I should score that higher if I want to keep up with so and so!"

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

You're like a sequestered jury.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Good thing everything I read here doesn't count as information.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Thanks, I'm making an effort not to read anyone else's official breakdowns until I'm done with mine. Otherwise I'll be like, "Wait, I should score that higher if I want to keep up with so and so!"[/quote]

You're like a sequestered jury. [/quote]
Good thing everything I read here doesn't count as information.

More like mis-information!

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Very interesting project. About 25yrs ago, Bill James started Project Scoresheet, attempting to develop and log detailed scoresheet for every MLB game.

Just some advice. I think you need to develop some consistent, precise and maybe limited definitions. Letting the masses decide what is a "Splash" or "Stink" is just a way for putting numbers to personal prejudices. You might be better to scoret hings like: where did the run go? between the RG and C, or RG/RT and how many yds did it get. Where did the 'sacker' come from? Around the LT? Up the midde? How much time between snap and sack? Define whatever metrics you want, but make them as unsubjective as possible. Otherwise, you'll have a mess. Good Luck!>

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

I see your point, but I'm not trying to be a statistician here. My goal is to grade the players based on performance. To see how good they are, just by watching. But not watching like we all do every week. I mean really watching.

If all we do is look at statistics like you suggest (something like, "according to these numbers we are most successful running behind the LG, least successful behind the RT"), then that leads to extreme uncertainty. Does that mean our LG is our best blocker? Or our best designed play happens to go there? Or we had a couple lucky runs there that threw off the stats? Is our RT the worst? Does this have anything to do with the running backs? The defenders we face?

There is absolutely a place for all that, but I'll leave it to others. That's something I'd rather look up than figure out. It doesn't help me learn about the players, which is my goal.

I know it's only my opinion, so you all will have to take that with however much salt you like, but I can promise you it will be a valid, open, honest, and fair opinion. I wouldn't waste my time on it otherwise. And believe me, this is going to take time. Only half-way into my first game, I've noticed some surprises. Sneak preview: to my shock, Doug Legursky is all over the map. He began the game dominating the Ravens, before falling to pieces somewhat in the 2nd quarter. Stay tuned... (don't really stay tuned. It's gonna be months).

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Fair enough, and I'm not trying to rip you or diminish your effort in the least. And I'm not a statistician, (I'm an engineer), but I begrudring respect their rigor. I only offer this one piece of Bill Jamesian advice: "Facts are things you can demonstrate and support through repeated observations, bull**** is stuff you just know". Don't fall in for stuff you (or your data gatherers) just know.

Good Luck.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

I can do it fairly. I just know it.

Thanks.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Use Binary numbers. It's much easier.

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Snack, this sounds very interesting and I commend you for taking on this project. But can I ask one question? Do you actually work for a living?

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

Noneya

 

Re: Announcing the Great Steeler Grading Project (every play

LMAO...
None o` my bidness, either...
But...
I was thinking the same kinda thing...
Damn, I wish I had that much free time!... ...
Anyhow... good luck with it, and I will be looking forward to seeing what you find out.
(Subjective as it is)... I like lotsa salt on MY fries... hahaha...
What I did wonder, tho, when I first read this thread, was what you meant about the NFL network`s "shortcuts"?
I am guessing that`s different than the "game of the week", where they condense a certain game, and leave out drives that effectively went nowhere, and ended up in a punt, and such?
I hadnt seen the ones you were referring to, probably because I don`t watch a whole lot of NFL network, but if they take up less space on your DVR, because they are leaving out a lot of plays(not just commercials), aren`t you missing out on a lot of "grading" opportunities?
Again, good luck to ya, and I am interested in your results, even if they are more opinion, than "fact" based...
After all, most of what is on this board(Or NFL.com, or whatever I read)is all just opinions, anyhow...
More power to ya, for taking the time to watch with a critical eye, and see if your previous opinions on our players are borne out, or disproved, by watching carefully, as many plays as you can, with an impartial eye.
GO STEELERS!