2023 RULES: Grades

[Goodell]

Currently we update grades every 4 weeks, starting with a Madden grade baseline then we also check Pro Football Focus grades and give bonuses (maximum between 1-3 points depending upon player's Madden grade where highest Madden grades could get bumped up 1 more point and lowly Madden grades could be bumped up to 3 extra point if much better PFF grade).

Every 4 weeks (instead of weekly) was partially because of the enhanced complexity of doing the grades and mixing various sources and also because Madden keep making it more and more difficult to get all the grades. At least for me, as this past season they spread team rosters across six pages and make it very time consuming to get all 32 teams grades. Not only that, the collected data doesn't play nicely with spreadsheet formatting and I have to have excel formulas parse out all the garbage into a nicely formatted list we can use, and usually I have to adjust that every season as a new year comes out with new website formatting changes.

We could possibly update grades sooner if we were able to more efficiently get all the data from multiple sources we need for our custom grading.

It has been suggested by some that perhaps we should not just give players bonuses to their baseline Madden grade if PFF has them higher, but also lower their Madden grade if PFF has them lower.

If we did so, we'd probably need to look at how we do that as I think PFF has some positions much lower overall as a group than Madden (like offensive line I believe if I recall). Maybe factor in some kind of positional average and how a player compares to that impacting if their PFF grade should move their overall one with us. Despite using them in recent seasons, I still need to figure out PFF grades a bit more and perhaps the best way to integrate them. Definitely open to ideas.

A simple implementation of not just PFF higher bonuses but also lower penalties subtracting from Madden if their grade source doesn't like them as much as madden might be using similar conditions for negatives as we do positives now.

Grades 88-99: +/- 1 max
Grades 70-87: +/- 2 max
Grades 0-69: +/- 3 max

Or keeping the tiered bonus increases but allowing anyone to be penalized up to max 3 no matter their grade tier.

Another approach if people are understanding PFF grades more and wanting them to have greater impact might be doing something like just using an average here of Madden + PFF grade for our grade. Or maybe weight it a bit for 75% Madden and 25% PFF or something where we don't do bonus/penalty off Madden for PFF, but more fully integrate it into a formula for our grades here.

[JonC]

PFF was an interesting follow this year. They REALLY diverge from Madden on a lot of players.

In a vacuum, it seems like weak side/off ball LB don't see grade bumps in Madden as often as PFF. That isn't super fun. I also feel like DL players who don't rack up sacks take a long time to get bumped in Madden. These two things make building trenches really tough in comparison to real life if you aren't in a spot to draft/sign those very specific players.

Of way more importance to this conversation are guys who are strong special teams or depth players with very few snaps played on offense/defense. Seeing crazy changes here could mess with contract values in a big way.

Josh Metellus, for example, played 21% of defensive snaps for Minnesota this year. 197 of those snaps came in 3 weeks and the remaining 63 over the rest of the season. He's a backup safety who plays a lot of special teams. Madden has him at a 71 OV. PFF graded him at an 85.1 this year.

KhaDarel Hodge is another. He played 19% of Atlanta's offensive snaps and was their #3 or #4 WR in usage every week. Madden has him at a 71. PFF has him at a 77.

This also happened last year with Danny Pinter. I don't remember the exact grades, but he was in the high 60s from Madden and getting slow bumps when he stepped in due to injury and played well. He was in the high 70s or low 80s from PFF if I recall.

While I think Madden grades are pretty out there sometimes, I do think they try to take playing time into account unlike PFF. It makes sense because Madden grades are inherently for a game. A backup C/G stepping in and immediately becoming an average to above average regular is not necessarily in the best interest of the game, so they'll move the needle slowly. PFF only cares about ranking players (rightly so given their platform), so I'm not sure a direct/weighted translation makes sense to me here.

I think the +/- 3 is a nice possibility, though.

[soonertf]

My only complaint with Madden grades is that they seem a lot more inconsistent for trench players on both sides of the ball as well as LBs. I agree with Jon on PFF's skewing of Special teams players, which would cause some strange things as well if we leaned more heavily toward their grading system. That said, I would leave it as it is (perhaps up the PFF a little higher), but I do think it needs to go both ways. If a player has a poorer grade in PFF, that should be taken into consideration as well. As far as frequency, that becomes a time/resource issue...It would be nice if grades updated more often, but no one gets paid for doing this...so that should be a decision for the few who is upkeeping these things.

[Knighty Knight]

I changed my thinking on this and think we should only use Madden. I understand the criticism with how they grade but it seems like incorporating PFF is a lot of effort for not much impact. In most cases we are talking about a 1 or 2 point grade difference.

[soonertf]

I changed my thinking on this and think we should only use Madden. I understand the criticism with how they grade but it seems like incorporating PFF is a lot of effort for not much impact. In most cases we are talking about a 1 or 2 point grade difference.

Somewhat agree. I don't know how much work is involved, but if it's a lot...then I agree the award may not be worth the workload the way it stands at the moment.

[sportznut]

I changed my thinking on this and think we should only use Madden. I understand the criticism with how they grade but it seems like incorporating PFF is a lot of effort for not much impact. In most cases we are talking about a 1 or 2 point grade difference.

Disagree. Not that I think the work is necessarily worth the reward right now, but I've heard rumblings that Madden might not be around much longer. It could end as soon as NCAA comes back.

For that reason, if we're using a hybrid now that incorporates PFF, I think it'll make the transition easier should Madden fold.

If its not PFF, it would have to be somewhere else, and I think most of us can agree, while no system is perfect, PFF is well regarded.

As long as Madden exists, I'd suggest keeping the hybrid for those reasons.

[soonertf]

I changed my thinking on this and think we should only use Madden. I understand the criticism with how they grade but it seems like incorporating PFF is a lot of effort for not much impact. In most cases we are talking about a 1 or 2 point grade difference.

Disagree. Not that I think the work is necessarily worth the reward right now, but I've heard rumblings that Madden might not be around much longer. It could end as soon as NCAA comes back.

For that reason, if we're using a hybrid now that incorporates PFF, I think it'll make the transition easier should Madden fold.

If its not PFF, it would have to be somewhere else, and I think most of us can agree, while no system is perfect, PFF is well regarded.

As long as Madden exists, I'd suggest keeping the hybrid for those reasons.

I'm not a video game person, but I'd be shocked if Madden ever folded. Although all good things eventually comes to an end I suppose. I would think EA Sports would make an NFL game of sorts...just too popular of a sport to ignore. Or are you just talking about the website that publishes the grade updates? I can see the weekly grade updates going away for Madden...that's a lot of work and workers involved I'm sure...

[tjbarnaba]

Madden is firing their entire staff and starting new, so it won't go away but it will certainly change next season.

[sportznut]

I think the return of NCAA Football, and the passing of Madden means it will end soon, but not the first time I was wrong. Yes, I do think the weekly updates will probably cease to exist in the near future.

Either way, I think Madden on its own, and PFF on its own are both bad ideas if both are available. The hybrid version maybe needs tweaking, but its a way to check and balance strange occurrences in either realm.

[Goodell]

Thanks for all the info. We'll definitely have to keep our eyes on changes and make adjustments as needed as we can.