Week 2 GDT - Philadelphia Eagles vs San Francisco 49ers

[J-ALL-DAY]

Nothing really surprising by the grades but I will say this...Tartt and Ward get punished for always being in the right spots and not getting INTs/PDs. PFF doesn't grade those plays highly when you just do your job...Sherman actually brought that up to Collinsworth and said that needs to change...He said there are games he allowed 0 catches and got targeted 0 times but his grade was lower than when he allowed a few catches just because he had a PD or two. That part of the grading system is flawed. 

Think they were a little harsh on Bosa...Agreed on Armstead though, he was the one DL bringing constant pressure, especially from the interior. I believe he got heavy pressure on Bosa's second second. 

[JIllg]

15 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

Nothing really surprising by the grades but I will say this...Tartt and Ward get punished for always being in the right spots and not getting INTs/PDs. PFF doesn't grade those plays highly when you just do your job...Sherman actually brought that up to Collinsworth and said that needs to change...He said there are games he allowed 0 catches and got targeted 0 times but his grade was lower than when he allowed a few catches just because he had a PD or two. That part of the grading system is flawed. 

Think they were a little harsh on Bosa...Agreed on Armstead though, he was the one DL bringing constant pressure, especially from the interior. I believe he got heavy pressure on Bosa's second second. 

Yeah, pff still struggles with events where the outcome isn't a singular discrete event. Their simplification measures make it easy to collect data, but make the data in the secondary mostly pointless. And their math guys know that the secondary is their least good data - it is their noisiest and least predictable data set even if a high pass defense grade correlates very highly with winning because allowing/not allowing a catch at the end of the play is really important. Lenoir got a great grade for that reason - got targeted a lot and didn't allow many catches, even if he gave up the biggest play of the game. At some point they are going to go towards what baseball uses for defense - catch (or not catch) probability above expected given starting position, ball velocity, and AoA (and receiver position in this case). But until that sort of situation occurs, you just have to know which of their statistics is most worth your time. Pass rush (and pass block) win rate. Quarterback accuracy (although truly terrible receivers can skew this by running consistently bad routes - this is rare). Corner and wide receiver win rate in man coverage. The overall grade may be what they play up, but it is a composite number that bakes in some of their choices and assumptions that work with some unrefined numbers. The less good stats they have are the coverage grade (especially in zone) as mentioned above and to a lesser extent the run defense grade - they grade heavily on missed tackles and take quick guesses on gap assignments. It's better than nothing, but they underrate the ability to just get to more plays and half make them. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by JIllg

[J-ALL-DAY]

Super annoyed how the games with the teams in the division went...Wentz gets hurt late and then Easton comes in and throws a INT when they could have drove and at least tied the game...the Cards were dead in the water and the Vikings kicker misses a 37 yarder for the win. Like really? Could have picked up a game on the entire division heading back home. SMH!!

[Forge]

8 hours ago, TecmoSuperJoe said:

I'd have to watch the game again, but I do remember two screens that went for first downs. Both on third down I think in the first half. One was to Mitchell, the other to Kittle who muscled his way for the conversion. I can't remember how many total screen pass attempts there were though. Juice dropped one he should have caught on the second offensive snap even if the throw wasn't the greatest. 

He threw 11 passes behind the line of scrimmage. Not all traditional screens, of course but just gives you a sense. 

It's not the end all be all. Jimmy is competent. That means good and bad games. But it's hard to string those type of plays together if the run game is shut down

[J-ALL-DAY]

3 minutes ago, JIllg said:

Yeah, pff still struggles with events where the outcome isn't a singular discrete event. Their simplification measures make it easy to collect data, but make the data in the secondary mostly pointless. And their math guys know that the secondary is their least good data - it is their noisiest and least predictable data set even if a high pass defense grade correlates very highly with winning because allowing/not allowing a catch at the end of the play is really important. Lenoir got a great grade for that reason - got targeted a lot and didn't allow many catches, even if he gave up the biggest play of the game. At some point they are going to go towards what baseball uses for defense - catch (or not catch) probability above expected given starting position, ball velocity, and AoA (and receiver position in this case). But until that sort of situation occurs, you just have to know which of their statistics is most worth your time. Pass rush (and pass block) win rate. Quarterback accuracy (although truly terrible receivers can skew this by running consistently bad routes - this is rare). Receiver and wide receiver win rate in man coverage. The overall grade may be what they play up, but it is a composite number that bakes in some of their choices and assumptions that work with some unrefined numbers. The less good stats they have are the coverage grade (especially in zone) as mentioned above and to a lesser extent the run defense grade - they grade heavily on missed tackles and take quick guesses on gap assignments. It's better than nothing, but they underrate the ability to just get to more plays and half make them. 

Well said! 

And to be fair, one thing I do like about them is if a WR drops a ball but beats the corner, they will give the corner a low grade on that play...So it's not pure result based in that sense. They do heavily grade missed tackles and a little too much IMO....Especially when the runner will be tackled a yard or later. 

[JIllg]

Just now, J-ALL-DAY said:

Well said! 

And to be fair, one thing I do like about them is if a WR drops a ball but beats the corner, they will give the corner a low grade on that play...So it's not pure result based in that sense. They do heavily grade missed tackles and a little too much IMO....Especially when the runner will be tackled a yard or later. 

Right! They do really well at man coverage stuff. For the same reason they're good at pass rush and pass block grades. There's a one on one competition, a winner, a loser, and a data point that can be easily collected. A lot harder to decide when zone is going well.

[NinerNation21]

1 hour ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

Well said! 

And to be fair, one thing I do like about them is if a WR drops a ball but beats the corner, they will give the corner a low grade on that play...So it's not pure result based in that sense. They do heavily grade missed tackles and a little too much IMO....Especially when the runner will be tackled a yard or later. 

I've been paying more attention to their premium stats rather than their grades. It's all subjective when it comes to PFF, but I'd like to believe that the premium stats are a little less subjective than their grading. 

Also, PFF LOVES pressures from pass rushers. PFF has the 49ers with 52 pressures through 2 games, Pro Football Reference has the 49ers at 12. 

PFR has Armstead with 1 pressure and PFF has him at 15. Again, it's all subjective, which makes this hard to abide by either way, but these things seem like it should be a little more black and white than PFF's grading system. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

13 minutes ago, NinerNation21 said:

I've been paying more attention to their premium stats rather than their grades. It's all subjective when it comes to PFF, but I'd like to believe that the premium stats are a little less subjective than their grading. 

Also, PFF LOVES pressures from pass rushers. PFF has the 49ers with 52 pressures through 2 games, Pro Football Reference has the 49ers at 12. 

PFR has Armstead with 1 pressure and PFF has him at 15. Again, it's all subjective, which makes this hard to abide by either way, but these things seem like it should be a little more black and white than PFF's grading system. 

Pressures are for sure subjective. But Armstead is better than what most think. He is just not a finisher and hasn't been one aside from an anomaly season in 2019. Granted, that season he had all his sacks from the interior and now he doesn't get enough of those rushes. Look at the Bosa sack for example, that happened because of Armstead just abusing the guard and center and giving Hurts no room to get out of the pocket. 

[NinerNation21]

38 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

Pressures are for sure subjective. But Armstead is better than what most think. He is just not a finisher and hasn't been one aside from an anomaly season in 2019. Granted, that season he had all his sacks from the interior and now he doesn't get enough of those rushes. Look at the Bosa sack for example, that happened because of Armstead just abusing the guard and center and giving Hurts no room to get out of the pocket. 

For sure. Armstead and Ward generally go unnoticed because they don't make splashy plays, but they also rarely make bone-headed mistakes. 

I haven't done a re-watch of game 2 yet, but I was very impressed with the Dline and Oline. Especially since many thought we'd lose the battle in the trenches on both sides. Now, key injuries to both the Eagles' DL and OL definitely factored into that, but our lines deserve a lot of credit for keeping Jimmy clean and preventing Hurts from lighting us up. 

[NinerNation21]

This sucks. Thank goodness Hurst is back next week and Ken Street is balling out right now.

[NinerNation21]

I'm trying to watch the condensed version of the game on Game Pass, but had to stop half-way through Q2 because the playback quality is terrible and kept restarting at the opening kickoff. I can't see anything.

Here are some of my thoughts of what I could see so far:

Offense

• Hargrave jumped offsides on our 1st play and got a huge tackle in the backfield on Mitchell - Missed call by the refs.
• The two drops on the screen plays could've been decent to big gains. Tough to tell without All22 view. Juice's screen was well blocked and Deebo always makes the first guy miss. Big missed opportunities.
• Jimmy was missing high all Q1. He was doing this in pre-season as well. Not sure why this continues to be an issue for him. The Sanu miss was understandable but the Aiyuk miss was downfield was bad.
• Shanny really loves the jet sweep motion with Juice pre-snap right now. He's doing it A LOT. I have to believe this is to set up a shot play to Juice at some point later in the season. 

 

Defense

• Norman's PI was ticky tacky. It wasn't egregious. 
• Al-Shaair had a rough Q1. Missed a tackle at the LoS, then got stuck in traffic on Gainwell's big catch for a 1st down. Hard to blame him for the catch, he had two receivers and 2 DBs clustered in the middle of the field coming right at him with Gainwell slipping underneath. Just a good play design.
• Hurts' first big pass to Watkins shouldn't have happened. Goedert moved early and should've been called for a false start. But another missed call by the refs resulted in a big positive play for the Eagles.
• DJ Jones and Street look really, really good so far. Kinlaw is getting pushed around too easily, even by TE's. Not sure if this is rust, not having trust in his knee, or something else.

 

Special Teams

• Nice head's up play by DFF on the blocked kick by Kinlaw. He read Goedert the whole time and was ready to chase him down for the stop.

 

I'm hoping I can make it through the rest of the game soon. All22 is supposed to go live in the next day or two, so I'm hoping I can get a little more context on some things I'm seeing (or not seeing).

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by NinerNation21

[J-ALL-DAY]

I'm fine with either, probably prefer Johnson for his pass catching ability. We don't really have a back that can do that at a decent level...At least it hasn't been seen yet. 

[NinerNation21]

34 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

I'm fine with either, probably prefer Johnson for his pass catching ability. We don't really have a back that can do that at a decent level...At least it hasn't been seen yet. 

I'm hoping Mitchell and Hasty are good to go. Sermon will most likely be out this week. Kerryon Johnson should get action this week. 

So Mitchell, Hasty, Johnson, Cannon, another PS RB for the Packers game? 

NVM, I just saw that Hasty has a high ankle sprain, he'll be out for a while. Crap...

Good thing we only have 3 more games until Wilson comes off PUP.

Edited September 20, 2021 by NinerNation21

[GW21]

I liked Duke Johnson when he was coming out of Miami, Miller too for that matter. I think I have a soft spot for Miami RBs though. Just bring back Frank!

[49erurtaza]

Sorry for the language but this might be bad.