DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Roster Breakdown Continued (with PFF Grades)

Was going to put this in the roster thread but it is longer than sin...

Fair warning, Pro Football Focus does weigh some things higher than most people might like (ie catch rate gives Jarvis Landry almost a Josh Gordon grade) and our defense makes it rather hard for a linebacker to grade out well (Schobert made the Pro Bowl with a 77 for example) while making it easier for the DB's to score higher (seriously, Nacua had a 72.4). Some of the new guys we obviously won't know how they fit in the schemes but it does give you one telling detail:
How the players scored within their respective groups (IE: Lineman vs. Lineman; Receivers vs. Receivers, et cetera).

Anyway, how the roster looks so far (with PFF grades from 2017):

QB- Tyrod Taylor (83.0) ; Kevin Hogan (49.4) ; Cody Kessler (67.1)
RB- Duke Johnson (81.7); Matt Dayes (53.1)
FB- Dan Vitale (41.4)
TE- David Njoku (69.2); Seth Devalve (46.5); Randall Telfer (45.1)
WR1- Josh Gordon (82.1); Ricardo Louis (41.4)
WR2- Corey Coleman (45.9); Kasen Williams (56.6); Sammie Coates (59.0)
WR3- Jarvis Landry(82.0); Rashard Higgins (42.9)
LT- Joe Thomas (86.4); Zach Banner (66.2)
LG- Joel Bitonio (85.2); Spencer Drango (47.7 @ LT)
C- JC Tretter (70.5); Austin Reiter (64.1)
RG- Kevin Zeitler (81.1)
RT- Shon Coleman (53.0); Roderick Johnson *

RDE- Myles Garrett (88.4); Nate Orchard (69.8)
DT- Larry Ogunjobi (82.0); Caleb Brantley (73.0)
DT- Trevon Coley (68.9); Jamie Meder (74.8)
LDE: Emmanuel Ogbah (72.6); Carl Nassib (75.7)
WILL- Christian Kirksey (59.6); Dominique Alexander *
MIKE- Joe Schobert (77.4); Tank Carder *
SAM- Jamie Collins (35.9); James Burgess (43.9)
RCB- Jamar Taylor (74.0); Damarious Randall (70.9)
LCB- Jason McCourty (83.9); Howard Wilson * ; Michael Jordan (56.8)
Slot- Briean Boddy-Calhoun (84.1)
FS- Jabrill Peppers (45.8); Kai Nacua (72.4)
SS- Derrick Kendrid (82.1);

Lost: Deshone Kizer (51.0); Danny Shelton (81.5)


Final notes:

Corey Coleman has to step up or go home; Hopefully the youth at RT will be able to figure it all out soon; and of course I still feel Peppers is playing out of position and it is severely hampering our pass defense.
--And yes, it does kind of hurt to see Shelton go....

Oh, I almost forgot, I do kinda feel bad for Kizer having to spend the majority of his rookie season with Louis and Higgins as his targets....

Good post. Could you post the link when you get the chance?

Also I have a different view on this: and of course I still feel Peppers is playing out of position and it is severely hampering our pass defense. I think Peppers playing that deep free safety role hurt him but protected the CBs from being exposed and prevented quick scores from vertical routes that happened often last year when Kindred and Co. played FS.

I gathered the grades individually from PFF

like:

[url]https://www.profootballfocus.com/nfl/players/danny-shelton/9445[/url}

TY thank you for putting this together

Or maybe we should feel bad for Louis and Higgins having to spend almost the whole season with Kizer at QB?

Kizer was horribly slow in his reads. That means that receiver can be in his route, where he should be, on time, and the QB doesn't see him until he's (now) covered.


Now, to be fair, Louis dropped an inordinate number of passes, but Kizer also threw an inordinate number of passes 3 feet over the heads of his receivers, or into the ground. It's fair to say that we had weaknesses at both spots.

But there was also those times where Kizer threw the ball to the wrong spot but it was caught because the WR ran the wrong route, so we had that going for us.

How did that old song go ..... "I was in the wrong place, but it musta been the wrong time ..."

Myles grading higher than Thomas??

Lol!

I was in the right place, but it must have been the wrong time - Dr. John.

That's the one.

Joe's skills are slipping.

Higgins and Louis were ranked in the bottom of PFF ratings for WR
if they were free agents today there would be very minimal intrest in both
extremely over rated pair of WRS

Kirksey was also rated lower than I thought

Wouldn't surprise me if Dorsey drafts a LB fairly early that has some pass coverage skills and moves Kirksey inside to compete with Schobert.

He prefaced that different positions get different ratings. Also Joe didn’t play most of the season I think they factor that (but not sure)

PFF grades are not the same as the grades teams put on players.

I really like Dayes. He showed some good burst and shiftiness on kickoff returns.

I too thought Dayes was good as a ST player.

http://nfltraderumors.co/browns-tender-contract-erfa-wr-josh-gordon/

Browns tendered Gordon's ERFA contract $790,000

What's the difference, he couldn't hit them anyway.. He was very good at hitting the CB's on the other teams

Can anyone break it down for a dummy like myself as to what EXACTLY this means? It just mean he's basically not going to unrestricted FA until two years or something?

Exclusive-Rights Free Agents (ERFA)

An Exclusive-Rights Free Agent is an NFL player who is not under contract, but has only two years of NFL experience. If his former club makes him an offer at the three year veteran minimum salary, then that's it, he has to take it or leave the NFL. These guys have no right to negotiate with other teams. They are "free" only in the sense that they're free to quit.

Very appreciated.

Thank You

Unsolicited Free Agency Update:

Chris Smith- DE- 34.99% Team Defensive snaps; 67.1 PFF grade.
Chris Hubbard- OT- 70.52% Team Offensive Snaps; 69.6 PFF grade.

Looks like mostly a swing Tackle and a rotational DE...meh, both are still young...

I really believe LT will be Coleman, not Drango

Yeah, i think Coleman gets the first crack at LT

Kindred actually graded out well at SS -- 82.1 overall (76 cov/87 run)

Kirksey and Collins are killed by their coverage grades.
But that's gonna happen when you have LB covering TE and Slot receivers

I'm not sure why they have Nassib as LE either -- Ogbah 73 overall--67.6 rush
76.7 run

Huge upgrades at CB though.
Huge upgrade at FS.

Randall at FS frees up Peppers to be used as similarly to Mark Barron as "LB" but imho Peppers is a couple levels better then Barron.

Which/could bump one of the LBs into a smaller role and reduces the burden of them getting mixed up in coverage mismatches.

It would be interesting to see Collins at LDE in pass rush situations but we didn't see it much last year.

Instead of Nassib reduced down at DT I see Ogbah there instead.

Garrett--Ogun--Ogbah--?? Nassib,Orchard

I really like Kindred, and hope that he gets a fair shot at starting. I think that he's a better SS than Peppers is. Frankly, I am not impressed with Peppers thus far, at all.

I think the PFF grades are okay. I think they are a tool for those who watch a lot of football and get into evaluating players. I also think that reporters use them as justification.

I look at some of them and say that is pretty accurate. I look at others and say those grades are way off.

I think the DB grades are the worst. It's like PFF can't determine if a guy is out of position or not. If he wasn't close in coverage, he gets a pass. Kindred is an example of that. He sucks in coverage. I think our LBers aren't the best in coverage, but their grades are hurt because Peppers and Kindred stink so bad in coverage. PFF doesn't appear to recognize such things.

I think the OL grades are pretty decent and so are the WR grades.

I think the DL grades are sometimes good and sometimes head scratchers. I remember when they had John Hughes as one of the best d-linemen in football. Playing situational football on certain downs can skew grades in a huge manner.

Again, I am not dissing PFF, but I would disagree w/anyone who uses those grades as an end-all.

To be fair. You're judging Peppers ability to play SS based on how he played in Gregg Williams extreme FS role.

Remember what people thought of Kindred last year? When he asked to play a standard half-field Safety role?

I think Gregg's defense has a place for both them. Kindred might remain as the SS and Peppers could play the "nickel linebacker" Mark Barron role w/ the Rams or vice versus. I think from a talent perspective Peppers is more natural ability in coverage (more fluid hips,change of direction, speed)

I think our LBers were asked to cover as much as they were because both Kindred and Peppers suck in coverage. I had the same view of both while they were in college and told y'all that a long time ago.

I think Williams played our LBers so much because those two suck so bad in coverage. We had several posters telling us [and I think you were one of them] of how we weren't going to be playing a Mike much. cfrs said our Mike would play 5 percent of the time. Well.........I think he played about 100 percent of the time.

That is NOT a slam on you, cfrs, or the others who predicted such things. I get it..........the Rams didn't play their LBers a ton when Williams was there.

So, if we can put egos aside for a moment.....what does that tell us?

My conclusion is that they both were terrible in coverage and Williams tried to minimize the number of times they were asked to cover. You can't win like that and I think it was a real disconnect between the coaching staff and the FO.