RotoQL Featured Projections for DFS Lineups: Pro Football Focus
Posted on June 27, 2016
Here at RotoQL, we strive to offer you the best information possible to provide you with the greatest chance at succeeding in Daily Fantasy Sports. That is why we have partnered with several of the top DFS NFL player projection sites in order to help you achieve this goal. Today we’re taking an in-depth look at one of the top fantasy projection sites: Pro Football Focus.
Pro Football Focus
Pro Football Focus was originally founded in 2005 by Neil Hornsby in the United Kingdom. Hornsby was dissatisfied with some of the limitations of standard statistics, so in 2004 he began grading players. The staff expanded over the next few years, and the site was launched in 2007 (the 2007 NFL season is the first season PFF has complete data).
Today, PFF is a market leader in gathering premium stats for NFL and college football. As of the 2011 NFL season, PFF provides customized data to five NFL teams, along with a number of agents, media, and NFL players. PFF began collecting data for every NCAA Division-I college football game in 2014.
PFF has a unique approach to rating players that goes beyond the surface of the game. PFF implements a robust, six-step grading process.
- Grade. An analyst grades every single player and every single play on a scale of -2 to +2.
- Grade again. The initial grading is reviewed by a second analyst to ensure accuracy.
- Grade a third time. The second analyst’s grading is reviewed by a third analyst. As PFF puts it, “You can never be too careful.”
- Verify. The grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network and their 400 years of combined NFL and college coaching experience.
- Advanced Normalization. The raw grades are normalized to better account for the situation. This ranges from where the player lined up to the drop-back depth of the quarterback, to everything in between.
- Grade is set. The grades are converted to a 1-100 scale.
PFF then breaks the 1-100 scale down into several categories.
- 0-59 = replaceable
- 60-69 = backup
- 70-84 = starter
- 85-89 = Pro Bowler
- 90-100 = elite
If a player has a green, upward arrow next to his name, then the player’s overall rating is trending based on last week’s performance. If a player has a red, downward arrow next to his name, then the player’s overall rating is declining based on last week’s performance.
The thing that truly sets PFF apart from its competitors is the fact that PFF goes beyond the stats. Their grading system doesn’t necessarily care about the outcome of a given play. Instead, they care about how a player performed on that particular play.
As the PFF website puts it, “For example, if a quarterback hits a wide receiver perfectly in stride on a post route in between two defenders, and the receiver drops the ball, it goes down in the box score as an incompletion. But in our system, that quarterback receives a positive grade for making a great throw. His statistics should not be punished based on the fact that his receiver dropped a pass.”
Pro Football Focus uses a truly a one-of-a-kind grading process. The site’s success is shown by its partnering with several NFL teams. In addition, you will see top sports networks, such as ESPN and NBC Sports, use PFF statistics on a regular basis. Here at RotoQL, we are proud to call Pro Football Focus one of our premier NFL player projection partners.
Use Pro Football Focus projections to create the best NFL lineups with RotoQL’s real-time NFL lineup optimizer. Our premium subscription includes NFL lineup optimizer for DraftKings and FanDuel 50/50s and GPPs.
