Gosh, maybe I’m the only one so ignorant, but can anyone explain “grades”. I understand that “grading out” at 95 is better than “grading out” at 50, but not how grades are determined. Does a OL get 5 points for a pancake, or lose 10 points for giving up a sack? Or does 95 mean he did his job on 95% of the plays? Is a WR graded on running proper routes, whether or not the ball is thrown to him? Is a DB graded on covering someone such that the ball is not thrown to his man?
In my high school days, we were more concerned about dinosaurs walking across the field, so if coaches did grade us back then, they didn’t tell us. “Good job” or “can’t keep doing that” (often not said so politely), etc., was how we learned of the coaches evaluation of our performance.
Has any of the football gurus ever written a details explanation on how players/positions were graded?
IIRC, it’s assignment and execution on every play. If you miss your assignment, you’re docked. If you do the right thing but don’t get your man blocked, you’re docked. I don’t know if its two points per play, but add it up over however many plays you’re in and divide by the maximum total. If you played 57 plays and got 108 out of 114 possible points, that would be roughly a 95 grade.
I think I understand. For instance, a receiver who ran a perfect route and got open would get credit even if the pass went to someone else, right? A receiver who ran a poor route and didn’t get open would lose a point even if the play was a TD pass to another receiver? Not just catches and drops. Individual assignments, not how the team did on that play?
Correct. How the team did on that play has little to do with it. Obviously, the more people do their assignments correctly, the higher likelihood of team success, and a winning grade on a point-of-attack block is probably going to lead to a successful play. But one missed assignment can screw up team success on either side of the ball; you’re not gonna dock the 10 who did their jobs because of the one who goofed (the scoreboard does enough of that).