re: Damonic Williams DT enters Portal

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64.8 PFF grade, which is slightly below Patrick Jenkins at 65.0 FWIW

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PFF grade is a little iffy for certain positions - DT being one of them. With the way PFF does its grading (each play is assigned a grade of -2, -1, 0, 1, or 2, with 0 supposed to be the "default", which are then added up and compared to other players), grades can be significantly impacted based on scheme or a DT's particular assignment on a particular play. Some defenses want their DTs eating space, others want them shooting gaps, some others want something in-between--and the grader doesn't have access to that information. Because 0 is (as far as i understand) supposed to be the grade on most plays (with other grades representing notably good plays or notable screwups), certain schematic assignments for DT can sometimes have different "baseline" grades - because (a) "splash plays" dont occur at the same rate in all roles (e.g. QB pressures vs. run-stuffs), nor do negative plays occur at the same rate in all roles. For instance, a guy who is supposed to be a space-eating run-stuffer doesn't have a whole lot of opportunity for negative plays, while a 3-tech pass-rushing IDL is a more "high-risk/high-reward" role. But those guys are all getting lumped together when it comes to calculating the final grades. And that doesn't even account for the fact that the graders don't even know what the player is being asked to do.