First off, I would like formally welcome Steve Gesuele to UltimateNYG. Steve and others worked hard last year on content in review of the All 22 film. It is great to have his coverage this season so that we can find out more about what is going on forensically with the players/team when we review each game.
I cannot speak highly enough about Pro Football Focus. I will plug these guys until the cows come home, because any serious football fan is nuts for not spending $27 dollars per season to get their player and team grades. A few years back, when we first looked at them, we saw some minor grading inconsistencies that led us to want to undertake our own grading of the team. It was an absolutely insane amount of work, a living hell. These guys at PFF get most, if not all of it right, so spending a relatively small amount of money for the service to get the outsourced reviews of player performance is a total layup. Just spring for the couple of bucks and then comment on a stat here or there that you see that you want to want to bring to the blog's attention.
After two games, it is foolhardy to leap to too many (long range) conclusions based on the PFF stats compiled on the Giants thus far. But with that caveat said, we can certainly glean a lot. For starters, it is a tale of two cities, as the offense has been woeful and the defense has held up relatively well considering. The Giants rank third to last (30th) in rush offense in the NFL. They are in the middle of the pack in pass offense. The pass defense is very soft, at 29th, and surprisingly thus far the Giants rush defense is ranked 2nd in the league. Where PFF is so good is that you can quickly drill down and examine the breakdown of individual player performances which contribute to those rankings. That is what truly separates the stats- they are "bottom up" grades built on a total of individuals, whereas when you see ESPN or NFL.com's unit rankings, all they use are yards. As an example, when we look at the run blocking, we see that all of the linemen (excluding Snee, who is barely above 0) have a negative grade. Or that in pass protection, the three greatest offenders have been Will Beatty, Chris Snee and Justin Pugh, all by a country mile. We can state unequivocally here, after 2 games, that Eli does not have as much time to throw because of those 3 players. This is based on a total of sacks, QB hits and QB hurries.
Where have there been bright spots? I really am not concerned with Eli's play, and the PFF reviews substantiate that. Despite a poor (NFL Formula) passer rating that has him ranked 25th in the NFL, his passer grading based on each play has him the 13th ranked QB. Why? Because the breakdown of each play assigns credit and blame to whoever deserves it, not based purely on the result. So a QB who is not getting the same protection will have a different ranking. And dropped passes, or INTs caused by crazy deflections (ie Da' Rel Scott), will not count the same way a ball is thrown directly at (DeMarcus Ware) a DE on a screen.
Lastly, Ryan Mundy, Justin Tuck and Victor Cruz lead the team in PFF grading. I may have given you some overal data, but you have no idea how much more stuff is at PFF. It's worth it to subscribe.
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