PFF FC Passing Grade Explained 🎯
This is the first in a series of articles we plan to make explaining how our grading works. At PFF FC we grade every player involved in every event (both on & off the ball) with over 2,000 grades awarded per game across 25 different grade categories. Of course that leaves us a lot to cover so we’ll be taking a look at a different facet of grading in each post, starting off with passes.
As this is the first post in this series, I should probably explain the basics of grading before we dive into the specifics of passes. We grade on a 9-point scale from -2 to +2 in 0.5 increments, a 0 or neutral grade is awarded for an expected performance & positive or negative grades are awarded for a performance that is better or worse than expected. This grading scale was initially developed by the minds at our forebear, PFF, and was quickly adopted by all 32 NFL teams as well as more than 150 NCAA College Football Teams. When we launched PFF FC, the grading scale was adjusted and determined by myself (Ashley Latter, Head of Data Analysis with a decade of experience as a Performance & Data Analyst in the Men’s & Academy game in the UK) in consultation with some former industry colleagues along with our team of Analysts. Whilst the scale is numerical, it does not necessarily mean that a +1 grade is twice as good as a +0.5 for example, it is simply the next grade up.
Okay, so now let’s dig into the specifics of our pass grading scale. To earn a positive grade we are generally looking for a pass to achieve at least one of a few things:
Take a number of opposing players out of the game
Create a goalscoring opportunity
Be completed into or through a tight window
The more of these that a pass achieves the higher the positive grade we award. On the negative side we are looking at poor execution such as:
Poor accuracy or weight of pass
Mis-hitting the ball
Leading a teammate into danger
To earn the lower pass grades we’ll be looking for significant levels of inaccuracy or to be setting the opposition up for a dangerous attack, with our lowest grades given to passes that set up the opponent with an immediate chance or even worse, score an own goal.
Why Do We Grade?
We believe that traditional data doesn’t tell the full story when it comes to a player's performance. A pass might be complete but lead its target into a challenge where they then lose the ball, traditional data will record this as a successful pass, however we will note the inaccuracy & account for that within our grading. The opposite can also be true, a player might play a really good pass that is incomplete because the target misses the ball, again that will go down as an unsuccessful pass but that’s not the passer’s fault. Because we evaluate every pass at the point of collection we can remove some of this noise & thats why we feel that grading is important.
Now that I’ve explained everything, let's look at some data. Jan Paul van Hecke has been our highest-graded passer so far this season, with a remarkable 99.4 grade. But if you compare his data to his nearest two positional rivals (Levi Colwill and Virgil Van Dijk), there’s not really much to separate them, other than the fact that van Hecke has produced a similar output on fewer passes.
However, if we have a look at their grade profile’s we can start to see some separation. van Hecke has produced more positively graded passes than anyone else so far this season, whilst limiting the amount of negatives, especially big negatives, so far he has 0 passes graded at -1 or worse, compared to 4 for Colwill & 2 for Van Dijk. While all three of these players have had a great season with the ball at their feet, our grading does show that van Hecke has been a step ahead which is perhaps harder to determine using more traditional data.
Grading Examples
Finally, let’s have a look at some examples.
First up, we have Vitaly Janelt’s Assist for Joane Wissa’s beautiful chipped finish against Bournemouth. This pass takes 4 Bournemouth defenders out of the game & creates a goalscoring opportunity so earns a +1 grade.
Next we’ll have a look at the build-up to Emile Smith-Rowe’s goal against Crystal Palace. It starts with Maxence Lacroix’s attempted pass into Marc Guehi which is blocked by Emile Smith-Rowe, immediately leading to a dangerous attack. Because of how dangerous the position is, Lacroix’s pass earns a -1 grade (Smith-Rowe also gets credited with a positive block grade). Raúl Jiménez still has a little bit of work to do to make sure they convert this opportunity into a chance, his pass earns a +0.5 grade as he only really has 1 player to beat but it is still well weighted & creates a goalscoring opportunity.
Speaking of Jiménez, he has one of the few +1.5 graded passes this season for this outrageous back-heeled assist against Manchester City. This pass takes out a number of City defenders, creates a nearly unmissable chance & has to squeeze between two potential blockers as well as getting over Akanji’s head in order to find Andreas Pereira, making it worthy of being one of the highest-graded passes of the season.
I hope you’ve found this article informative, if you’re interested in finding out how we take the raw +/- grades & convert them into our 0-100 grades check out this article here