Do all these grades, ratings and stats mean anything to coaches?

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
If you look at various articles, tweets, Facebook posts and more, you’ll often find people referencing stats and grades. This can be anything such as grades from Pro Football Focus, specific stats from ESPN, trends and patterns from Pro Football Reference and more. Often, people use these various stats and grades to make an argument about something. However, what do the coaches think about them? Kevin Coyle was asked that and here’s what he had to say.

“I think it’s a matter of consistency. I think you may want to check your stats there, starting with the first one. The stats sometimes mean something and sometimes they don’t. I think, if we can pull it all together collectively, we can be a very very good defense, just like we said at the onset of the season.”

Bill Lazor said that instead of looking at an overall picture, he looks at one play at a time and then looks for trends and patterns over time.

“I think, as a coach, you grade and evaluate one play at a time. You try to string them together and see bursts of play that hopefully give you some insight and the best things to do with the guy. We just go one play at a time.”

So what’s the final verdict? There is none. Each coach analyzes things differently and each coach uses grades and stats in different ways. However, it’s important to note that every grade and every stat out there is just a small piece of a giant puzzle and they all have different meanings and impact on and off the field.

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