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PFF - How to use Pro Football Focus for IDP purposes (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Tick
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Tick
Footballguy
How I use it on Mondays and Tuesdays:
I go to https://www.pff.com/analyst/jonathon-macri and see what Macri has written. Around 1 PM ET on Mondays, his IDP report for the previous weekend's games comes up. I go through it team by team and note the following - if I see surprises, I check Macri's notes in that article, then Norton's Guru notepad, then google if I don't have the answer:
I go to https://www.pff.com/analyst/jonathon-macri and see what Macri has written. Around 1 PM ET on Mondays, his IDP report for the previous weekend's games comes up. I go through it team by team and note the following - if I see surprises, I check Macri's notes in that article, then Norton's Guru notepad, then google if I don't have the answer:
- DT: Just look for snap percentage for my players and anyone above 80% who should be on the waiver watch.
- DE: Same
- LB: Verify all my LBs are still full time. Watch for surprise full time guys and find out why.
- S: Note snap percentage and deep safety %. This is slightly flawed since DL snaps for safeties aren't much better than deep snaps, but it's a super fast way to see how often they're close to the line. Note for all my players, look for surprises.
- CB: Check Wide Corner %, look for guys below 60% and check their snap share. Ideally, I find 100% snap, 0% wide guys... but mostly I find 60/0 or 100/40. I prefer the latter.
Tick
Footballguy
I recently found https://premium.pff.com/nfl/players/2025/REGPO - search for a player in the upper right and get their snap locations week by week and season to dat overall. There's also a toggle to see it in even more detail, but that's beyond what I can figure out how to use.
That's it. How do other people make PFF useful for them?
That's it. How do other people make PFF useful for them?
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What is the cost of the PFF membership?
ETA: $120/yr if you pay yearly. Over double if you pay monthly.
rockaction
Footballguy
I look at grade and point disparities with linebackers and defensive lineman and cornerbacks because I've (just me personally) found that the grade and volume tends to track in the negative direction. Good grades don't correlate with snap volume, but low grades correlate with low volume. It could just be what I'm seeing, but they seem to move together.
I had watched Christian Elliss, Ivan Pace, Frankie Luvu, and Payton Wilson's grades earlier in the year drop. i dropped Elliss and picked up Cole Holcomb, and I went and read the Steelers blogs and sure enough, the DC was making noise about playing Holcomb and sure enough, that weekend, Holcomb had a large snap share cutting into Wilson. It didn't work out in the end, but I've found that you might not guaranteed snaps if you have a high grade, but you're likely to lose them if you have a low grade. And Gibbens cut into Elliss and Wilson aced Pace while Luvu got further entrenched at EDGE (he always had a lousy tackle rate so it makes sense if you want him on the field).
I'd love to test that somehow, but I figure I've done okay with strict IDP backfill the past few years in a tackle-heavy, start 9 IDP but still offense-weighted league.
rockaction
Footballguy
Yeah, I saw that. Thanks for posting. Personally, I’d have to get that in conjunction with FBG and The IDP Show/Woellert monthly Substack. I honestly find FBGs assemblage of writers very good, so it’s upon whom and where I spend on a limited budget. I read FBG’s Sleepers article by Darin Tietgen, Matt Montgomery’s IDP Stock article and Tripp Brebner’s Reading the Defense articles, which have trended both theoretical and utile. I dig ‘em and only wish there was even more content by those guys.
I think PFF is huge for alignment and charting pass rush win rates, pressures, grades that do seem to eventually track and Jon Macri’s general oversight of quality content. I think their quantification and modeling of prospects for fantasy success is huge because defenses have changed so much over ten years they almost cease to be recognizable. Every aspect (down to unmentionables) of the guys playing it has changed and not wasting rookie picks is huge (I don’t spend any capital at all anymore at any defensive position given my league’s IDP scoring).
Anyway, the real benefit is knowing where everybody is lining up by percentage, especially the secondary. Huge.
I think PFF is huge for alignment and charting pass rush win rates, pressures, grades that do seem to eventually track and Jon Macri’s general oversight of quality content. I think their quantification and modeling of prospects for fantasy success is huge because defenses have changed so much over ten years they almost cease to be recognizable. Every aspect (down to unmentionables) of the guys playing it has changed and not wasting rookie picks is huge (I don’t spend any capital at all anymore at any defensive position given my league’s IDP scoring).
Anyway, the real benefit is knowing where everybody is lining up by percentage, especially the secondary. Huge.
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