Earlier this month, the CFL revealed its collaboration with Pro Football Focus. The contract assists increase using analytics for the 9 Canadian franchises, who all utilized PFF last season.
It likewise supplies gamer analysis tools for media and fans.
PFF, situated in Cincinnati, supplies information for all 32 NFL groups along with 102 American college football teams. Its grading system examines all gamers on every play throughout a video game and equates information points into a grade for each gamer, then compares them to their peers throughout the league.
The CFL has actually begun sharing PFF’s insights with its new-look weekly leading entertainers. Instead of highlighting 3 gamers, this year’s format includes the highest-graded gamers at their particular positions.
“Partnering with Pro Football Focus allows our league to better understand its drivers of play,” said Greg Dick, the CFL’s primary football operations officer and head of Grey Cup and occasions. “We’re removing the microfocus on the individual and taking a long view to look at the bigger picture.”
The 2 sides have actually been dealing with their collaboration for a long time.
“It’s probably four, five years coming,” said Ryan Smith, PFF’s director, firm services. “We started working with some of the individual CFL teams, did some visits and they were using it primarily for NFL scouting once the preseason cuts were made, kind of scouting some players and hopefully adding them to their rosters.
“Now that has changed with us breaking down the CFL and being able to help their weekly game planning so it’s beyond just scouting.”
The CFL is presently handling game-statistic problems and gamer profiles that have actually vanished from its website, concerns commissioner Randy Ambrosie has actually requested perseverance from both media and fans. However, the handle PFF is an indicator the CFL is attempting to enhance or contribute to its numbers.
Smith said the grading of CFL gamers resembles what PFF finishes with both the NFL and NCAA. But some subtleties of Canadian football — the longer, broader field, 24 gamers on the field, 3 downs and open-field kicks– provided some preliminary concerns.
“There’ve been some technical challenges we’ve had to navigate but I think we’re in a good spot heading into the year with the season now underway,” he said.
Collinsworth said gamers are effectively knowledgeable about their PFF grading. The 64-year-old understands all too well how a gamer’s mind works, having actually invested 8 seasons as a receiver with the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals (1981-88).
“We’re not telling you how historically great a player is, we’re telling you where he is in relation to the other players at the position in the league,” Collinsworth said. “I’ve had those big, huge players walking over to me when I go out to watch practice and in a panic I’m trying to remember what their PFF grade was to remember if I need to run or if he’s going to hug me.
“It’s a powerful thing. Believe me, I understand personal. They pass out Emmy Awards every year, too. I get it, I understand it.”
PFF’s information and grading system supply professional football workers with extra details and simplify the assessment procedure.
“We had an NFL team tell us not too long ago it saved 10,000 man hours in its scouting process for the draft using PFF,” Smith said.
That’s a positive for CFL workers departments, which are substantially smaller sized than those in the NFL and likewise run on less money.
And what PFF does assists Collinsworth tremendously as an expert.
“I honestly don’t know how I’d do my job without it,” he said. “By Monday afternoon, I’m in a meeting previewing the 20 pages of notes and film our guys have studied the week before (on two teams slated to play Sunday night).
“Tuesday is all of the film on one team, then Wednesday I do the other team. Thursday I get into the packet on exactly what all of that means and I watch more film to back up whatever it is they’ve been saying. On Friday I go talk to one team, Saturday is the other and then we call the game. “
PFF also helps while Collinsworth is on the air.
“At halftime, our analysts send me a report of what they’ve seen based on the grades,” Collinsworth said. “So if I’ve missed something or they enhance something I’ve been talking about, now I get to that in the second half.
“So it’s a wall-to-wall, seven-day-a-week job. Some of our guys, it’s probably an eight-day-a-week job but that’s what every week looks like.”
This report by The Canadian Press was very first released June 23, 2023.
Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press
