This is the final set of grades for the nominal first half of the season. From next week I will provide a week 1-10 grade for each player (hence why each player has a seasonal grade this week) and then add weeks 11-18 on from there. As for the weekly grades, it’s the same as usual. I’m just going to present the total grade for each player who plays a total of 10 snaps or more (so if a particular player isn’t there, then he didn’t reach the 10 snap threshold). I’m happy to add extra detail if anyone wishes – just comment below.

The info on how PFF calculates their grades is included here - https://www.pff.com/grades#:~:text=THE%20GRADING%20SCALE,but%20those%20are%20the%20basics

Obviously, this is an attempt to make add objectivity to what is a subjective analysis. However, it is always worth remembering that despite this, it is still a human being with all his/her inherent biases making the judgement.

PFF tend to colour code their player grades and I’ve added those to the charts below. The colour coding works roughly as shown below. It is slightly confused for week by week games as PFF use shades, so I’ve add my own number for a cleaner definition (although am adding my own bias a little bit). Have now included the average PFF score for each player so far this season along with positional rank – this only includes players with a minimum number of snaps so not every one is included.

Since QB is such an important position, I’ll add one extra chart at the end which includes the QB PFF grade and the QBR. Both rate QB play on a play by play basis. PFF has some subjectivity, QBR is largely an objective analysis.

Finally, I’ll add a few thoughts at the end.

PFF grades – Week 10:

Offense:

Defence:

QB:

Thoughts:

Things I just happened to notice this week and was interested to see how things mapped with the PFF grade. I was watching Mazi this week, and just felt like he was in the back field a lot. So I was very happy to see that he received his first ‘elite’ grade of the season. It is just one game against a bad offensive line, but it is definitely something I’ll be watching.

The other thing that jumped out to me this week was Micah’s body language. Something just looked off this week. Of course, this is a totally subjective take on my part, but his grade was also one of his lowest of the season. Apparently he was out of the locker room like a flash at the end of the game as well. I’ll try not to read too much into this, but hopefully it is just an issue for this week.

Outside of those two observations, are some more obvious ones. Rico Dowdle continues to look good and is steadily climbing up the PFF rankings. I think it is definitely time to start treating him like a feature back which might also then play to Pollard’s strengths.

The receivers obviously had an absolute field day because the Giants were playing so much man coverage and Dak was picking them apart. As an aside, that is the single highest QBR grade of the season from anybody in any week. That is how good Dak’s performance was on Sunday. The only blemish was the interception – once again the result of a team switching to zone at the snap and possibly confusing him. It does seem to be his kryptonite to a certain degree.

The left side of our OL continues to look like a real strength. The right side, not so much.

The Cowboys DE team remain an elite bunch – pretty much every week you can guarantee a couple of elite PFF grades. This week it was the turn of Armstrong and Fowler. Bland really is one of the better CBs in the league. If Diggs was fit, this secondary would be scary. Unfortunately, Diggs is not fit, which means Jourdan Lewis is still seeing the field and it is getting worse rather than better. At what point to his snaps start going to someone else!

Overall, the team is trending upwards, but we’re are going to have to wait a few weeks to see if this is the result of the soft part of the schedule or a more general trend.