BearsTalk

BearsTalk Analytics

Understand the Grade.

Box scores tell you what happened. BearsTalk Player Grades are designed to show how well a player performed — accounting for production, efficiency, opportunity, usage and positional context.

Explore Player GradesSee the Methodology
BearsTalk AnalyticsExample

Player Grade

92.4

Position

EDGE

Position rank #3

Influence

94.1

Efficiency

88.7

Illustrative numbers — not a real player.

The big idea

More Than the Box Score

A box score tells you how many yards a receiver gained, how many tackles a linebacker made or how many sacks an edge rusher recorded. Those numbers matter — but they don't always tell us how good the performance actually was.

BearsTalk Player Grades evaluate the performance underneath the totals.

Traditional stats

What happened?

  • 12 sacks
  • 1,200 yards
  • 110 tackles
  • 30 touchdowns

BearsTalk Analytics

How well did he perform?

  • Production
  • Efficiency
  • Opportunity
  • Usage
  • Impact
  • Positional context

Two core grades

Influence + Efficiency

Two different questions. One clearer picture of performance.

Influence

Size of impact

How much is this player affecting games?

Influence measures the size of a player's impact. Playing time matters. Production matters. Opportunity matters.

A player consistently creating positive results across a large workload should have more Influence than a player producing similar numbers in a much smaller role.

Football example · A rotational edge rusher dominating 20 snaps may be highly efficient. An every-down EDGE producing at a high level across 60 snaps is influencing more of the game.

Efficiency

Quality per opportunity

How well is the player performing with his opportunities?

Efficiency focuses on what a player accomplishes relative to the opportunities he receives.

Two receivers can finish with similar yardage while needing very different numbers of routes and targets to get there. Totals make them look alike — Efficiency reveals the difference.

Football example · Same yards, fewer targets: the more efficient receiver did more with each chance he was given.

Position matters

Grade the Job the Player Actually Plays

Football positions are not interchangeable. A quarterback shouldn't be evaluated like a running back, a defensive tackle like an edge rusher, or a cornerback like a safety.

Players are graded for doing their jobs — not somebody else's.

  • QBQuarterback
  • RBRunning back
  • WRWide receiver
  • TETight end
  • EDGEEdge rusher
  • DTDefensive tackle
  • LBLinebacker
  • CBCornerback
  • SSafety

EDGE vs DT

Edge rushers win around the corner; interior linemen fight through traffic on every snap. Different jobs, different opportunities, different statistical profiles.

CB vs S

Corners live in tight coverage; safeties balance deep help with run support. A generic "DB" label hides that difference.

Not sure yet? We wait.

When a defender's role can't yet be established confidently, BearsTalk would rather wait for more information than force him into the wrong comparison group.

Production isn't enough

12 Sacks Aren't Always Better Than 9

The sack leader isn't automatically the highest-graded EDGE. BearsTalk evaluates the performance underneath the box-score total rather than simply ranking raw totals.

Hypothetical EDGE · Player A

12sacks

Hypothetical EDGE · Player B

9sacks

On totals alone, Player A looks better. Is he?

Peer-based evaluation

Compared With Players Doing the Same Job

BearsTalk grades aren't raw statistics squeezed onto a 100-point scale. Performance is evaluated within the player's positional environment.

90

Elite for a quarterback

90

Elite for a defensive tackle

One common 0–100 scale makes results easy to read. The evaluation underneath stays position-specific.

The 0–100 scale

Understanding the Grade Scale

  1. 90–100
    Elite
  2. 80–89.9
    High-level
  3. 70–79.9
    Above average
  4. 60–69.9
    Solid / average range
  5. 50–59.9
    Below average
  6. Below 50
    Poor relative to the position

Don't overstate tiny differences

An 85.2 isn't meaningfully "better" just because another player has an 84.6. Read the grade together with position rank, Influence, Efficiency, sample size and football context.

Why grades move

Early Grades Move. Good Models Should.

After one or two games the sample is small, so a huge performance can move a grade a lot. Later in the season one game is a smaller slice of the body of work — as more football is played, grades generally become more stable.

  1. Week 1

    More volatile

  2. Week 5

    Taking shape

  3. Week 10

    More stable

  4. Week 18

    Full-season profile

Why N/A can be a good thing

Sometimes the Right Grade Is No Grade Yet

Some evaluations need enough information to make a meaningful comparison. BearsTalk doesn't manufacture precision when the evidence isn't there — so some grades, especially early defensive ones, may temporarily show N/A.

  • N/A ≠ 0
  • N/A ≠ bad performance
  • N/A = not enough qualifying information yet

Historical grades

Weekly Grades Don't Know the Future

When you view a past season, a player's Week 5 grade uses only the games, statistics and position information available through Week 5. What happened later never rewrites what his performance looked like at that point.

  1. W1 (included)
  2. W2 (included)
  3. W3 (included)
  4. W4 (included)
  5. W5 (included)
  6. W6 (not yet played at this checkpoint)

Data through Week 5 only

Weeks 6+ stay out of the Week 5 grade.

Historical weekly grades work as genuine checkpoints, so you can see how a player's performance profile developed during the season.

Weekly grades

One Game vs. the Body of Work

Single-week grade

How did he perform this week?

Season-to-date grade

How has he performed across everything we've seen so far?

A monster Sunday doesn't instantly make someone one of the NFL's best players for the season, and one poor game doesn't erase months of high-level play. Both views are useful because they answer different questions.

What the grades are — and aren't

Analytics With Football Context

BearsTalk Grades aren't meant to replace watching football. No statistical measure can know every assignment, coverage responsibility, protection call or coaching instruction without knowing exactly what was called.

What they do provide is a consistent, position-aware measurement of observable NFL performance — graded under the same standard every season, so you can compare across years.

Grades help you spot

  • Players who are producing
  • Players maximizing their opportunities
  • Players whose traditional totals may be misleading
  • Players whose performance deserves a closer look

The simplest explanation

Three Questions. That's the System.

  1. 01

    How much is the player affecting games?

    → Influence

  2. 02

    How effectively is he performing with his opportunities?

    → Efficiency

  3. 03

    How does that compare with NFL players doing the same job?

    → BearsTalk Player Grade

The formulas behind those measurements are proprietary. The football philosophy behind them isn't:

Measure the right things. Account for opportunity. Compare players to the right peers. Let performance — not reputation — determine the grade.

BearsTalk Analytics

Now See What the Numbers Say.

Explore BearsTalk Player Grades across the NFL, compare positions and seasons, and follow how performance changes week by week.

Explore BearsTalk AnalyticsView Player GradesAbout Premium