Mike Clay Early Position Group Ratings

[JESSEFEFFER]

Ran across this on Twitter.  I will link to it assuming that it can't be reprinted here in its entirety.  Maybe since it's been Tweeted by the creator it's fair game.

 

https://twitter.com/MikeClayNFL/status/1245069194007318528/photo/1

 

 

Lots of interesting discussion points.  I think having Mayfield way ahead of Josh and the low o-line grade are two I'd start with. RBs the Bills lowest rated group at present makes sense.   I don't think the Cowboys deserve to be so high.  They failed against good competition way too often to justify that.  I guess if you blame coaching for that, maybe.  Patriots are near the bottom so there's that.

[whatdrought]

Lol at the Cowgirls and Steelers being 2&3.

[PIZ]

I guess the Bills don’t have a Top 5 roster then. 
 

 

[JetsFan20]

1 minute ago, PIZ said:

I guess the Bills don’t have a Top 5 roster then. 
 

 

If Mike Clay says so

[TigerJ]

Who is Mike Clay?

[Stank_Nasty]

Yikes 

[Don Otreply]

I’ve never heard of him, who is he? 

[JESSEFEFFER]

 

10 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

I’ve never heard of him, who is he? 

 

I never heard of him either so here is what I found:

 

Mike Clay is a writer and analyst for ESPN who contributes year-round NFL, fantasy football and NASCAR insight across the company’s multimedia platforms.

He appears on a variety of shows, including SportsCenter, Fantasy Football Now, The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry on ESPN+, NFL Live and the Fantasy Focus Football Podcast. Clay’s award-winning player projections help power the ESPN Fantasy Football game. His fantasy content and rankings cover all aspects of the game, including season-long, dynasty, IDP and auction formats.

Clay is also the host of Next Level Fantasy Football on Sirius XM. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA) and is on the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Board of Directors (Chairman) and Hall of Fame voting committee.

Clay has been instrumental in bringing innovative statistics and data to the forefront of the fantasy industry, including player snap and route data. Now key elements of most fantasy football analysis, this information was all but non-existent prior to the 2010s.

Clay also introduced Wide Receiver vs. Cornerback matchups in 2015 – now a mainstream industry concept. Clay has created several advanced football statistics, including average depth of target (aDOT), opportunity-adjusted touchdowns (OTD), opportunity-adjusted fantasy points (OFP) and fantasy points over replacement player (FORP). Clay is also known for his work with personnel packages, game-flow-adjusted play-calling, touchdown regression to the mean, yards after contact, and box defenders.

Clay won the 2013 Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) award for most-accurate preseason player rankings. He won the FSWA award for the best online article in 2013 and the 2014 PFWA Dick Conner Writing Award in the Enterprise Features category.

Prior to ESPN, Clay was Managing Editor and Director at Pro Football Focus Fantasy, which he launched in 2010. Clay also contributed at NBC’s Rotoworld.com, Athlon Sports and PhiladelphiaEagles.com. He was featured as a Virtual Analyst in EA Sports’ Madden 25 and 2015 video games.

Originally from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Clay is a 2007 graduate of Kutztown University where he was Sports Editor of The Keystone newspaper and a sports radio broadcaster for three years.

 

 

 

He did a strength of schedule analysis for the 2020 season which is interesting.  I would presume it's based off of these team unit ratings.

Edited April 1, 2020 by JESSEFEFFER

[Don Otreply]

5 minutes ago, JESSEFEFFER said:

 

 

I never heard of him either so here is what I found:

 

Mike Clay is a writer and analyst for ESPN who contributes year-round NFL, fantasy football and NASCAR insight across the company’s multimedia platforms.

He appears on a variety of shows, including SportsCenter, Fantasy Football Now, The Fantasy Show with Matthew Berry on ESPN+, NFL Live and the Fantasy Focus Football Podcast. Clay’s award-winning player projections help power the ESPN Fantasy Football game. His fantasy content and rankings cover all aspects of the game, including season-long, dynasty, IDP and auction formats.

Clay is also the host of Next Level Fantasy Football on Sirius XM. He is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA) and is on the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Board of Directors (Chairman) and Hall of Fame voting committee.

Clay has been instrumental in bringing innovative statistics and data to the forefront of the fantasy industry, including player snap and route data. Now key elements of most fantasy football analysis, this information was all but non-existent prior to the 2010s.

Clay also introduced Wide Receiver vs. Cornerback matchups in 2015 – now a mainstream industry concept. Clay has created several advanced football statistics, including average depth of target (aDOT), opportunity-adjusted touchdowns (OTD), opportunity-adjusted fantasy points (OFP) and fantasy points over replacement player (FORP). Clay is also known for his work with personnel packages, game-flow-adjusted play-calling, touchdown regression to the mean, yards after contact, and box defenders.

Clay won the 2013 Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) award for most-accurate preseason player rankings. He won the FSWA award for the best online article in 2013 and the 2014 PFWA Dick Conner Writing Award in the Enterprise Features category.

Prior to ESPN, Clay was Managing Editor and Director at Pro Football Focus Fantasy, which he launched in 2010. Clay also contributed at NBC’s Rotoworld.com, Athlon Sports and PhiladelphiaEagles.com. He was featured as a Virtual Analyst in EA Sports’ Madden 25 and 2015 video games.

Originally from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Clay is a 2007 graduate of Kutztown University where he was Sports Editor of The Keystone newspaper and a sports radio broadcaster for three years.

 

Thanks for looking him up. Just can’t bring myself to give a sh-t about fantasy football anything, It doesn’t register in my Bills fan life. In this case he doesn’t exist, just like PFF. 
 

Go Bills!!!

[Orlando Tim]

Our season goes as Josh goes- I think he is much better than this dude thinks he is. I expect Josh to be a highly efficient player next year and our offense to flourish.

[Augie]

28 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

I’ve never heard of him, who is he? 

 

He’s the cafeteria monitor at a middle school in Kenmore. Very reliable source. 

 

 

[Richard Noggin]

The analysts who focus primarily on fantasy football need to be viewed almost exclusively through the lens of fantasy football. 

 

NFL statistical production matters very much, but is also so contingent upon so many variables. It's different than other sports. So this kind of analysis and ranking is cool, for fantasy football purposes.

[JESSEFEFFER]

1 hour ago, Richard Noggin said:

The analysts who focus primarily on fantasy football need to be viewed almost exclusively through the lens of fantasy football. 

 

NFL statistical production matters very much, but is also so contingent upon so many variables. It's different than other sports. So this kind of analysis and ranking is cool, for fantasy football purposes.

 

I'd have to read more about the purpose of this, i.e. its intended use, but many of these units have little fantasy football implications.  If you look at the weightings of each position group I think it has more to do with an actual power ranking  of the roster.

[hondo in seattle]

This would be interesting if a group of retired scouts put it together.

 

One ESPN guy can't possible do a credible job rating position groups of the entire NFL.    When Clay is labelled an "analyst" what that really means is that he's a professional writer and amateur football evaluator.  

Edited April 1, 2020 by hondo in seattle

[eanyills]

Interesting, since Mike Clay also has JA ranked as his #7 fantasy QB. I’ve also heard him talk very positively of JA on various podcasts.

 

In general, I really like Clay but he’s a statistical analysis guy and let’s be honest, at this point, JA is a gamer who gets it done in spite of the stats. It isn’t always pretty but he gets it done. I think this ranking reflects that.

[JetsFan20]

13 minutes ago, hondo in seattle said:

This would be interesting if a group of retired scouts put it together.

 

One ESPN guy can't possible do a credible job rating position groups of the entire NFL.    When Clay is labelled an "analyst" what that really means is that he's a professional writer and amateur football evaluator.  

It’s good click bait that will draw attention and spark debate. I wouldn’t get that wrapped into the actual numbers. I think the chart does a good job outlining each teams strength and weakness. 

[gobills404]

1 hour ago, Richard Noggin said:

The analysts who focus primarily on fantasy football need to be viewed almost exclusively through the lens of fantasy football. 

 

NFL statistical production matters very much, but is also so contingent upon so many variables. It's different than other sports. So this kind of analysis and ranking is cool, for fantasy football purposes.

This isn't for fantasy football, it's his awful grading for how good each team is on paper. If it was for fantasy, he would have zero reason to include each position group on defense or include offensive line. Also, grading position groups and not individual players wouldn't be helpful for fantasy at all. Mike Clay is just another "analytics" guy who converts his crappy opinions into numbers on a spreadsheet so to make them look concrete and calculated.

Edited April 1, 2020 by gobills404

[Cal]

This clown doesn't know anything. 

[GreggTX]

RB 0.9? He's daft.

[Mountain Man]

Am I reading that right that they think the Bills O line is worse than the Jets? 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

35 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

Am I reading that right that they think the Bills O line is worse than the Jets? 

He hates our offense. At one point maybe prior to the 2017 season he called our secondary one of the worst units he ever saw. That comment didn't age well that year.

 

 

2017

 

[Mark Long Beach]

Defense only counts for 43% of the grade.  So definitely skews towards offensive minded teams.

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

8 hours ago, TigerJ said:

Who is Mike Clay?

291-330-8004?

 

 

[CSBill]

11 hours ago, TigerJ said:

Who is Mike Clay?

 

this

[DCOrange]

7 hours ago, GreggTX said:

RB 0.9? He's daft.

We literally have 1 decent RB right now. I don't know why anyone would expect our RB group to be ranked highly. As currently constructed, we'd be relying on a guy that was a healthy scratch the majority of the season and another who was a practice squad member (and possibly only on the practice squad because he didn't count). The fact that we're ahead of 6 teams at RB is pretty good considering we only have one guy.

 

I'm not sure we should really care what Mike Clay thinks, but assuming we should, we should at least wait until rosters have settled. Our RB rating will almost certainly increase significantly by the time the season (hopefully) begins.

Edited April 1, 2020 by DCOrange

[CBD]

7 hours ago, Mountain Man said:

Am I reading that right that they think the Bills O line is worse than the Jets? 

nope, you're not reading it right. 

[MJS]

Wow. It's a pretty poor attempt, if you ask me. Not just for the Bills, but for a lot of the teams. I would like to do the same thing myself, but I don't know enough about some of the position groups for other teams, particularly the oline.

[MJS]

11 hours ago, Richard Noggin said:

The analysts who focus primarily on fantasy football need to be viewed almost exclusively through the lens of fantasy football. 

 

NFL statistical production matters very much, but is also so contingent upon so many variables. It's different than other sports. So this kind of analysis and ranking is cool, for fantasy football purposes.

 

I disagree. Singletary, for instance, was a good fantasy football player later in the year last year. John Brown was strong all year, plus we added Diggs who is a good fantasy football player. Josh Allen is a very strong fantasy football QB due to his high rushing production. The Bills defense actually is not that strong of a fantasy unit because they didn't score much and weren't super splashy in INT's or sacks.

 

All in all, his analysis doesn't seem to match fantasy football rankings or production at all. Hest just spit balling and his own personal biases are evident.

[Stank_Nasty]

10 minutes ago, MJS said:

. I would like to do the same thing myself, but I don't know enough about some of the position groups for other teams, particularly the oline.

It looks like clay doesn’t either, but he sure did give’r hell. 

Edited April 1, 2020 by Stank_Nasty

[MJS]

2 minutes ago, Stank_Nasty said:

It looks like clay doesn’t either, but he sure did give’r hell. 

I might give it a go. I build indices for work all the time and do statistical analysis, so this is right up my alley.

[JESSEFEFFER]

9 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

He hates our offense. At one point maybe prior to the 2017 season he called our secondary one of the worst units he ever saw. That comment didn't age well that year.

 

 

2017

 

This seems very righteous to me.  Think back to that year.  White was a low first round rookie, Hyde and Poyer were dumpster diving FA signings off Packers and Browns, I don't remember how EJ Gaines got here and Vontae Davis was a few quarters of football from retirement.  

 

I think his low opinion was justified and he acknowledges it was wrong because most every move they made ultimately worked out.  I'd give him points for owning it.

[JESSEFEFFER]

15 hours ago, whatdrought said:

Lol at the Cowgirls and Steelers being 2&3.

He must be blaming the Cowboy"s coaches and Steelers QB situations for their underwhelming 2019 performances.  It's like he's saying their players had nothing to do with it.

Edited April 1, 2020 by JESSEFEFFER

[JESSEFEFFER]

Just now, ScottLaw said:

Not sure why anyone thought Hyde was "dumpster diving". He was good in GB. 

Green Bay didn't want him back.  Hyde seemed shocked/hurt by that. 

[Richard Noggin]

16 hours ago, MJS said:

 

I disagree. Singletary, for instance, was a good fantasy football player later in the year last year. John Brown was strong all year, plus we added Diggs who is a good fantasy football player. Josh Allen is a very strong fantasy football QB due to his high rushing production. The Bills defense actually is not that strong of a fantasy unit because they didn't score much and weren't super splashy in INT's or sacks.

 

All in all, his analysis doesn't seem to match fantasy football rankings or production at all. Hest just spit balling and his own personal biases are evident.

You don't think those biases are informed by a Bills team that does not perform highly in most fantasy metrics? We haven't had beastly WRs or consistently productive RBS in a couple years (or decades), at least. Allen has put up some numbers in fantasy terms, but doesn't record the passing volume that makes him elite week in and week out. Our DEs and DTs might get pressure but they don't record many sacks. Our secondary is amazing but doesn't take the ball away a ton.

 

It seems like you made my point for me (which doesn't have to mean you're wrong in any way). The Bills aren't a statistically impressive team, with respect to fantasy production, and this particular fantasy analyst ranks their roster a bit harshly as a result. 

 

And I don't really agree with that statistical production-based assessment. 

[JetsFan20]

15 hours ago, JESSEFEFFER said:

He must be blaming the Cowboy"s coaches and Steelers QB situations for their underwhelming 2019 performances.  It's like he's saying their players had nothing to do with it.

The Steelers are going to be a trendy pick to be good next year. Their defense is pretty stacked on all three levels and Big Ben should be able to get the offense back on track. Their division is pretty tough though with the Ravens, talented Browns, and improved Bengals team. 
 

Cowboys to me are overrated. Their defense was trash last year.

[MJS]

2 hours ago, Richard Noggin said:

You don't think those biases are informed by a Bills team that does not perform highly in most fantasy metrics? We haven't had beastly WRs or consistently productive RBS in a couple years (or decades), at least. Allen has put up some numbers in fantasy terms, but doesn't record the passing volume that makes him elite week in and week out. Our DEs and DTs might get pressure but they don't record many sacks. Our secondary is amazing but doesn't take the ball away a ton.

 

It seems like you made my point for me (which doesn't have to mean you're wrong in any way). The Bills aren't a statistically impressive team, with respect to fantasy production, and this particular fantasy analyst ranks their roster a bit harshly as a result. 

 

And I don't really agree with that statistical production-based assessment. 

It doesn't seem like you play fantasy football, so I'd stop talking about it if I were you. I specifically said that Allen and Brown were good fantasy football players, but received low grade. Similarly, the Bills defense is not a great fantasy group, but received high grades. So your claim that this ranking has anything to do with fantasy football is false.

[Richard Noggin]

8 hours ago, MJS said:

It doesn't seem like you play fantasy football, so I'd stop talking about it if I were you. I specifically said that Allen and Brown were good fantasy football players, but received low grade. Similarly, the Bills defense is not a great fantasy group, but received high grades. So your claim that this ranking has anything to do with fantasy football is false.

I'm saying it has to do with a guy whose specialty is fantasy football analysis. Which has little to do with actual football analysis

 

And I'll discuss what I please, thank you.  

[C.Biscuit97]

On 3/31/2020 at 11:39 PM, eanyills said:

Interesting, since Mike Clay also has JA ranked as his #7 fantasy QB. I’ve also heard him talk very positively of JA on various podcasts.

 

In general, I really like Clay but he’s a statistical analysis guy and let’s be honest, at this point, JA is a gamer who gets it done in spite of the stats. It isn’t always pretty but he gets it done. I think this ranking reflects that.

Allen is awesome in fantasy football, as are all qbs who run a lot.

 

but this guy is good at what he does.  But again if you don’t like the message, attack the messenger.  It’s so pathetic that this is what the country has become.  

[JESSEFEFFER]

One way to use this comprehensive view of NFL rosters is to consider draft implications.  I am among those who would see RB as an important need.  He scored the Bills group as a .9 but there are 6 teams worse including the Rams at .1.  They pick at 52 which is interesting.  Phins, Chiefs, Lions, Bucs and Bears are the others.  Steelers and Colts are scored low there too.  Maybe these are the teams the Bills might need to trade in front of at some point to get a RB they covet.

Edited April 2, 2020 by JESSEFEFFER

[Billl]

On 4/1/2020 at 12:01 AM, GreggTX said:

RB 0.9? He's daft.

So where do you think the 800 rushing yards and 2 rushing TDs Buffalo returns should rank?