RIP to PFF

[JohnNord]

On 4/2/2026 at 4:55 PM, YoloinOhio said:

Collinsworth sold it and laid off all the talent… sounds like the data will still be out there  but they won’t have anyone to explain to us why Duck Hodges is better than Josh Allen

 

 

 

 

great listen, actually 

 

 

That’s an extremely general description of the PFF situation.

in case anyone doesn’t want to listen - Collinsworth and co-founder Neil Hornsby had a stable B2B business providing data to all 32 teams and a consumer service for individual subscribers.   The third arm of the business was media (streaming/podcast etc) which arguably was the biggest area of growth.  
 

Rather than focus on media and incremental growth, Collinsworth raised millions of dollars to “scale” by chasing after the online gambling money via a flawed PFF app.   Basically instead of waiting for the right pitch, he took a huge a swing and whiffed badly.  
 

He ousted Hornsby and put his inexperienced and incapable son Austin in charge.  He then hired someone named George Chauhouri to oversee media and their consumer product and he ran it into the ground.  Also ended up treating people badly and killed morale.  
 

Most of the talent saw the writing on the wall and left years ago.  Collinsworth did too and sold the business to a sports data company called Teamworks.  They are planning to sell B2B sports metrics.  Media is all but finished as the remaining talent was let go.   Collinsworth I guess still maintains ownership but it doesn’t sound like they have many plans
 

At the end of the day the ones to profit from the entire ordeal was Collinsworth and his son.  Just about everyone else associated with PFF ended up getting screwed.  
 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 4 by JohnNord

[JohnNord]

On 4/2/2026 at 9:08 PM, billsfan89 said:

PFF as a provider of insights and data was always a viable business model. Think of the Elias Sports Bureau type of model selling data and information to various businesses. But PFF as a source of punditry and selling data to fans for gambling and fantasy football purposes was likely a hit and miss proposition. And that's the part of PFF (the public facing part) is being completely gutted and the B2B side is being retained. So the NFL and NCAA will still be using the data. 

 

PFF is basically paying 2-4 people to watch each NFL and most College games and grade each player on those games. NFL teams can't really pay enough people to watch those games esp on the college side of things. 

 

So teams pay for PFF data and metrics because it gives them a baseline to measure their scouting and data against. I think teams often do express skepticism over PFF's data but they still take it in as a data point because in some ranks it is better than not having a second opinion. Teams will pay for that but average fans won't pay for some data that doesn't really provide much value to anyone outside of a very niche audience. 

 

I do feel bad for the people losing their jobs because the people there were/are clearly passionate about football.

Yes the B2B was a very stable business.  The problems they took in millions of VC dollars with the expectation of growth.  When you already have all 32 NFL teams and most NCAA D1 teams as clients it hard to get much bigger.  That’s where gambling came into play.   Not sure if it was the pivot or the execution that was the issue 
 

 

[Jay_Fixit]

PFF was the Miss Cleo of the football world.

[BuffaloBillyG]

On 4/2/2026 at 4:55 PM, YoloinOhio said:

Collinsworth sold it and laid off all the talent… sounds like the data will still be out there  but they won’t have anyone to explain to us why Duck Hodges is better than Josh Allen

 

 

 

 

great listen, actually 

 

Great. Now where do we cherry pick data from to make out points when we agree with them and say "Pfft...it's just PFF and they are a joke" when we don't? We just can't have nice things. 

[Royale with Cheese]

How are NFL teams supposed to evaluate talent now?

[Jauronimo]

48 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

How are NFL teams supposed to evaluate talent now?

Big win for the eye test and old school football guys today.  The nerds will never defeat us!  They don't have the upper body strength.

Edited Monday at 03:20 PM by Jauronimo

[boyst]

On 4/3/2026 at 9:49 PM, JohnNord said:

 

That’s an extremely general description of the PFF situation.

in case anyone doesn’t want to listen - Collinsworth and co-founder Neil Hornsby had a stable B2B business providing data to all 32 teams and a consumer service for individual subscribers.   The third arm of the business was media (streaming/podcast etc) which arguably was the biggest area of growth.  
 

Rather than focus on media and incremental growth, Collinsworth raised millions of dollars to “scale” by chasing after the online gambling money via a flawed PFF app.   Basically instead of waiting for the right pitch, he took a huge a swing and whiffed badly.  
 

He ousted Hornsby and put his inexperienced and incapable son Austin in charge.  He then hired someone named George Chauhouri to oversee media and their consumer product and he ran it into the ground.  Also ended up treating people badly and killed morale.  
 

Most of the talent saw the writing on the wall and left years ago.  Collinsworth did too and sold the business to a sports data company called Teamworks.  They are planning to sell B2B sports metrics.  Media is all but finished as the remaining talent was let go.   Collinsworth I guess still maintains ownership but it doesn’t sound like they have many plans
 

At the end of the day the ones to profit from the entire ordeal was Collinsworth and his son.  Just about everyone else associated with PFF ended up getting screwed.  
 

 

 

 

 

Collinsworth has always been a POS. I knew a former teammate of his in HS and said the guy was the epitome of what every stereotype would be which was interesting. The guy I knew was a punter and a ST assistant to my HS 🤣

[The Frankish Reich]

On 4/3/2026 at 7:49 PM, JohnNord said:

 

That’s an extremely general description of the PFF situation.

in case anyone doesn’t want to listen - Collinsworth and co-founder Neil Hornsby had a stable B2B business providing data to all 32 teams and a consumer service for individual subscribers.   The third arm of the business was media (streaming/podcast etc) which arguably was the biggest area of growth.  
 

Rather than focus on media and incremental growth, Collinsworth raised millions of dollars to “scale” by chasing after the online gambling money via a flawed PFF app.   Basically instead of waiting for the right pitch, he took a huge a swing and whiffed badly.  
 

He ousted Hornsby and put his inexperienced and incapable son Austin in charge.  He then hired someone named George Chauhouri to oversee media and their consumer product and he ran it into the ground.  Also ended up treating people badly and killed morale.  
 

Most of the talent saw the writing on the wall and left years ago.  Collinsworth did too and sold the business to a sports data company called Teamworks.  They are planning to sell B2B sports metrics.  Media is all but finished as the remaining talent was let go.   Collinsworth I guess still maintains ownership but it doesn’t sound like they have many plans
 

At the end of the day the ones to profit from the entire ordeal was Collinsworth and his son.  Just about everyone else associated with PFF ended up getting screwed.  
 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the great summary.

As usual, the drive for the gambling jackpot ...

[TheyCallMeAndy]

On 4/2/2026 at 6:51 PM, Alphadawg7 said:

So now who are posters going quote as gospel when they say something they like, then flame endlessly when they say something they don't like?

Madden? 

[blacklabel]

On 4/2/2026 at 7:15 PM, Don Otreply said:

So we aren’t going ding QBs for passes that “could have been intercepted, but weren’t “  any more…, I am profoundly saddened that this has come to pass…,

 

(sarcasm included)

 

That seemed like such a BS stat. If you wanna split hairs over it, all passes could be picks, that's the inherent risk to throwing the football. And you can look at those "interceptable" throws two ways. Sure you can say, whoa that was almost picked... or, you can marvel at the mastery of threading the needle. That one always struck me as a stat that some intern dweeb came up with as it just feels like a stat for stats sake.

[Royale with Cheese]

2 hours ago, Jauronimo said:

Big win for the eye test and old school football guys today.  The nerds will never defeat us!  They don't have the upper body strength.

 

"One for the Commandant, One for the Core.  Get up there, pull....I guess the Core don't get theirs."

[Don Otreply]

2 hours ago, blacklabel said:

 

That seemed like such a BS stat. If you wanna split hairs over it, all passes could be picks, that's the inherent risk to throwing the football. And you can look at those "interceptable" throws two ways. Sure you can say, whoa that was almost picked... or, you can marvel at the mastery of threading the needle. That one always struck me as a stat that some intern dweeb came up with as it just feels like a stat for stats sake.

It was the most “click” driven stat ever…, 

[corta765]

On 4/2/2026 at 4:58 PM, K-9 said:

Dammit! Now we will never know who’s good or not. How will we ever be able to figure it all out? 

back to throwing darts man, throwing darts

[corta765]

On 4/3/2026 at 9:49 PM, JohnNord said:

That’s an extremely general description of the PFF situation.

in case anyone doesn’t want to listen - Collinsworth and co-founder Neil Hornsby had a stable B2B business providing data to all 32 teams and a consumer service for individual subscribers.   The third arm of the business was media (streaming/podcast etc) which arguably was the biggest area of growth.  
 

Rather than focus on media and incremental growth, Collinsworth raised millions of dollars to “scale” by chasing after the online gambling money via a flawed PFF app.   Basically instead of waiting for the right pitch, he took a huge a swing and whiffed badly.  
 

He ousted Hornsby and put his inexperienced and incapable son Austin in charge.  He then hired someone named George Chauhouri to oversee media and their consumer product and he ran it into the ground.  Also ended up treating people badly and killed morale.  
 

Most of the talent saw the writing on the wall and left years ago.  Collinsworth did too and sold the business to a sports data company called Teamworks.  They are planning to sell B2B sports metrics.  Media is all but finished as the remaining talent was let go.   Collinsworth I guess still maintains ownership but it doesn’t sound like they have many plans
 

At the end of the day the ones to profit from the entire ordeal was Collinsworth and his son.  Just about everyone else associated with PFF ended up getting screwed.  

 

At some point gambling will see restrictions come and limitations with advertising. Until then the amount of companies that will get destroyed by chasing that will just keep sky rocketing.

 

I wasn't a fan of PFF as a whole, but certain writers were tremendous and worth paying attention to which made me respect SOME of their content. Instead their now just fully trash.

[JohnNord]

2 hours ago, corta765 said:

 

At some point gambling will see restrictions come and limitations with advertising. Until then the amount of companies that will get destroyed by chasing that will just keep sky rocketing.

 

I wasn't a fan of PFF as a whole, but certain writers were tremendous and worth paying attention to which made me respect SOME of their content. Instead they’re crusnow just fully trash.

Actually that is the exact point that this crew was arguing.  They felt there was an opportunity for growth within the broadcasting arm of the company and wanted a bigger role within the company.  

[Buffalo716]

7 hours ago, TheyCallMeAndy said:

Madden? 

Josh Allen doesn't even have the strongest arm in Madden anymore 

 

Hogwash 

 

 

[YoloinOhio]

On 4/6/2026 at 7:41 PM, Buffalo716 said:

Josh Allen doesn't even have the strongest arm in Madden anymore 

 

Hogwash 

 

 

Who is it?

[Buffalo716]

10 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

Who is it?

Joe Milton