EVERY SYSTEM EXPLAINED
Average Rating (Gil Brandt)
The Average Rating was developed by Gil Brant. While working as a scout for the Dallas Cowboys Brandt came up with a system for rating college players declaring for the draft. His systems used 6 major factors to determine a player’s rating and it provided an easy way to compare players without bias and across multiple positions.
The 6 major factors include:
Personal/Behavior: A player’s character, attitude, and actions on and off the field.
Athletic Ability: A player’s athleticism, speed, quickness, and power.
Strength/Explosion: A player’s strength, power, and dynamic plays.
Competitiveness/Toughness: A player’s attitude on the field, hustle, drive, and willingness to take hits.
Mental/Learning: A player’s field vision, awareness, and football IQ.
Injury/Durability: A player’s injury history, injury frequency, and tolerance of pain.
These 6 categories are rated from a scale of 1-8, 1 being the lowest and 8 being the highest. To avoid dissimilarity and contrast in the same numbers, each number corresponds to a rating giving the rater no room for error in his evaluation.
1 – Bad
2 – Poor
3 – Fair
4 – Average
5 – Good
6 – Great
7 – Excellent
8 – Outstanding
After evaluating each individual category they are all summed together and they averaged giving a rating between 1-8.
Overall Rating (Ron Wolf)
Ron Wolf developed his own system for evaluating players. In contrast with the Average Rating developed by Gil Brant, Wolf a longtime General Manager of the Green Bay Packers came up with his own system of rating players for the draft. Instead of a standard rating with categories, this rating is solely determined by the rater, in the respect that the type of quality you believe the player to be, that is the category he is assigned. The rater is even given the freedom to determine what exact number within the range he will receive.
9.0 – A generational talent
8.0-8.9 – Special player that will dominate
7.0-7.9 – A player you win because of
6.5-6.9 – A solid player you could win with
6.0-6.4 – A solid backup who could start
5.5-5.9 – A role player/specialist
5.0-5.4 – A developmental player
0.0-4.9 – F/A player
In Ron Wolf’s opinion any player receiving a 7.0+ rating is a player you should target for a draft selection. Players receiving anything under a 5.0 should not be drafted. In all of Wolf’s scouting the only time he ever rated a player with a 9.0 was Bo Jackson.
The Delta
When comparing these two rankings I can be difficult to gauge which one is more accurate. One takes in multiple facets of a a player’s performance, and the other is just a player’s performance on the field. So what does the delta between these two tell us?
The Overall Rating (Ron Wolf) is bigger than the Average Rating (Gil Brandt)…
The bigger the gap when the Overall Rating is bigger than the Average Rating, shows that the player has a higher potential ceiling, and that he has the ability to become a much better player than the Average Rating tells us. This could be because the player has character issues, injury issues, or merely a flaw that is weighted too strongly that can be overcome. The larger the gap the more likely this player will out preform his rating.
The Average Rating (Gil Brandt) is bigger than the Overall Rating (Ron Wolf)…
Since the Overall Rating is rated out of 9, it is rare that the Average Rating is greater than the Overall Rating but when it happens it shows, a warning sign. This shows a player that is overrated, either by athletic ability which is usually the case or by a category that is overly weighted. The larger the gap the more likely this player could be a bust.