The Kelce brothers are not big believers in Pro Football Focus.
On Travis Kelce’s podcast this week, he and his brother Jason touched on the website, making clear that they don’t have the highest opinions of it.
“The thing is that these PFF graders are grading off of what they think the play should be,” Travis Kelce said. “Whereas we might have a specific fundamental or we might have a specific call that takes us into something else and the play doesn’t work. … The graders don’t necessarily know the objective of the play and the fundamentals that we’re being taught.”
That’s a common criticism of the site, but Travis later added to it.
“I also think that there [are] agents out here paying guys to get higher grades than others,” he said. “I won’t name any names.”
“If that was true, that would completely ruin their website, so I don’t think that happens,” Jason said, though he did admit to having wondered it.
“You don’t think there [are] agents out here paying these scouts to give higher grades so their players can make more money when it comes down to the bargaining?” Travis said. “You don’t think there [are] agents out here trying to slither their way into a few extra [bucks]?”
If Travs is correct, that would be an explosive allegation, as PFF’s data is widely used and cited. It would be quite surprising if it was, though. The site’s grading is certainly subjective, but likely not to that level.