Good morning. Welcome to another episode of Hock Blogger Mornings. I am Brian Niemhouser. You can find me all over the place, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, at HockBlogger. And this morning, fine Thursday morning here in the PNW as we welcome in a new guest a first

time guest always special Dalton Wasserman of pro football focus uh man it is good to have you here

how you doing well fantastic it's been a fun football season so far covering NFL in college and

it's only getting better each week well you know before we get into all the football stuff, which we will definitely get into, for folks that don't know you, Dalton, tell us a little bit about how you got into what you're doing. Yeah, so I used to coach high school ball, obviously, you know, during COVID, that all kind of shut down while I was looking for jobs. I had just moved to Chicago. So I started working from home, working remote for PFF, actually on the data side. So I did the grading for three years. I worked up with the data team, our data team for four years, and then started getting into writing on the website and then actually started up on the video side on the college podcast with Max Chadwick. And then last year they had me start doing both NFL and college. And it's been a blast ever since. So yeah, I mean, just one of those things where I think it's an advantage for me to have worked on the data team to know what the grading looks like behind the scenes and then take it over and communicate it. I really feel like that's the biggest part of my job right there. Well, you know, I know I happen to be someone who references PFF grades. I reference PFS data.

I reference all sorts of data. And it's obviously a controversial topic, you know, how these grades come to be.

I think I've started to figure out the quarterback stuff and where things happen there,

especially for the turnover where they plays and big time throws and how much that factors into

things. What position do you feel like PFF grades are most stable and reliable that you feel

best about? And where maybe are it it harder for grading to do well?

I really think, I mean, it's been something we've been credited with a lot.

I think when you talk about offensive and defensive line play,

that's really the biggest difference that we've made.

Because, you know, with quarterbacks, there's so many different metrics.

You know, ESPN has total QBR and there's all these EPA things and yards per 10 and all that stuff. So it's, you know, everybody's evaluating quarterbacks. But I think in the trenches is where we've really made the biggest difference, right, when it comes to evaluating offensive lines with regard then to team performance and how it, you know, domino affects to everything else. And then defensive lines, you know, it used to just be, okay, the best guys have the most sacks, of course. Well, that's not quite the case, right? When you talk about total pressure and pass rush win rates and the grades that go with that. And then even in run defense, right, there used to not be some sort of quantitative metric for run defense. And our run defense grades, I think, do a great job of that. I think the one thing we are, we are working on, and I think within the next year or two, it's going to get a lot better, is wide receivers and coverage when you talk about away from the ball and further strengthening our separation metrics and how good wide receivers are, say, in route running when they're away from the ball and they're not targeted. And defensive backs the same way. I really think within the next year or two, we're going to start to revolutionize that,

especially when it comes to college scouting and finding out how good wide receivers and

defensive backs are away from the ball and not just when they're targeted.

Well, Dalton, just the other day, I was taking my dog Finn for a walk and I threw on the

PFF pod with a couple familiar voices.

And this was recapping the win over the Seahawks win over the Cardinals.

And I heard this just 52 seconds in.

The Seahawks just kind of keep chugging along because they have an identity, right?

They're going to play solid defense. They got the zone run game going a little bit with Kenneth Walker and Zach Charbonnet and Sam Donald's playing fantastic football. I'm going to do a film breakdown on him later in the week as well. But the Seahawks have an identity. Fantastic. That's why they're winning ball games. It's why the 3 and 1 could very close to 4. I don't think we're talking enough about how close the Seahawks are to four and O because they were about 15 yards from it. The Cardinals, the identity is kind of lost, right. So Dalton, does that sound familiar? The voice that you know? That sounds like a real smart person saying those things.

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