AV calcs are out: is Mitchell Schwartz best FA signing in NFL history?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

I doubt they care what you think.

It isn't very good.

It had a tendency to conflate quantity w/ quality. If you take a bunch of snaps, approximate value will love you for it. It's usually most obvious w/ DBs and OL.

Austin Reiter is a pretty good example. His AV last year was 3; this year it was 8. Reiter, in his time on the field, was a better player last year than he was this year and by quite a bit. But last year he played far fewer snaps.

So in terms of contributions to the team, it's fair to say he provided 'more' to the Chiefs this season just because he took so many more snaps. But in a vacuum, you'd look at his 8 this year vs. his 3 last year and think "man, he must have been twice as good" and that's just not accurate. I don't feel like digging, but in the past I've noticed it being even more jarring for CBs. For instance, Scandrick being 'worth' 2 AV last year and Ward being worth 1 - strictly a function of Scandrick getting more snaps and in no way representative of the quality of those snaps.

Long way of saying that it isn't a very good metric at all for determining quality of performance. Sometimes guys play a lot because they have to and it's a really bad way of comparing guys across teams because of that. You can play a lot for a shitty team and earn yourself a pretty high AV but if you play in a limited role on a better team and are a better player than said guy on the shitty team, it won't be reflected in AV.

It has some utility, but it's pretty limited.