As you guys know I spend a lot of time each week doing the Phil Steele Plus Tour with Selections. If you follow the tour you know that I spend very little time on the NFL with either one of zero NFL selections on the tour each week.
As you know by watching the tour, I put a lot of stock into the weekly College Average Game Grade (AGG). The average game grade has no starting point for a team. It takes into account the yards rushing, yards passing, Offensive Points, rush yards allowed, pass yards allowed and points allowed in a game and then factor in the strength of the opponent. It also takes into account whether the game was home or away. If Alabama played a team and Kent St played that same team and each had the same stats, they would have an identical AGG as there is no bias for the individual team.
The opponent is key. Let me give you a few examples from the College AGG. Ohio St beat Youngstown St at home 35-7 with a 482-234-yard edge. That earned an AGG of 105.9. Ohio St lost to Michigan on the road but had a 378-338-yard edge and that earned a much higher 125.9 grade.
Now let me look at a couple of games showing that there is not starting point for a team. Texas beat Wyoming by 21 at home and Wyoming earned a 113.5 AGG for that game. Texas beat Alabama on the road 34-24 and Bama only received a 108.3 AGG for the game. There are no power ratings for the team just for the stats and their opponent’s strength.
The AGG can give us some solid value during the year and once we get to week 6, I usually start having a Last 4 weeks AGG play. Let me give you a couple of examples from last year. On November 18 last year Virginia had a Last 4 weeks AGG that was 8.4 points higher than Duke and they were at home, so my Last 4 weeks AGG had Virginia by 11.4 and they were a home dog of +4.5. Virginia won outright!
On October 28 Arizona St was +6 at home vs Wash St and my Last 4 weeks AGG had Arizona St favored by 7.82! The Average Game grade was like that because 4-3 Wash St was actually -124 ypg in Pac 12 play and 1-6 Arizona St was +18 ypg in Pac 12 play. Arizona St pulled the “upset” 38-27 with a 509-403-yard edge.
The advantage of Phil Steele Plus is that the AGG is updated every Sunday morning and the last 4 weeks AGG is also updated every Sunday Morning. I could go on and on about the advantage of having the AGG updated weekly for the season and the last 4 weeks and give you a ton more examples, but this article is about the NFL YPG.
I have not followed the NFL very much the last few years but there has been a flaw in the NFL AGG formula each year. Since I have not been involved much in the NFL selections I have not made it a priority to fix it. This year I will be doing more NFL analysis and in the next week you will see all the same METRICS articles we used to produce back in 2018 which was the last year of the NFL magazine.
I also finally set aside an entire day to break down the formula and get it to the same level as my college AGG. Basically, it had been showing an aggregate AGG at the end of the year for the top team to the bottom team had a difference of just about 7 points which basically put all the NFL teams into the same cluster and not much difference. This. Year I installed the new formula into last year’s rankings and the difference from top to bottom for the AGG for the season met my desired 15.4 points.
Here are last year’s final AGG’s for the NFL.
Now here is the Last 4 Weeks AGG for 2023.
I am super excited that the NFL AGG will FINALLY be a solid set of weekly power ratings for me to use on my Phil Steele Plus tour and in my Inside the Pressbox NFL writeups! When you sign up to Phil Steele Plus you get all the latest information updated weekly including the AGG, Stat Leaders (great for Fantasy Football), Last 21 years logs, the NFL angle section with ATS numbers for last 10 years in 64 different categories and the last 23 years of series matchups! When you sign up to Phil Steele Plus you also get the 134 FBS Teams with all that information and MORE! You also get all the FCS pages updated weekly including AGG! Phil Steele Plus is what I use to handicap game and to rattle off information during the week when on my radio/TV shows. It was set up for ME and has all the information I could possibly need to handicap at my fingertips. It has cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to have all this information at my fingertips but you can get the same info that I use for just $99!!! Today I have 3 different ways for you to access Phil Steele Plus for the next 7 MONTHS. It is normally $19 a month so that would be $133 but Phil Steele Plus for the season is just $99 CLICK HERE
Now we sell a NFL workbook which has a ton of information and angles for the 2024 NFL Football season. The Workbook sells for $28 including shipping. If you purchase the NFL Workbook, I will give you a discount on Phil Steele Plus down to $45 for the entire 7 months of NFL, FBS and FCS. Click Here for Workbook
My Inside the Pressbox Newsletter will give you my selections on every NFL game for the entire 2024 season from week one thru the Super Bowl. That is 272 games during the year and the NFL Inside the Pressbox is $20 per week. If you subscribe for the entire season the price is just $169 which is basically $9.94 per week. This is NFL week on philsteele.com and this week you can subscribe to my NFL Inside the Pressbox Regular Season for just $99 and when you sign up for Pressbox, I give you Phil Steele Plus ($99 value), FREE!
The College Pressbox Regular season is $169 and the Bowl/Playoff package is $89. If you purchased all 3 (NFL, College, Postseason) your cost is $427 but you can get the BUNDLE which is all 3 for just $269 and you get Phil Steele Plus for the entire season $99 Value absolutely FREE.
I hope you are on board for a big winning 2024 season in NFL and College football this year.
