What AV is trying to answer
In simple terms: how much did this player contribute to his team's unit success? AV provides a sense of season performance beyond raw totals and makes players with different roles easier to compare.
Imagine two defenders who each record 150 tackles. One may be a central part of a defense that repeatedly ends drives; the other may accumulate many tackles while his defense concedes long gains and points. The tackle totals look identical, but their seasons did not necessarily produce the same value. This model reflects that difference by first measuring the success of the entire offense or defense, then distributing that unit's value among its players.
The calculation cannot identify whether a particular tackle was a drive-ending stop or cleanup after a big play. Instead, team efficiency supplies that missing context: a successful defense creates a larger defensive value pool, while the player's tackles, pass rush, coverage results, and participation determine his share.
The result is Total AV, the sum of a player's contributions in every applicable phase. It is most useful as a broad season-comparison and résumé tool—not as a substitute for ratings, scouting, or context.
Inspiration and credit
The idea of Approximate Value was created by Doug Drinen for Pro Football Reference. Their work established the useful idea of placing an approximate seasonal value on every player across positions.
This league's calculation is an independently designed AV-style adaptation for Front Office Football 8 data. It borrows the high-level concept, but its inputs, weights, pool allocation, coverage stabilization, special-teams treatment, and normalization are custom to this project. It should not be presented as Pro Football Reference's official AV.
Read Pro Football Reference's AV explanation →How the calculation works
- Collect the regular season. Player and team data are limited to Weeks 1–17 and aggregated by player and team. A player traded during a season can therefore have separate team rows.
- Measure team quality. Each offense and defense receives a points value relative to the league average.
- Create position pools. Offensive value is divided between the line and skill players; defensive value is divided between the front seven and secondary.
- Allocate each pool. Players receive a share using production, playing time, efficiency, and position-specific measures.
- Add every phase. Offensive line, rushing, passing, receiving, defense, kicking, punting, and return components are summed into Total AV.
- Normalize within position. Total AV is min-max scaled separately for each position to create Norm AV from 0 to 1.
1. Team offense and defense points
The model begins with football points per drive (FPD). A touchdown is valued at 7 points and a field goal at 3. Drives are approximated by scores, field-goal attempts, turnovers, and punts.
Offensive FPD
[7 × (pass TD + rush TD) + 3 × FG] ÷ [pass TD + rush TD + FGA + fumbles lost + INT + punts]
Team Offense Points = 100 × team FPD ÷ league-average offensive FPD.
Defensive FPD allowed
The same drive formula, using statistics allowed by the defense.
Let r = team defensive FPD ÷ league-average defensive FPD. Team Defense Points = 100 × [1 + 2r − r²] ÷ 2r. Allowing fewer points per drive produces more defensive value.
2. The eight AV components
| Component | Who earns it | How value is assigned |
|---|---|---|
| OL AV | C, G, T, plus smaller TE/FB weights | 5/11 of Team Offense Points is distributed using starts, key-block rate, blocking opportunities, sacks allowed, and position weights (LT 1.10; RT 1.05; C/G 1.00; FB 0.30; TE 0.20). |
| Rush AV | Ball carriers | A rushing sub-pool is adjusted for how run-heavy the team is, then assigned by share of team rushing yards. Players with 60+ attempts receive an efficiency adjustment versus league yards per carry. |
| Pass AV | Passers | A passing sub-pool is assigned by share of team passing yards. Passers with 150+ attempts receive an efficiency adjustment using adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A). |
| Rec AV | Receivers | The receiving sub-pool is assigned by each player's receiving yards as a share of team passing yards. |
| Def AV | Front seven and secondary | 2/3 of Team Defense Points goes to the front seven and 1/3 to the secondary. Each pool is distributed using coverage, pass rush, tackles, and snap share. |
| K AV | Kickers | A playing-time baseline plus points above league-average accuracy for extra points, short field goals, 40–49 yard attempts, and 50+ yard attempts. |
| P AV | Punters | A playing-time baseline plus an adjustment for total punting yards above league-average yards per punt. |
| Return AV | Returners | One point for each punt-return or kick-return touchdown. |
3. How the value pools are weighted
These are the allocation weights used by the current Python calculation. They determine how much of a team's value is available to each phase before individual players divide that phase's pool.
| Pool | Weight | What the weight means |
|---|---|---|
| Offensive line | 5/11 of Team Offense Points | Distributed among linemen and the blocking portions assigned to tight ends and fullbacks. |
| Skill players | 6/11 of Team Offense Points | The starting pool from which rushing, passing, and receiving value is created. |
| Rush AV | 22% of the skill pool, adjusted by (team rushing share ÷ 0.37) | Run-heavy teams create a larger rushing pool; teams below the 37% reference share create a smaller one. |
| Pass AV | 26% of the skill pool remaining after Rush AV | Allocated to passers by team passing-yard share, with the qualifying ANY/A adjustment. |
| Rec AV | 74% of the skill pool remaining after Rush AV | Allocated to receivers by receiving yards as a share of team passing yards. |
| Front seven | 2/3 of Team Defense Points | Shared by defensive linemen and linebackers according to their defensive scores. |
| Secondary | 1/3 of Team Defense Points | Shared by cornerbacks and safeties according to their defensive scores. |
| Kicker baseline | 3.125 × share of team kicking workload | Then adjusted by points above average divided by 5. |
| Punter baseline | 2.1875 × share of team punts | Then adjusted by punting yards above average divided by 200. |
| Return AV | 1.0 per return touchdown | Punt-return and kick-return touchdowns are added directly. |
A weighting note: Rush AV is not always exactly 22% of the skill-player pool because it is deliberately scaled by the team's run/pass balance. Pass AV and Rec AV then split what remains, rather than the original skill pool.
4. Important supporting metrics
ANY/A
(pass yards + 20 × pass TD − 45 × INT − sack yards) ÷ (attempts + sacks)Defensive score
20% coverage defense + 10% interception rate + 30% pass rush + 10% tackling + 30% snap shareCoverage stabilization
Pass-defense and interception rates blend a player's rate with the league rate using targets ÷ (targets + 20). This reduces extreme results from tiny samples. The implemented rates are also floored at league average.
Efficiency adjustments
Above-average rushing or passing efficiency receives 0.75 times the difference; below-average efficiency receives 2.0 times the difference. Poor efficiency is therefore penalized more strongly than equal positive efficiency is rewarded.
5. Reading the final numbers
Total AV
OL + Rush + Pass + Rec + Def + K + P + Return AV
Use this for broad comparisons of seasonal contribution. Because it retains the model's raw allocation, it is the better résumé-style number.
Norm AV
(player Total AV − position minimum) ÷ (position maximum − position minimum)
Calculated within each position and season dataset. A value of 1.000 is the position's maximum and 0.000 its minimum. Because the league average and seasonal environment change, year-to-year comparison is not perfectly like-for-like. It remains useful for identifying trends and understanding how a player ranked among his contemporaries.
Limitations and interpretation
- AV estimates value from available statistics; it does not directly grade every assignment, route, coverage, block, or coaching decision.
- Team success affects the size of the value pools, so teammates and unit quality matter.
- Some weights and pool splits are modeling choices rather than universal football truths.
- Receiving value uses team passing yards as its denominator, and rushing value is adjusted for team offensive balance.
- Defensive coverage rates deliberately regress small samples toward the league average.
- The calculation excludes the free-agent placeholder team (Team 99), rounds AV fields to three decimals, and currently uses a 16-game starter baseline even though input weeks run from 1 through 17.
Best practice: use AV alongside player ratings, traditional and advanced statistics, awards, team context, and career longevity.