Last season I decided to switch up how I report the grades by Pro Football Focus (PFF) because of my frustration due to the absurdity of their findings. Instead of listing out all the scores, I gave highlights of some of the highs and lows and whether or not I thought their grading passed my own eye test. Since it seemed to be the most receptive approach, I decided to make this a weekly thing where I give my opinion of the PFF scores.

As always has to be the case when PFF is mentioned, the disclaimer is these grades are subjective and merely the opinion of those doing the evaluation. While PFF looks at every player on every snap, they are still simply forming an opinion of what they believe that player was supposed to be doing that play in order to determine if they were successful or not.

So here are my overall impressions of the scores from the Steelers Preseason Week 1 loss to the Texans with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

The top grade for the offense was achieved by Darnell Washington with a 91.7 overall score. Washington led the Steelers with an 85.2 run blocking grade along with a 74.6 pass blocking grade which landed him sixth on the team. Only playing one snap where he went out for a pass, Washington received a 59.9 which is just below the 60.0 standard.

The only other player to score above an 80 on the offense was wide receiver Dez Fitzpatrick who had a team-high 83.8 passing on nine plays with a 57.9 run blocking score on his other nine snaps. Both George Pickens and MyCole Pruitt were next on the list each with a 78.5 overall score. Pickens was a result of his 76.2 passing score while Pruitt brought in quality pass blocking and run blocking scores with 76.4 and 76.2 respectfully.

Scores at the very bottom of the list showed quite an anomaly. The lowest score for the day was tackle Tyler Beach who had a 37.0 overall score. His score was based off of an 81.4 pass blocking score which was on 11 of his 11 snaps. Curiously, he was given a 30.9 run blocking score yet did not have any blocking snaps. These numbers were very similar to what he had last season in the preseason, which goes to show that perhaps PFF’s algorithm is plugging in prior experiences as their base which have no bearing on this particular game. It is very curious and shows the flaw in their system.

As for the other low scores, there were five players who scored below 50.0 in the La’Mical Perine (41.9), James Daniels (44.0), Anderson Hardy (44.3), Justin Fields (46.0), and Mason McCormick (48.8). Fields had a 63.3 passing score but had a 36.1 running score mainly because of the two fumbles. I was surprised to see McCormick at the bottom which was due to a 48.4 run blocking score. There were only two players who were lower in the aforementioned Beach and James Daniels (42.9). Daniels was much like Beach where he had a quality pass blocking score (78.5), but a poor run blocking score (42.9). At least in his case they were based on five and four snaps respectively.

looking at some other numbers that jumped out, Spencer Anderson had the highest grade of an offensive lineman of 74.1 with a team-high 86.1 pass blocking score and 67.5 run blocking score. Just behind Anderson was Zach Frazier with a 73.5 overall score based on more balanced numbers of 73.0 pass blocking and 72.2 run blocking. Frazier had a much better score than Nate Herbig’s 60.2 overall despite Herbig having a better pass blocking score of 76.2.

When it comes to the three players battling for the tackle positions, Troy Fautanu had the best score of 63.7 just ahead of Dan Moore at 62.9. Broderick Jones struggled and received a 55.3 overall score. This pretty much lined up with my eye test. Fautanu ended up with the best score mainly due to a 66.3 blocking grade.

As for the quarterbacks, Kyle Allen graded out much higher than Justin Fields and he has a 68.9 overall score with a 68.8 passing score.

Defense

The top score on the defense went to linebacker Jacoby Windmon with a 90.0 based mainly on a team-high 87.1 coverage grade. In all there were five players who scored above an 80.0 in Keeanu Benton (85.8), Kyron Johnson (81.9), DeMarvin Leal (81.2), and Tyler Matakevich (81.0). Even though PFF usually shows him no love, Larry Oganjobi was the highest grade just out of the 80s with a 77.4 overall.

Looking at the bottom scores, there were four players who were 50.0 or below with Joey Porter having the bottom score of 43.2 based on a 41.5 coverage grade. According to PFF, Porter was only targeted once and he was called for a penalty. The other bottom scores were Montravius Adams (48.0), Damontae Kazee (49.1), and Jalen Elliott (50.0). Adams had a team-low 36.8 run defense score. Frankly, I didn’t notice him on the run as much as I did the pass rush where he had a 72.0 score. What makes no sense to me is  Adams had 12 pass rushing snaps to only four run defense snaps. Yet his score is highly influenced by the run snaps.

The top run defense score went to Kyron Johnson with an 84.6. Thomas Graham brought in the top pass rushing score 81.7 while Windmon had the top coverage score. When came to the Steelers defense, 23 of the 33 players had a score above the 60.0 standard with 11 scoring over 70.0.

Those who might be curious about Payton Wilson, a player who is had a mixed bag of opinions about his play on Friday night, his overall score was a 52.5. Wilson scored a 70.5 in run defense but only 42.1 in pass coverage and a 38.6 tackling score as PFF had him with a team-high two missed tackles.

Special Teams

Since it is a key component of some of these players making the 53-man roster, I’m going to include the scores from special teams. Those who stood out the most and had scores over 75.0 were Beanie Bishop (82.2), Jalen Elliott (80.9), John Rhys Plumlee (78.4), and Tyler Matakevich (76.4). At the bottom were Christian Kuntz with a 28.0, likely due to his poor snap on the extra point. The other two players who scored below 40.0 were Ryan Watts (30.0) and Deuce Watts (35.5).

Players scoring in the moderately high range for the Steelers were Jacoby Windmon (69.7), Jeremiah Moon (67.6), and Payton Wilson (65.0).

Overall

I really wanted to give an F for this performance mainly because of how bad things were screwed up with a player like Tyler Beach. I don’t get how a player has his score tanked for snaps where he wasn’t even listed as playing. I also thought the score for Montravius Adams was ridiculous that 3/4 of his snaps were rushing the passer where he did a great job but yet his overall score was more reflective of his run defense which was a very small sample.

Outside of these things, the scores weren’t earth shattering in one way or the other other. Instead it just showed flaws in the system.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: D