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 2 loss to the Bills with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

The top offensive score this week went to wide receiver Dez Fitzpatrick with a 78.2 overall score based on a team-high 76.7 passing score. Scotty Miller was not far behind with a 77.1 overall and a 76.0 passing score. Two other players landed above 70.0 in guard Tyler Beach with a 74.1 and MyCole Pruitt with a 73.4 overall.

The highest score of any player who started the game was a 65.1 for wide receiver Van Jefferson. Russell Wilson was next with a 63.3 overall while the other quarterback, Justin Fields, had a higher overall score of a 64.9. But Wilson had a higher passing score of 62.7 compared to Field’s 58.6. What separated Fields was a 70.0 run score, the top mark on the team this week.

Looking at the bottom scores, Calvin Austin (45.4) and James Daniels (46.7) were at the bottom and the only scores below a 50.0. Austin saw his overall score less than his individual parts most likely because of the false start penalty assessed to him. As for Daniels, he had an 82.0 pass blocking score compared to a 41.9 run blocking score. With 9 of his 15 snaps being pass blocking, one would think his overall score would be closer to that number. Instead, it’s skewed much closer to the running score.

Coming in just above a 50.0 with Broderick Jones with a 50.5. He had a 40.8 pass blocking score which was second worst on the team only behind Najee Harris with a 25.3 on one pass blocking snap. Jones wasn’t much better with the run blocking score of 54.7. Once again, even though he had twice as many pass blocking snaps as run blocking, it seems like the run blocking score is weighted much higher.

To look at the other scores towards the bottom, there is a large cluster grouped together in the 50s. In fact, 21 of the 37 offensive players had an overall score that started with a five.

George Pickens had a below average score of 54.3 overall and a 54.6 in the passing game. Perhaps it was because he wasn’t open enough to have the ball passed to him as to why he didn’t have that high score, but he was only targeted twice where he pulled in one reception and did all that he could to bring in a ball that was thrown too far out of bounds.

Looking at the offensive line, Dan Moore had the highest overall score of any of the starters with a 58.8 despite having a team-high 84.9 pass blocking score on 13 of his 21 snaps. It was Moore’s 41.6 run blocking score on the other eight snaps which brought him down. In all, the Steelers had five players score in the 80s when it came to pass blocking in Moore, Mason McCormick (83.2), Zach Frazier (82.3), Spencer Anderson (82.3), and James Daniels (82.0). The Steelers have very high pass blocking scores as the only linemen below a 70.0 were Dylan Cook (59.0), Isaac Seumalo (47.4), Anderson Hardy (45.0), and Broderick Jones (40.8). But the run blocking scores are quite low with nothing in the 70s with the top mark going to Tyler Beach with a 69.7 score. The only other player to score above a 65.0 was Dylan Cook with a 66.6. I don’t think Steelers did a great job run blocking, but seeing fantastic scores with 9 of the 13 offensive lineman having scores above 70.0 does not match what I saw on Saturday night.

Defense

The top defensive score for the Steelers went to linebacker Luquay Washington with an 87.9 overall based on a team-high run defense score of 80.3. The only other overall score above an 80.0 was Elandon Roberts with an 80.4. Rounding up the top five were Miles Killebrew (79.5), Nick Herbig (76.8), and a tie between DeMarvin Leal and Darius Rush (75.9).

The bottom score by a large margin belonged to Isaiahh Loudermilk with a 29.3 overall based on a 30.0 run defense score, a 24.9 tackling score, and a 49.0 pass rush score. The only other scores below a 45.0 were Payton Wilson (41.5), Kyler McMichael (42.0), Anthony Averett (44.0), and last week’s top defensive score Jacoby Windmon (44.9). Payton Wilson received low marks in run defense (29.6), which was lowest on the team, as well as tackling (32.8). Wilson’s 68.4 coverage score landed him in the top five when it came to coverage, which was half his snaps on the night before leaving with a concussion.

Looking at run defense, the second-highest score behind Washington was Larry Ogubjobi with a 72.9 and the only other player above a 70.0. The top pass rusher was the DeMarvin Leal with a 75.1 followed closely by Nick Herbig with a 74.6 and Keeanu Benton with a 72.3. The top coverage scores went to Thomas Graham (84.1), Darius Rush (76.5), and a tie between Mark Robinson and Miles Killebrew (73.4).

I think PFF did a good job scoring Robinson as he stood out for a good way in coverage for one of the first times in his career. Unfortunately he had a low overall score of 45.5 because he had a 32.1 run defense score.

Special Teams

Making sure I cover this unit during the preseason, the Steelers top two players on special teams scores werr Nick Herbig (84.4) and Mark Robinson (83.4). There were five players that scored higher than a 70.0 with the other three being Christian Kuntz (77.4), Isaiahh Loudermilk (73.3), and Connor Heyward (70.2).

Players not making a great case to squeeze under the roster with poor special team scores were La’Mical Perine (34.4), Ryan Watts (38.6), and Dez Fitzpatrick (46.9). I didn’t notice Watts standing out in a bad way on special teams, but after having a low score last week perhaps PFF is influenced by previous performances like I outlined and last week’s article. I can’t say this for sure, I’m just putting it out there as a possibility.

Overall

There wasn’t anything that jumped out to me where PFF was completely off-base with their scores this week outside of the pass blocking scores. I thought Mark Robinson would be higher because of his pass coverage but did not notice him against the run so maybe he was doing a poor job. I still find it odd that a player can score a high mark in one category with a lot of snaps and a low mark in another category with very few snaps and yet the overall score is skewed towards the lower one. The prime example this week is James Daniels. It’s not like I would give him a great score for this game, but I don’t understand how they could score him in the 80s for 9 of his 15 snaps and him end up with an overall score in the 40s.  Although I think it more accurately describes his play on Saturday, the individual numbers don’t match up. But as I said before, I think a lot of the pass blocking grades are entirely too high this week.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: C