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 Week 10 win over the Commanders with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

I first want to start off saying that PFF counted the fake punt an offensive play because the Steelers did not kick the ball. This created a lot of players being listed on offense that were only there for one snap. Rather than going into the good score for Miles Killebrew (73.1) and the low score for James Pierre (41.5), which unfortunately did not affect their special team score because of this, I’m just simply going to omit them.

The top score for offense this week belonged to George Pickens with an 80.5 overall. Pickens had an 82.8 passing score, which was top on the Steelers offense, along with a 60.1 run blocking score.

The next highest score belonged to Russell Wilson with a 79.9 overall. Wilson had a 65.7 running score and a 77.5 passing score. While I felt Wilson showed a lot of great leadership and some good decisions, I felt his accuracy was suspect at times throughout the game and was surprised he scored so high by PFF.

Mike Williams made the best of his nine snaps for the Steelers as he had a 78.6 overall score based on a 75.6 passing score and a 60.0 run blocking score.

The next high score may surprise people. Broderick Jones had the highest score of any offensive lineman this week with a 74.0, his best this season as well as any game played at right tackle in his career (he had a 74.8 overall against Baltimore last year when stating a left tackle). Jones had a team-high pass blocking score of 82.7 and a run blocking score of 66.9 which was only behind Darnell Washington (73.8). According to PFF, Jones did not give up one pressure in the game.

Other scores that finished above 70.0 for the Steelers offense were Darnell Washington (73.8) and Cordarrelle Patterson (70.6). Dan Moore Jr. just missed it as the next player with a 69.8 overall.

Looking at the bottom scores, Mason McCormick had the lowest score with a 44.5 overall. McCormick did have a quality 69.7 pass blocking score, but he had a 39.5 run blocking score which was the lowest of any offensive lineman.

Other scores that came in below a 50.0 were Calvin Austin (46.5) and Michael Pruitt (47.3). Austin saw his low score due to a 38.6 run blocking score and a 49.5 passing score. As for Pruitt, his score came below 50 despite all his others being above with a 51.7 passing score, 73.3 pass blocking score, and 50.4 run blocking score.

Other notable players on the Steelers offense were Najee Harris with a 60.9 overall. Jaylen Warren came in lower with a 57.3 overall and a team-low 55.9 running score most likely because of his fumble. In his first game back from injury, Zach Frazier scored a 55.2 overall, the lowest of his career, with a 69.1 pass blocking score and a 57.0 run blocking score but was apparently brought down even more due to having one penalty called on him which I still haven’t figured out why it was called.

Defense

Steelers fans might be surprised how the PFF scores fell for the Steelers defense, and there’s definitely one anomaly I will call out.

The top score for the day ended up belonging to Alex Highsmith with a 77.8. Highsmith had the second-highest pass rushing score of 76.8 as well as a 60.7 run defense score and a 70.5 tackling score.

The second-highest score belonged to T.J. Watt in a game where he did not record a sack or a tackle. Watt had a 74.0 pass rushing score, a 63.7 run defense score, and a 60.0 coverage score. Much like Highsmith, Watt’s overall score exceeded any of his individuals. But one category that was missing was a tackling score because Watt did not have any tackles although PFF did credit him with one missed tackle.

The next highest grade belonged to Preston Smith, giving the outside linebackers all the top spots. Smith had a 72.1 overall score based on a team-high 72.4 coverage score, a 71.5 tackling score, a 65.0 run defense score, and a 56.7 pass rushing score. What I do find interesting is PFF does not credit Smith with a sack which was credited to him in the official game stats. In this case, I think PFF might have it right as the only play that Smith could have been credited for a sack was when he tracked down Dyami Brown for an 11-yard loss after he caught a pass but was looking to pass the ball back to Jayden Daniels. Whether or not that really should officially be a sack is beyond me, but I would not consider it to be one.

The only other two overall scores above a 70.0 belonged to Keeanu Benton (71.6) and Peyton Wilson (70.1). Benton’s score was based off of a team-high pass rush score of 80.4 as they gave him credit for a sack on a play which was one that was completely credited to Cam Heyward by the official statistics. As for Payton Wilson, he just had solid marks across the board with a 73.2 tackling score, a 66.5 coverage score, and a 63.0 run defense score.

Players who scored at the bottom were led by Cam Sutton with a 27.4 overall score. This was based on a 27.9 coverage score which I find to be completely head-scratching. According to PFF statistics, Sutton was targeted three times but did not give up a reception in the game. How is that the worst coverage score?

Other scores on the Steelers defense below a 50.0 were Joey Porter Jr. (33.4), Donte Jackson (41.2), and Larry Ogunjobi 46.9. Joey Porter’s score was based on a 31.9 coverage score where he was deemed to give up six receptions for 131 yards. While I do believe the penalties should count against Porter in the score, the numbers don’t seem right as this means he was credited with giving up the 54 yard reception to Terry McLaurin. Even though Porter was the one who ran him down, I’m not sure he was the closest player on the Steelers to him when he made the catch as it was more in the zone of Minkah Fitzpatrick. Larry Ogunjobi, who rarely gets any love from PFF, was another one of those players whose overall score was lower than any of his individuals.

Some other notable scores include Patrick Queen who had a 64.0 overall score based on an 80.4 tackling score, a team-high 71.1 run defense score, a 66.2 coverage score, but was brought down by a 50.1 pass rush score from only five of his 64 snaps.

The top tackling score belonged to DeShon Elliott with an 81.2 but he was brought down with a 54.2 coverage score to give him a 60.5 overall.

A very curious score belonged to Cam Hayward with a 55.2 overall score based on a 50.3 run defense score, a 66.2 pass rush score, and a 30.3 tackling score. I was surprised Heyward‘s pass rush score was so low with two sacks to his credit, but the bigger mystery is why Heyward had a 30.3 tackling score when he was credited with one missed tackle but no additional tackles. Of course his two sacks should each be a tackle, but yet that was his score. Yet when T.J. Watt had a missed tackle but no other tackles to his credit, they simply did not give him a score. Something is definitely fishy going on there.

Overall

This week had some really weird scores. With the fake punt counting as an offensive play, there was not really anything standing out on special teams with their scores. But there was plenty of curious things going on otherwise.

I feel the offensive scores were pretty close. I was surprised that Russell Wilson graded as well as he did, but I’m not going to complain about it. His intangibles often outweigh his incompletions.

The big issues came on defense. I’m glad that T.J. Watt is getting some recognition, but I did not expect him to score this high this week, especially with someone like Cam Heyward scoring so low. I really don’t understand how T.J. Watt has no tackles and one missed tackle and Cam Heyward had the same thing yet Watt has no tackling score while Heyward has a 30.3. If anything, Heyward had more “tackles“ because of having two sacks. that should not bring his score down. I also find it strange when it came to Cam Sutton’s coverage score and some of the stats they gave to Joey Porter. Things just didn’t seem right.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: D