Earlier this season I decided to switch up how I report the grades by Pro Football Focus (PFF) because of some of the absurdity of their findings. 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 14 loss to the Patriots with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

Before getting into the scores, it should be noted that there were no offensive players who reached the 80.0 mark with their overall score. The top grade went to Connor Heyward who scored a 79.0 on 11 snaps, partly due to his passing score of 80.1 which was second on the team. The leading passing score went to Jaylen Warren with an 83.3, but he finished with a 66.0 overall score due to a 57.1 run blocking score, a 58.6 running score, and a 30.0 pass blocking score.

There were only three other players who scored above a 70.0, all of which were on the Steelers offensive line. Isaac Seumalo had a 76.2 overall followed by James Daniels with a 72.6. Mason Cole once again scored higher than expected with a 70.9 overall score. As for the rest of the starting offensive linemen, they were two of the next three scores with Broderick Jones with a 68.4 and Dan Moore Jr. with a 64.3. It was James Daniels who brought in the highest pass blocking score of an 81.6 followed by Broderick Jones with a 78.2. The top run blockers were Isaac Seumalo with a 76.4 and Mason Cole with a 74.3.

Looking at the scores at the other end of the spectrum, Chuks Okorafor scored only a 41.9 in his three offensive snaps. The fact that he had a penalty called on him which was declined did not help his score. But the second lowest score, and the only other score below a 50.0, went to quarterback Mitch Trubisky who had a 44.8 overall grade. Although Trubisky had a team-high 69.5 running score, what brought him down was a 39.7 passing score. Some of what led to Trubisky’s score was he was credited with no big-time throws and two turnover-worthy plays.

Defense

The Steelers defense was very much in contrast to the offense as they had five players score above 80.0. Leading the way was Armon Watts with an 86.6 overall score on his 15 snaps followed by newly active linebacker Blake Martinez with an 85.1 overall score on 21 snaps. The rest of the top five rounded out with Cam Hayward (83.9), Alex Highsmith (82.6), and Patrick Peterson (80.5).

Peterson landed with his grade because he had the top coverage score of 81.6 followed by two players that were very close to each other in Minkah Fitzpatrick (72.7) and Joey Porter Jr. (72.4). They also happened to have the next two overall scores behind Peterson with a 77.8 and 72.6 respectively. Montravius Adams brought the other score above a 70.0 with his 72.3 overall score in his return.

Landing at the bottom of the scores was Isaiahh Loudermilk with a 29.2 overall score on his 10 snaps. The other two players who were toward the bottom and below a 50.0 were Trenton Thompson (46.5), and Mykal Walker (44.6). Even though Walker came through with the interception, he had the lowest coverage score on the Steelers by far with a 38.4 as he was picked on whenever he was on the field.

T.J. Watt finished in the middle of the defense with a 68.5 overall score despite having the top pass rushing score of 84.5. What brought Watt down was a 58.3 run defense score, a 53.5 coverage score, and a 38.9 tackling score.

According to PFF, the Steelers had a drop in production and outside linebacker when Alex Highsmith left the game as Nick Herbig scored a 64.5 which was 18 points lower than Highsmith. Herbig had marks in the 60s for both pass rush and run defense but had only a 51.3 coverage score and 49.9 tackling score.

Once again, Elandon Roberts did not come through with the score that I thought he would have based on how much he impacted the game compared to others at the position. The 63.7 overall score isn’t terrible, and his 70.8 rushing score was tied for fifth on the team. Roberts was brought down with a 51.6 coverage score and a 28.3 tackling score as PFF had him with three missed tackles.

Overall

It should be noted that the top score overall this week came on special teams as Miles Killebrew brought home a 91.1 score due to his blocked punt. Otherwise I didn’t see much of a problem with the scores this week. While some might have believed the offensive line all being towards the top of the offense is not accurate, I didn’t have a lot of problems with their play during the game. I would have had Mason Cole as the lowest lineman instead of in the middle.

Mitch Trebisky coming in with a low grade is what I expected as I got frustrated with him throwing off of his back foot and he had too many passes that were on the verge of being intercepted.

I thought the defense did a nice job after the first 22 minutes of the game but it was already lost at that point because they surrendered 21 points which was too much for the offense to overcome. The players who were scoring high on defense I felt were playing well. I felt that Nick Herbig did admirable as well as Elandon Roberts, and it felt like T.J. Watt was banged up but playing through it admirably and therefore not scoring too high.

When it came to some of the position players on offense, I can’t really argue with their grades. Players like Jaylen Warren (66.0), Diontae Johnson (63.8), Najee Harris (61.9), Pat Freiermuth (61.3), and George Pickens (52.6), didn’t do anything out of the ordinary to cover for the inadequacies the Steelers had at quarterback. Therefore I don’t really have much of a problem with the scores.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: B