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 15 loss to the Colts with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

Total scores for the offense were way down as I expected them to be. In fact, there were only four players on offense who had a score above 60.0. Diontae Johnson led the way with a 77.2 overall score based on his 76.1 passing score. The other three scores above 60.0 were Jaylen Warren (68.8), George Pickens (68.3), and Allen Robinson (65.1).

When it comes to the other end of the spectrum with the grades, there were seven players who scored below a 50.0. The scores came from three starting offensive linemen, two tight ends, and the six snaps taken by Mason Rudolph.

Speaking of offensive linemen, they had very low grades across the board. When it came to run blocking, not a single lineman reached a 60.0 grade but the bottom two scores were tight ends in Connor Hayward (37.3) and Pat Freiermuth (32.8). When it came to pass blocking, the scores were even lower as Mason Cole had the best pass blocking score of any lineman with a 50.9. The other pass blocking scores went Isaac Seumalo (47.0), Dan Moore (27.5), Broderick Jones (19.3), and James Daniels (0.0). Daniels had the worst score overall for the Steelers with a 28.1 with the next worst being Broderick Jones with a 38.7.

When it came to the quarterbacks, Mitch Trubisky’s score wasn’t that terrible with a 57.4 with Mason Rudolph coming in with a 41.0. Regardless of which quarterback was better, neither of them were good enough.

Defense

Despite surrendering 30-straight points, the Steelers actually had five players on defense who scored above an 80.0. But when looking at who achieved the scores, they aren’t all that surprising. The top score of an 88.2 was James Pierre on his one defensive snap where he gave up at 6 yard reception and came up with a tackle. The next two scores were the backup outside linebackers in Nick Herbig (83.5) and Markus Golden (82.0). Minkah Fitzpatrick had an 81.8 overall score before he left due to injury, and the other score that was up there for the Steelers was T.J. Watt with an 80.6.

The defense did have one player who scored in the 70s with Larry Ogunjobi with a 78.4.

Much like the offense, the Steelers defense had seven players who had a score below a 50.0. Linebackers Mykal Walker (47.4) and Mark Robinson (38.7) were towards the bottom as well as defensive linemen Montravius Adams (47.0), Cam Heyward (44.3), and DeMarvin Leal (30.3). The other two spots below 50.0 belong to players in the secondary with Joey Porter Jr. (45.1) and Trenton Thompson (31.6).

Joey Porter landed with his lowest score of the season based on a 39.0 coverage score which was second worst on the team. The only player to have a worse coverage score was Mark Robinson (37.5).

One thing that was surprising was the Steelers had the same number of players above a 60.0 in run defense as they did below. The top run defense scores went to Nick Herbig (76.9) and Elandon Roberts (75.9). With the Steelers not being able to stop the run in the second half, it’s surprising that more players didn’t have lower scores.

Overall

Believe it or not, I didn’t think the grades were that far off this week. When the team doesn’t play well, players deserve to have lower grades. The offensive line grades were bad but so was their play. I don’t agree with a player getting a 0.0 in pass blocking regardless of how the game played out. I just don’t get how a player who gave up no sacks gets that kind of score based on four pressures.

On defense, the grades made sense. The performance was uninspiring as were their scores. There were a few players that played well, but the ones with the highest scores came from a number of guys that didn’t play much.

I find myself this week not caring much about the scores because I didn’t care much about the Steelers performance. I guess my indifference is rubbing off on critiquing the grades.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: B-