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

Offense

Last week the Steelers saw the player who had the top offensive PFF scored the previous week fall to the very bottom. This week, it’s right back to the top as Cordarrelle Patterson led the way with the 73.8 overall score based on a team-high 72.2 running score. Patterson achieved this score playing only six offensive snaps.

The only other player above a 70.0 this week for the Steelers offense was Ben Skowronek with a 72.6 overall score from a team-high 71.6 passing score. The only other players to score above a 65.0 for the offense were Justin Fields (68.2) on his single snap as well as Calvin Austin (68.1) and Connor Heyward (66.8).

With not many quality scores at the top, the Steelers also didn’t have that many scores at the bottom. Only two players were below a 50.0 overall in Najee Harris (37.8) and Scotty Miller (43.6). Harris had a 37.8 running score, largely in part to his costly fumble. As for Miller, he had the lowest passing score on the team with a 45.7.

Looking where others stood out was Mason McCormick having the top pass blocking score of 73.7 but only pulling a 55.8 overall score because of a low 49.4 run blocking score. When it came to run blocking, Van Jefferson led the team with a 76.6 but had a 53.1 overall score because of a 53.5 passing score as well as a penalty. Darnell Washington was second in both blocking categories with a 68.2 run blocking score and a 70.7 pass blocking score. Washington had a 59.9 overall score which was brought down by a 51.5 passing score as well as being dinged for a penalty even though it wasn’t accepted.

The top pass blocking offensive lineman was Dan Moore Jr. with a 68.1. The only other lineman with a score above a 60.0 in run blocking was Isaac Seumalo with a 64.5. For Seumalo, he was given a very poor pass blocking score of 32.2 as he was credited with giving up five pressures but none of which were sacks. In typical PFF fashion, Jaylen Warren had a 4.7 pass blocking grade on only two snaps. I don’t remember both of them, but I remember one drawing a comment from someone from the Steelers media about Warren showing how he’s the best pass blocking running back in the NFL. Yet PFF calls these types of plays failures to a terrible degree which basically shows their skills of doing this is even more of a failure to a terrible degree.

Defense

The Steelers only had one player to score above an 80.0 on either side of the ball with T.J. Watt pulling in an 88.7 overall defensive score. Watt had quality scores across the board as he had the second-best run defense score on the team of 77.0, the third-best tackling score of 76.1, and a team-high pass rushing score of 78.9.

The Steelers only had three other players to score a 70.0 or higher in Beanie Bishop (73.3), Alex Highsmith (72.4), and Damonate Kazee (70.0).

When it came to scores at the bottom, the only player below a 50.0 was Payton Wilson with a 49.3 overall. The biggest contributor to Wilson’s score was a 49.2 coverage score along with a 29.7 tackling score.

Speaking of tackling scores, the Steelers had 10 players score below a 50.0 in tackling with six being below a 30.0. In all, the Steelers were credited with 17 missed tackles by PFF, their most of the season by far as the only other game where they reached double digits was 10 against the Browns in Cleveland.

The top run defense score of the game belonged to Patrick Queen with a 78.0, but a low coverage score of 43.1 brought him down to a 61.3 overall. The top coverage score surprisingly went to Nick Herbig with a 77.9 on only two snaps. The next score went to Beanie Bishop with a 73.6.

Some other notable players from the Steelers defense were Cam Heyward with a 66.1 overall score, Joey Porter Jr. with a 63.3 overall, and Minkah Fitzpatrick with a 68.0 overall score.

Overall

To note some special team scores, Mark Robinson led the way with a 91.9 because of his forced fumble in the first quarter. Boswell once again had a good field goal score of a 67.5 while Corliss Waitman was dinged to only a 55.5.

I can’t say that I’m really surprised with much with these scores this week. Players that I thought did average had average scores. Offensively, Russell Wilson, Broderick Jones, and Dan Moore all scored in the lower 60s which seemed to be fair. Defensively I wasn’t really shocked by anything either. I know some were complaining about Joey Porter Jr. following the game but I thought he played alright and his 63.3 overall score seemed to reflect that.

But once again, PFF gets ripped down for not knowing how to score running back in pass protection. How do you get Jaylen Warren on a 4.7 score on two pass plays? It’s like they don’t know what they’re watching, or they’re trying to hold a running back to us the same standard that they would hold an offensive lineman. Until they fix this kind of foolishness, PFF will continue to have their scores be mentioned more in a scoffing manner than that of being credible.

My grade of this week’s PFF scores: C