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 17 win over the Seahawks with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

The top offensive scores came from three players clustered together with very little separation. Coming out on top was quarterback Mason Rudolph with an overall score of 87.6 and a passing score of 86.9. Rudolph‘s passing score was fourth highest in the NFL for Week 17 only behind Lamar Jackson (93.9), Jordan Love (90.5), and Jalen Hurts (90.3). Rudolph’s 87.6 overall score was the highest of his NFL career and more than 20 points higher than the previous week despite having more passing yards and touchdowns against the Bengals. Rudolph did have a better completion percentage and yards per attempt against Seattle.

The next two top scores on the offense coming in just behind Rudolph was George Pickens and Najee Harris tied with an 87.4 overall score. Pickens was based on an 86.2 receiving score which was sixth best in the NFL this week. Najee Harris had an 83.7 running score which brought up his overall grade and was the second-best running score in the NFL in Week 17 only behind Aaron Jones (84.4). It should also be noted Jaylen Warren had the third-best running score in the NFL last week of 83.4 which led to his 82.4 overall score. Warren also had high scores in both pass blocking (76.3) and run blocking (80.3) and scored significantly higher than Harris in all categories but running where he was only 0.3 behind. Yet Harris has a five point better overall score, likely based off of having many more running snaps than Warren.

Beyond the four players already mentioned, they were two other players who had a score of 70.0 or above for the Steelers offense. Diontae Johnson had a 78.6 overall score with a 77.0 passing score while Broderick Jones lead all offensive lineman for the Steelers with a 70.8 overall score based on his 65.3 pass blocking score and 70.7 run blocking score. The only other two players with scores above a 60.0 were Isaac Seumalo (66.5) and Connor Heyward (66.4).

Coming in at the bottom of the scores were four players who had grades below a 50.0. Those players included Allen Robinson (49.7), Mason Cole (48.5), James Daniels (47.9), and Darnell Washington (41.3).

Defense

The highest score on the Steelers defense came as the highest score in any individual game by any defender in the NFL this year. In fact, it’s the highest score I have ever seen. With a 99.0 but from only two defensive snaps, Nick Herbig led the way for the Steelers with his huge defensive play which also earned him a 97.1 pass rushing score. Coming in behind Herbig was the other reserve outside linebacker Markus Golden who had a 91.5 overall score with a 91.7 pass rush score where in his nine snaps, six of which were rushing the passer, Golden had three quarterback hits.

The only other player on the Steelers defense who scored above an 80.0 was Chandon Sullivan with an 83.0 overall score. Sullivan had the Steelers best coverage score of an 84.1 which was based on 22 coverage snaps. According to PFF, Sullivan was targeted three times where he gave up two receptions for 9 yards and had a pass breakup.

There were four other Steelers defenders to finish with scores in the 70s in Montravius Adams (76.8), Levi Wallace (75.3), Alex Highsmith (72.9), and T.J. Watt (70.9). Both Adam‘s and Watt had their high scores based on their pass rush were Adams had a 90.8 and Watt had an 82.3. Although Alex Highsmith pass rushing score was less with a 76.8, he had a quality coverage score of 64.3. Speaking of coverage, Levi Wallace had a 75.8 coverage score which was third on the team only behind Sullivan and Elijah Riley (79.4).

Despite having only a 68.8 overall score, Myles Jack led the Steelers in run defense score by a large margin with an 85.2.

The Steelers had three players on defense score below a 40.0 as James Pierre pulled in a 38.8 overall score on his two snaps despite being given 60.0 scores in both run defense and coverage. I believe Pierre’s coverage score is a mistake as he only played one snap in coverage where he surrendered a 12-yard touchdown. The other two players coming in with the lowest scores on defense were Armon Watt’s (28.3) and Mark Robinson (27.8). Watts and Robinson had the two lowest run defense scores with 36.2 and 36.4 respectively. Robinson also had the lowest coverage score on the defense with a 37.2.

Overall

There wasn’t too many grades that stood out egregiously this week. I’m not sure that Mason Rudolph‘s performance this week was 20 points higher than the week before. Frankly if you were to average the two scores and give him the same for both games I would probably be fine with that number. Otherwise on the offense, I didn’t notice James Daniel standing out in a bad way in which his grades dictated but at this time I can’t say for sure.

On the deffense, I’m not surprised the numbers came out the way they did to give Nick Herbig such a great score when he only played two snaps and one of them was a sack, forced fumble, and fumble recovery all in one. Obviously if he would have played more snaps it would have brought down his score significantly. I still don’t understand the individual scores for James Pierre as they simply had to be an error as his overall score being low is not surprising. While some might be surprised that Levi Wallace had a quality score, I thought he actually stood out in a good way in this game and was not a liability for the Steelers as, according to PFF, he only gave up one reception for 4 yards.

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