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 18 loss to the Bengals with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

The grades on offense seem to be very unusual with several I don’t agree with. The top grade of an 89.8 went to MyCole Pruitt based on a team-high 82.6 run blocking score from nine of his 11 snaps. Pruitt had a 69.7 pass blocking score on one snap and a 60.0 passing score on another snap.

There were three other players who all scored in the 70s for the Steelers. Pat Freirmuth had a 74.7 overall based on a 76.6 passing score and a 69.6 pass blocking score. Freirmuth also had a team-low 37.5 run blocking score.

The other two players to score in the 70s were Russell Wilson with a 72.7 overall and Mike Williams with a 72.2. Williams had a 70.4 passing score as all of his snaps were on pass plays which probably isn’t a wise thing to tip off opponents. The fact that Russell Wilson had a quality score is baffling to me as it seemed like it was his worst game in a Steelers uniform. Although he did not turn the ball over, Wilson made poor decisions throughout the game yet still had a 71.2 passing grade. I’m not sure what was going on here.

When it came to scores at the bottom, there were three players on offense that scored below a 50. Dan Moore Jr. had a 40.2 overall grade with both of his blocking scores below a 40. Moore I had a 39.3 pass blocking grade and a 37.9 run blocking grade. George Pickens also had a low score of 42.1 with a team-low 42.4 passing score. While most had Pickens dropping three passes in the game, PFF only credited him with two. The other score below a 50 was Calvin Austin with a 43.1 overall and a 44.0 passing score. Austin’s fumble on special teams did not factor into this score, but his one drop with no catches did.

The top passing score in this game went to Najee Harris with an 81.4. But with only a 60.7 running score his overall grade was a 66.4. The top pass blocker was Zach Frazier with a 78.3 followed by Mason McCormick with a 73.1. When it came to run blocking, after Pruitt was Darnell Washington with a 68.8 and Connor Heyward with a 68.0. The only offensive lineman above a 60.0 was Isaac Seumalo with a 61.0.

Defense

The Steelers had two defenders who scored in the 80s this week with T.J. Watt bringing in an 88.8 and Elandon Roberts having an 82.2. Watt had a quality pass rushing score of 89.3 which was second only to Patrick Queen’s 90.5. But Queen only had a 52.5 run defense score and a 58.6 coverage score bringing him down to a 64.9 overall. When it came to Elandon Roberts, he had decent marks across the board with an 81.8 in pass rush, 74.0 for tackling, 69.4 for run defense, and 67.5 in coverage.

The Steelers had five other players who scored in the 70s in Beanie Bishop (77.2), Alex Highsmith (77.1), Cam Heyward (74.6), Payton Wilson (73.8), and Minkah Fitzpatrick (71.0). Payton Wilson had the top coverage score of 76.6 followed closely by Beanie Bishop with 76.2 on only six snaps. Alex Highsmith brought the top run defense score of 73.7 with the next score going to Cory Trice with a 73.4.

When it came to players at the bottom of the list, there were only two players who scored below a 50.0. Larry Ogunjobi came in with a 36.7 overall based on a 34.5 run defense score. DeShon Elliott, despite making a number of quality plays, had a 42.7 overall score based on a team-low 40.9 coverage score. Elliott was deemed to have given up five receptions on six targets for 37 yards. Cory Trice was the next lowest coverage score with a 52.5 but he was credited with giving up 83 yard yards on 10 receptions from 11 targets as well as the Bengals only touchdown.

The top tackling score from the game went to Cory Trice with an 82.6 followed by DeShon Elliott with an 82.0 with Payton Wilson and Cam Sutton next, both with an 80.6.

Overall

These scores seemed kind of weird to me. I don’t get why MyCole Pruitt was so high and I can’t believe Russell Wilson had a quality grade. While those scores seemed inaccurate, seeing Dan Moore and George Pickens at the bottom was exactly where they should have been. So while there were some things that were off, others made sense.

On defense I was really surprised about DeShon Elliott and his score. There is no way I thought he was the biggest problem in coverage in this game, and the stats don’t even seem to back that up. Otherwise nothing jumped out as being terribly wrong there either.

When it comes to these grades this week, I feel a lot like I do about the Steelers after dropping their latest game… indifferent. There may be some that are good and some that are bad, but overall it’s just doesn’t move the needle for me.

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