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 7 win over the Jets with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

Leading the way for the Steelers offense this week was wide receiver George Pickens with a 90.1 overall score. Pickens top score of 88.3 in the passing department was not the best on the team as Darnell Washington had an 88.9 passing score. Pickens did lead the team with his blocking score of 74.8.

Speaking of Darnell Washington, he had the second highest overall score with an 83.2. Washington had the second best run blocking score on the team with a 63.5 and also had a quality pass blocking score of 75.4.

The only two other players on the Steelers offense who scored in the 70s overall were Najee Harris (74.4) and Pat Freiermuth (71.3). Freiermuth had an 81.3 passing score but was brought down with a 34.0 run blocking score. As for Harris, he led the team with a 73.5 running score and had the second highest pass blocking score of 76.4.

Looking at the bottom scores, there were three players who scored below 50.0. MyCole Pruitt had a 45.3 overall in his return despite none of his individual scores being this low as he had a 48.8 passing score, a 49.3 run blocking score, and a 73.9 pass blocking score. Ryan McCollum had an overall score of 48.1 with a 48.2 pass blocking score and a 48.3 run blocking score. The third player was Broderick Jones with a 49.8 overall based on a 30.1 pass blocking score and a 57.5 run blocking score. Jones did surrender the only sack for the Steelers against the Jets as well being credited by PFF for two hurries for a total of three pressures.

Looking at some other scores of note, Russell Wilson had a 64.1 overall score based on a 60.7 passing score and a 68.1 running score. Dan Moore had the best overall score of any offensive lineman with a 64.7 overall and was the only offensive lineman with a run blocking score over 60.0 has he had a 61.4 to go along with his 65.9 pass blocking score. Mason McCormick led the team in pass blocking with an 81.7 score but a 48.1 run blocking score dropped his overall down to a 54.9.

Once again, Jaylen Warren was given a low 11.9 pass blocking score, the lowest on the team. He was only deemed to have been a pass blocker three times, and I recall at least once if not more him being noticed on the broadcast for having a great pick up in pass protection.

Defense

On the defensive side of the ball, one player scored above a 90.0 with Keeanu Benton bringing home a 90.2 overall. Benton’s top score was a 83.2 pass rushing score which led the entire defense.

The next highest score and the only score in the 80s belonged to Alex Highsmith with an 84.3. Smith had the top run defense score for the Steelers defense this week with an 85.5.

Only two other players scored above a 70.0 in Beanie Bishop (78.8) and Larry Ogunjobi (71.1). Bishop led the team with a top coverage score of 79.7 and also had an 82.8 tackling score which was best on the defense. As for Ogunjobi, all his scores were in the 70s across the individual categories.

The Steelers had six players score below 50.0 on the defense. Donte Jackson had a 40.7 overall and he had the lowest coverage score of a 31.4. Dean Lowry had a 41.3 overall score despite his individual scores being a 60.0 in run defense and 54.1 for rush defense. Exactly why his overall score was dropped as he didn’t have any penalties is a mystery.

But Lowry isn’t the only player in this regard. Minkah Fitzpatrick had a 42.5 overall score despite having a 61.6 run defense score, a 58.4 tackling score, and a 44.7 coverage score. Isaiahh Loudermilk was much like Lowry as he had a 54.3 run defense score and a 58.5 pass rush score yet only a 44.8 overall score.

The other two players to score below 50.0 on defense were James Pierre (48.4) and Jeremiah Moon (49.7). Pierre had a quality tackling score (77.9) and run defense (64.9), but had only a 45.5 coverage score. Moon was like other defenders as his lowest score was a 51.7 in pass rush but still scored overall lower than the other numbers.

Looking at some other key players, DeShon Elliott and T.J. Watt just missed out on the scoring in the 70s with overall scores of 69.6 and 69.0 respectively. Joey Porter was not far behind with the 68.7 on a 74.7 coverage score which was second highest on the team.

Overall

To give a quick mention of special teams, Dean Lowry had the top score with 93.8 for blocking a kick, but Minkah Fitzpatrick’s blocked kick which was negated by a penalty, one which New York has already apologized for being incorrect, saw his score drop all the way to a 29.5. If anything, it shows us that PFF will count a penalty against a player even if they have the video evidence that it wasn’t.

Frankly, I was not impressed with the scores at all this week. With PFF continuing to give Jaylen Warren poor pass blocking grades despite him being given accolades for doing so simply shows they don’t know what they are looking at. Maybe they should get some actual football people judging these kinds of things because their criteria for a running back picking up a blitz simply is not accurate.

I also found the defensive scores to be quite odd with so many players getting poor scores overall when their individual scores weren’t nearly as bad. I don’t understand how a player can have a average score of 60.0 in one category and a slightly below average score of 54.1 in another and drop them all the way down to a 41.3. I realize multiple low scores can compound it to make the overall score even lower, but that wasn’t the case. Once again the lack of transparency about the grading only creates more criticism.

When it comes to the offensive line, I felt that PFF was off again. Only one lineman had a grade that was barely above average when it came to run blocking? That did not pass my eye test. I also did not have Ryan McCollum tearing up the world but I also didn’t have him that poor in both aspects of offensive line play. I also felt that Brodrick Jones was better this week than he had been (especially last week) and his score still remained about the same.

To me, there were just too many anomalies. Add in the fact PFF is completely ignorant of how running backs pick up players in pass protection, and their grades this week just can’t be trusted.

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