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 Wild Card loss to the Ravens with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

For a game where the Steelers only had 59 yards of offense in the first half, I’m surprised they ended up with some of the positive scores that they did. There were three players who scored in the 80s for the Steelers with the top honor going to Mike Williams with an 84.9. Williams had an 80.6 passing score from seven snaps and a 60.0 run blocking score from the other two snaps.

The next highest score went to Russell Wilson. Wilson was dinged for a 51.4 running score on just one snap while having an 83.8 passing score. The other score in the 80s for the Steelers was George Pickens with an 80.8 based on a 78.6 passing score.

The Steelers had three players score in the 70s with all three being offensive lineman. Zach Frazier had a 75.0 overall score based on an 83.2 pass blocking score and a 72.1 run blocking score. Spencer Anderson had a 73.5 overall score based on a 77.8 pass blocking score and a 68.4 run blocking score. Calvin Anderson, who took over for an injured Dan Moore Jr., had a 73.2 overall score based on a 71.9 pass blocking score and 72.6 run blocking score.

When it came to scores at the bottom, there were two players who scored below a 50.0 in Darnell Washington (42.5) and Isaac Saeumalo (49.0). Washington had a 71.6 pass blocking grade but only a 40.1 run blocking grade and 48.0 passing grade. As for Seumalo, he had a 58.6 pass blocking grade and a 55.3 run blocking grade along with a penalty.

The next lowest grade belongs to Pat Freiermuth with with a 50.2 based on a 45.7 passing grade. Freiermuth did have a 71.7 pass blocking grade and a team-high 77.6 run blocking grade.

The top passing grade went to Najee Harris with an 89.8. But with a 54.9 running grade and a 16.0 pass blocking grade his overall score was a 57.7. The top pass blocking grade went to Dan Moore Jr. with an 83.7 just ahead of Zach Frazier. But Moore ended up with only a 60.9 overall grade because he had a 45.5 run blocking grade.

The top running grade went to Jaylen Warren with a 61.3. Even with a 65.3 passing grade he ended up with a 60.9 overall grade because he was given a 35.3 pass blocking grade. They have been off on Warren‘s pass blocking for so long I just assumed that the score is wrong.

When it came to run blocking, behind Pat Freiermuth the next highest grade was Calvin Anderson with a 72.6. But the Steelers only had nine total run blocking plays so I didn’t expect very good scores in that department.

Defense

Only one player scored above an 80 for the Steelers defense and he did so by leading two different categories. Elandon Roberts had an 80.9 overall score with a team-high run defense score of 82.0 and a team-high tackling score of 84.8. Although the Steelers did not stop the run or tackle well, Roberts was the best Steelers had to offer.

There were four scorers in the 70s with Miles Killebrew (77.7), Keeanu Benton (74.5), Isaiahh Lowdermilk (72.6), and Damontae Kazee (71.5). Killebrew only played eight snaps and they were all against the run and he scored in the 70s in both run defense and tackling. Keeanu Benton had a 66.1 run defense score but had a team-high 79.8 pass rushing score. Loudermilk also had scores in the 70s for run defense and tackling but only a 55.1 pass rush score. As for Kazee, he had a 72.0 run defense score, an 80.1 tackling score, but only a 61.9 coverage score.

When it came to scores at the bottom, there were plenty. Two players scored in the 30s in Cam Sutton (32.7) and Montravius Adams (33.6). Sutton had a team-low 30.0 coverage score along with a 29.3 tackling score and a 60.1 run defense score. Adams had a team-low 32.8 run defense score along with a 67.3 tackling score and 65.4 pass rush score.

There were three players who scored in the 40s for the Steelers in Minkah Fitzpatrick (41.5), Patrick Queen (45.1), and Larry Ogunjobi (49.2). All three players had run defense scores in the 40s and barely had anything above a 60 in any other category.

One key statistic for the game is the Steelers had 14 missed tackles according to PFF. Additionally, the Steelers only had one sack with no additional quarterback hits but we’re credited with having 20 hurries.

The top coverage score in the game, by a large margin, went to DeShon Elliott with a 79.0. Elliott also had a quality tackling score of 84.1, but his run defense score of 50.9 brought his overall score down to a 69.5.

For those who were curious, T.J. Watt barely escaped being mentioned in the lowest score as he had a 51.5 overall score based on a 41.7 run defense score, a 21.3 tackling score as he was credited with two missed tackles, a 64.1 pass score, and a 60.8 coverage score. Cam Heyward finished with a 67.6 overall score with a 67.9 run defense score, a 55.2 tackling score, and a 56.5 pass rush score.

Overall

For the final game of the season, I’m kind of indifferent with how things were scored. I was surprised Wilson scored so high although he did manage to make some plays in the second half. Unfortunately, there were not enough plays in the first half to keep the game from getting out of hand. It made sense for Williams and Pickens to have quality scores based on their quality catches. Additionally, I didn’t think the offensive line was the problem in this game and their scores tell a similar story. So I feel like that confirmed more what I thought even though it went against some of the narrative about the game.

On defense, I’m surprised there wasn’t more poor scores for run defense based on how many yards the Steelers gave up. There were 10 players who scored above a 60.0 in run defense while nine scored below a 60.0. If there would have been more extremely low scores I thought that might have been helpful, but that’s not how it ended up. I wasn’t surprised Elandon Robert had the top score because I thought he was one of the few players giving a very high effort.

I’m still kind of numb about the season being over, so these scores really are numb to me. At this point, none of it really matters because every player should have had a failing grade with the Steelers getting beat the way they did to end their season.

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