The Pittsburgh Steelers kicked off their 2023 regular season on Sunday, but not at all how they and the fan base hoped things would go. The Steelers offense was held without a first down until almost halftime and only had one score on the day. As for the defense, they gave up scores on each of the first four drives of the game.

But how did the individual players grade out?

For this exercise, we will be looking at the player grades from Pro Football Focus (PFF) for the Steelers Week 1 performance. It is their performance just this week and not combined with the preseason. Before going any further, I must give my typical disclaimer that PFF grades are subjective and merely an opinion. While some people rely on them heavily, others are quite skeptical of the process in which they are determined. It is completely up to each person as to how much stock they put into PFF’s grades. For me, I often look at the grades to see if my own “eye test” lines up with what others viewed as how a player performed and sometimes it causes me to look more at a certain player when looking at things a second time. If nothing more, the grades create a discussion about how accurate, or inaccurate, they are each week.

Instead of looking at the entire team at once, we break up the scores into offense and defense. After looking at the offense yesterday, next up this week is the defense. Included will be the players who played at least one snap and the total snap counts for each player will be included. For reference sake, the Steelers played 68 snaps on defense in Sunday’s game.

Overall

Top 5 (regardless of position)

OLB T.J. Watt: 94.4 (48 snaps)
DT Keeanu Benton: 86.1 (29 snaps)
OLB Alex Highsmith: 78.3 (49 snaps)
OLB Markus Golden: 77.3 (25 snaps)
DT Larry Ogubjobi: 75.4 (43 snaps)

Bottom 5 (regardless of position)

DT Montravius Adams: 52.7 (34 snaps)
DT Isaiahh Loudermilk: 50.7 (31 snaps)
ILB Cole Holcomb: 48.7 (53 snaps)
S Damontae Kazee: 47.8 (49 snaps)
CB Levi Wallace: 43.3 (67 snaps)

Defensive Front Five

OLB T.J. Watt: 94.4 (48 snaps)
DT Keeanu Benton: 86.1 (29 snaps)
OLB Alex Highsmith: 78.3 (49 snaps)
OLB Markus Golden: 77.3 (25 snaps)
DT Larry Ogubjobi: 75.4 (43 snaps)
DT DeMarvin Leal: 68.9 (26 snaps)
OLB Nick Herbig: 59.6 (15 snaps)
DT Cam Heyward: 56.9 (14 snaps)
DT Montravius Adams: 52.7 (34 snaps)
DT Isaiahh Loudermilk: 50.7 (31 snaps)

This position group not only held the entire top five, but even had the top six. T.J. Watt not only topped the Steelers list, but he was the top edge rusher in the NFL with his 94.4 and is the third-highest ranked defender only behind Colts linebacker E.J. Speed (94.) and Falcon’s safety Jesse Bates (94.5). It was Watt’s 94.9 pass rushing score which set him apart. It was also great to see Keeanu Benton with a quality score in his first NFL regular season game. Benton‘s breakdown came from an 82.9 pass rush score, 72.0 run defense score, and a 69.0 tackling score.  While some felt Alex Highsmith wasn’t making as much of an impact in the game, he still had a quality score mainly due to his team-high 81.2 run defense score. In all, this was the only position group that had more than half of their players above the 60.0 threshold.

Inside Linebackers

ILB Kwon Alexander: 61.2 (47 snaps)
ILB Elandon Roberts: 59.5 (29 snaps)
ILB Cole Holcomb: 48.7 (53 snaps)

Steelers fans should be used to seeing low PFF scores from the inside linebackers based on 2022. With Kwon Alexander just above the starting score and Elandon Roberts coming in and just behind, snap counts may have been the biggest takeaway from this position. What pushed Alexander over the top was his tackling score of 81.6 which came in second only to Minkah Fitzpatrick. Elandon Roberts was second on the team in his run defense score of 72.1 but was brought down with a 39.3 coverage score and a 28.5 tackling score as PFF had him with three missed tackles (Pro Football Reference credited him with two). Cole Holcomb landed in the bottom five as the only score he had above the line was a pass rush score of 68.5 but only on two of his 53 defensive snaps.

Defensive Backs

S Keanu Neal: 64.8 (33 snaps)
CB Joey Porter Jr.: 64.3 (7 snaps)
CB Patrick Peterson: 63.2 (67 snaps)
S Minkah Fitzpatrick: 63.1 (68 snaps)
CB Chandon Sullivan: 58.3 (13 snaps)
S Damontae Kazee: 47.8 (49 snaps)
CB Levi Wallace: 43.3 (67 snaps)

Looking for the scores to pass the eye test, the first thing of note was Levi Wallace at the bottom which definitely falls into the proper eye test category. Joey Porter Jr. had a nice NFL debut but the sample size was so small it’s really difficult to judge. Patrick Peterson had the fifth highest coverage score on the team of 64.5 despite being credited with giving up both passing touchdowns. It was actually Peterson‘s run defense (56.8) and tackling (38.5) which brought his score down. Keanu Neal had the best coverage score in the secondary of 72.4 but had low marks in run defense 45.7 and tackling 48.3. Minkah Fitzpatrick had almost an identical overall score as Peterson but did not stand out particularly in any way most likely due to his usage in this game.

Note: I saw something in regards to this game that I have never seen before with PFF and that is the changing of a player’s score. Initially, PFF had Fred Warner as the lowest score on the 49ers defense and the only one below is 60.0. They have since changed his score to a 64.4 which, by most of those watching the game, still seems a bit low especially since they gave the highest score on the defense to Nick Bosa who was pretty much held and check the entire game.

So, what do you think of the above grades? Do they pass the eye test? Let us know your thoughts on the Steelers’ defensive grades in the comments below.