My opinion of their opinion: Breaking down the Steelers PFF scores from Preseason Week 3

A couple seasons ago, 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 Preseason Week 3 win over the Panthers with my grade of PFF at the end.

Offense

For the third straight week, the top score offense belongs to wide receivers Scotty Miller with a 91.8 overall based on a 90.5 passing score. But the 90.5 was not the top passing score for the Steelers for the week as that belonged to the other player who scored above a 90 in quarterback Skyler Thompson who had a 90.8 passing score and a 90.5 overall score.

There were two scores in the 80s for the offense, with both of them being on the upper end. Kenneth Gainwell had an 89.7 overall score based on his 84.3 rushing score. It should be noted that PFF grades every play even when there is a penalty, so Gainwell’s 26-yard run helped his cause. But much like what happened with Miller, Gainwells‘s running score was not the top on the team as that belonged to Trey Sermon’s 85.3 running score to go with an 87.0 overall score. But there are some weird numbers here. Gainwell only had scores in running and passing and had a 57.0 passing score. Sermon had a higher running score, a much higher passing score of 77.6, and a very good pass blocking score of 76.7. Somehow his overall score ended up less than that of Gainwell.

There were four additional scores that landed in the 70s for the Steelers offense in wide receivers Ke’Shawn Williams (78.7) and Lance McCutcheon (78.1), running back Lew Nichols (76.2), and tight end Darnell Washington (70.4).

When looking at the low scores, Mason Rudolph was at the bottom with a 41.1 overall score based on his 42.2 passing score. Robert Woods followed with a 42.1 score mainly based on a 31.0 run blocking score.

A big surprise to me was the next lowest score in guard Andrus Peat as he had a 42.3 overall score based on a 39.8 run blocking score and 56.0 pass blocking score. To me, Peat was passing the eye test and the score didn’t seem to fit. Other scores at the bottom belonged to Jaylen Warren (42.7), Steven Jones (48.6), Zach Frazier (49.6), and Kevin Foelsch (49.9).

When it came to pass blocking, the top scorers belonged to Doug Nester (80.6), Zach Frazier (78.4), and Trey Sermon (76.7). It’s odd that Frazier had such a high pass blocking score, not a very good run blocking score of 55.7, but landed with an overall score less than 50. This just goes to show how much a penalty called against him really affects the overall scores. Showing PFF‘s real incompetence, I’m not surprised one bit in his one pass blocking snap they graded Jaylen Warren with a 25.3 as they continue to show their ineptitude of knowing how running backs are supposed to pass block.

The top run blocking scores belonged to wide receiver Ke’Shawn Williams 80.7 and tight end Darnell Washington 76.3. The only offensive lineman to score in the 70s was tackle Julian Pearl with a 72.2 as the last player in the 70s was tight end Pat Freiermuth with a 70.3. How Roman Wilson wasn’t in this group is beyond me as he only had a 58.7 run blocking score despite one of the best run blocks by a wide receiver I saw all preseason.

Defense

Passing my eye test, the top PFF score on defense this week belonged to Yahya Black with a 91.9 based on a team-high pass rush score of 90.4. Black also had the top run defense score of 79.9 and contributed a quality tackling score of 71.8.

There were three players who scored in the 80s on defense in defensive tackle Esezi Otomewo, who was next with an 83.9 overall. His score was primarily from a run defense score of 74.4. Payton Wilson was next with an 83.2 overall as he had the top coverage score on the defense with a 78.2. The final player in the 80s was Jack Sawyer with an 81.4 based on a 70.4 run defense score, a 71.2 pass score, and a 73.3 tackling score.

When it came to the scores at the bottom, Logan Lee had a 30.3 overall based on a 30.1 run defense score. Patrick Queen was next with a 34.7 overall with his low score being in tackling with a 22.3. There were three scores in the 40s for the Steelers in Cole Holcomb (45.6), Keeanu Benton (47.1), and Joey Porter Jr. (49.8).

Where the Steelers saw a lot of low scores was when it came to tackling. There were nine scores below a 30 with the lowest tackling score coming from Keeanu Benton with a 19.6. The top tackling score belonged to Carson Bruener with a 79.8 followed by Mark Robinson with a 78.3.

Coming in behind Yahya Black in run defense was Malik Harrison with a 77.9 followed by DeMarvin Leal (76.5) and Carson Bruener (75.2). Coming in behind Black in the pass rush category was Kenny Willekes with an 82.5 followed by Eku Leota (73.9), Jack Sawyer (71.2), and Kyler Baugh70.6.

When it came to coverage, behind Payton Wilson came Jalen Ramsey with a 77.0 followed by James Pierre with a 75.3. They were the only players to score in the 70s.

Special Teams

Since it is a key component of some of these players making the 53-man roster, I’m going to include the scores from special teams. Those who stood out the most and had scores over 70 were only Carson Bruener (80.9) and Isaiahh Loudermilk (72.4).

Overall

I feel a lot this week like I did last week. There were a number of scores that made sense, and some players that I thought would score well that did not. Broderick Jones was a little bit higher this week with a 63.7 while Troy Fautanu was down to a 57.8. I’ve been happy with both of these guys the last two games yet they don’t really have scores that reflect their play. I also find it strange how much one penalty against Zach Frazier dropped his score on his 17 snaps while three penalties on Ryan McCollum only dropped his 62.0 pass blocking score and 60.8 run blocking score down to a 54.3 overall on his 32 snaps. Yes, he played almost twice as many snaps, but three penalties is a lot and it didn’t seem to drop his score very much. Why did that happen with Frazier? There are just some weird numbers when I came to the offense, and anytime I see a terrible pass blocking score for Jaylen Warren it just makes me shake my head.

When it came to defense, players that I thought did well scored well but there were some players at the bottom that did not stand out to me in that bad of a way. PFF had the Steelers with 16 missed tackles in the game with three of them coming to Kenny Willekes. Yet his 23.2 tackling score along with his 52.8 run defense score didn’t pull down his 82.5 pass rush score, despite the snaps being almost even between run defense and pass rush, as he finished with a 67.7 overall. I don’t get how three missed tackles wasn’t that big a deal for him in 15 snaps but one missed tackle for the likes of Patrick Queen and Cole Holcomb completely destroyed their score with 9 and 23 steps respectively.

Once again, the math doesn’t seem to add up. I don’t know what their algorithm is, but any kind of logical numerical sense doesn’t seem to be present. I can’t give a failing grade because of some of the good calls that they had, but this is still more nonsense than anything else. I’m hoping when there’s less players in the regular season it will make more sense, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

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