George Pickens tops the Steelers offensive Pro Football Focus grades

The Pittsburgh Steelers dropped their third-straight game as they hosted the New York Jets on 10 days rest. The offense came alive in the second half under Kenny Pickett, but a key turnover cost them down the stretch. As for the defense, they surrendered a 10-point lead by giving up two touchdowns on the Jets final two drives.

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 4 performance. Remember, these are just the grades for the Steelers for this past game and not combined with their previous performances. Before going any further, I must give the typical disclaimer that PFF grades are subjective. 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. 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. First up this week is the offense. Included will be all 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 64 snaps on offense in Sunday’s game.

Overall

Top 5 (regardless of position)

WR George Pickens: 87.5 (45 snaps)
TE Pat Freiermuth: 83.7 (47 snaps)
QB Kenny Pickett: 66.9 (31 snaps)
G James Daniels: 62.9 (64 snaps)
RB Najee Harris: 62.6 (48 snaps)

Bottom 5 (regardless of position)

OT Dan Moore Jr.: 55.6 (64 snaps)
OT Chuks Okorafor: 52.4 (64 snaps)
TE Zach Gentry: 51.1 (39 snaps)
G Kevin Dotson: 50.9 (64 snaps)
WR Chase Claypool: 49.8 (47 snaps)

Quarterback

QB Kenny Pickett: 66.9 (31 snaps)
QB Mitch Trubisky: 60.7 (33 snaps)

Despite it being his lowest score of 2022, Mitch Trubisky did not come in that far behind Kenny Pickett. But upon further examination, Pickett had a much better passing score of 71.6 versus 62.8. The number bringing Pickett down more than anything, despite being the third highest on the offense, was due to having a 23.7 score in regards to fumbling because of the botched pitch to Jaylen Warren. Otherwise, it was a solid performance for the Steelers rookie quarterback in his first appearance.

Running Backs

RB Najee Harris: 62.6 (48 snaps)
FB Derek Watt: 58.2 (6 snaps)
RB Jaylen Warren: 55.8 (16 snaps)

Najee Harris gets back on top of the group and landed in the Steelers top-five despite not being much above the 60.0 standard of PFF. Harris did have a low pass blocking score of 41.6, but it was Jaylen Warren‘s 8.0 pass blocking score which dropped him to the bottom of the list. I still can’t figure out why Derek Watt was dropped down during his six snaps as I noticed him making a key block on at least one of them.

Receivers

WR George Pickens: 87.5 (45 snaps)
TE Pat Freiermuth: 83.7 (47 snaps)
WR Gunner Olszewski: 59.9 (9 snaps)
TE Connor Heyward: 58.8 (1 snap)
WR Miles Boykin: 57.5 (5 snaps)
WR Diontae Johnson: 56.8 (57 snaps)
TE Zach Gentry: 51.1 (39 snaps)
WR Chase Claypool: 49.8 (47 snaps)

With Kenny Pickett coming into the game at halftime, George Pickens had much more of a coming out party as he achieved his first 100-yard receiving game in the NFL. Pickens shot to the top of the offense’s scores as he and Pat Freiermuth were the only two players to be above a 70.0 even though they were both in the 80s. But beyond those two players, the rest of the scores are troubling. Gunner Olszewski continues to only play on running downs, and Connor Heyward was demoted to only one snap in the game. Still, they came in above the Steelers two returning wide receivers for 2022 in Diontae Johnson and Chase Claypool who only had two catches for 11 yards between them and they were both by Johnson. With average run blocking scores, it really was the pass scores that determined the overall grades for these two receivers.

Offensive Line

G James Daniels: 62.9 (64 snaps)
C Mason Cole : 56.1 (64 snaps)
OT Dan Moore Jr.: 55.6 (64 snaps)
OT Chuks Okorafor: 52.4 (64 snaps)
G Kevin Dotson: 50.9 (64 snaps)

After back-to-back good performances by the Steelers offensive line, things are not as good in Week 4, particularly in the first half. It was the first game where Steelers offensive linemen surrendered a sack as one each was attributed to Kevin Dotson in Dan Moore Jr. PFF has the Steelers giving up seven pressures in the game as they only have 11 in the previous three games combined. In the second half, I don’t know if it was the blocking or the quarterback but the Steelers did not give up any sacks the rest of the game. But even with the increase in pressures, all of the linemen’s scores for pass blocking came in above 70.0. What brought the Steelers linemen down this week was no run blocking scores above 56.0.

As this group is still coming together, it is concerning when they took a bit of a step back this week. What will be important to see is where this unit goes from here.

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.