As you would probably expect, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and wide receiver Antonio Brown received the highest grades from Pro Football Focus for their play Sunday in the win over the New York Jets. Roethlisberger was 23-of-30 for 264 yards in the game while Brown caught nine of 11 passes thrown his way for 86 yards.
As far as the rest of the offense, PFF has guard Ramon Foster as their best performing offensive lineman with tackle Marcus Gilbert brining up the rear.
The pass protection, for the most part, was good by the Steelers offensive line and it was helped by the short passing game that we outlined earlier this morning. Where the Steelers offensive linemen struggled the most, according to PFF, was in the run blocking department and that’s probably not too surprising considering how good the Jets defensive front seven has played against the run this season.
Defensively, according to PFF, cornerback Cortez Allen and Ryan Clark rated the best against the Jets. Allen was targeted four times in the passing game and allowed just two catches for 15 yards while registering three tackles, according to their count. Clark was obviously aided by his interception, the Steelers first takeaway of the season, and three total tackles. This was a good bounce back game for the two defensive backs as neither played well in the loss a few weeks ago to the Minnesota Vikings.
As far as the lowest rated defensive players, defensive end Ziggy Hood and linebacker Jarvis Jones both ranked the lowest as both failed to play well against the run. Hood likely wouldn’t have played as many of snaps as he did had Brett Keisel not suffered a rib injury late in the first half.
We will break down the play of several of the players listed above in our film study post later in the week.
