The Pittsburgh Steelers had a great bounce-back game Sunday night as they totally dominated the Kansas City Chiefs on both sides of the football on their way to registering a 43-14 home win. Pro Football Focus has now released some of their individual player grades from the Sunday game and you aren’t likely to be surprised as to who they thought were the Steelers top players on offense and defense.
While he wasn’t razor-sharp accuracy-wise early on against the Chiefs, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (83.0) ultimately graded out as the team’s top offensive player in the eyes of PFF. Roethlisberger ended the game with 22 completions on 27 pass attempts for 300 yards and 5 touchdown passes. Just as important, he didn’t turn the football over against the Chiefs.
In his 2016 debut, Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell received the second-best offensive grade from PFF. Bell, who rushed for 144 yards on 18 carries against the Chiefs, also caught 5 passes for 34 yards in what was his first game back since suffering a serious knee injury midway through the 2015 regular season.
Even though it was his first career start, guard B.J. Finney played well Sunday night as evidenced by his 78.7 grade from PFF. The former undrafted free agent out of Kansas State started at left guard in place of Ramon Foster, who sat out the game with a chest injury.
Rounding out PFF’s top five Steelers offensive players from Sunday night are wide receiver Sammie Coates (76.3), guard David DeCastro (75.9) and wide receiver Antonio Brown (75.3), who scored two touchdowns against the Chiefs.
On the other side of the football for the Steelers, defensive ends Stephon Tuitt and Cameron Heyward received the highest grades from PFF. Heyward registered 3 sacks against the Chiefs in addition to forcing an early interception as a result of him tipping a pass thrown by Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith. Tuitt not only provided quite a bit of pressure Sunday night, he also forced an early fumble in addition to defensing two passes during the game.
Rounding out the Steelers top defensive grades from PFF are safety Jordan Dangerfield (78.3), cornerback William Gay (78.1) and linebacker James Harrison (77.2). Sunday night marked Dangerfield’s first career start in addition to his first regular season snaps on defense. Dangerfield recorded 5 total tackles against the Chiefs.
According to PFF, the Steelers defense blitzed Smith on 21 of his dropbacks Sunday night and the Chiefs quarterback only completed 11 of his 19 pass attempts when that happened in addition to throwing one interception and being sacked twice. Smith, by the way, received a grade of 69.0 from PFF for his play against the Steelers.
The Steelers are now 3-1 on the season and will host the New York Jets next Sunday at Heinz Field.
