Love it or hate it, Pro Football Focus has been around and tracking player grades now since 2006. Its grading scale is a numerical system from zero to 100. PFF used to publish a grading key that they seem to have abandoned, but it was grades of 90-plus considered elite, 85-89 considered a Pro Bowl talent, and 70-84 being the range of an average starting player. With that scale in mind, Pro Football Focus’s Gordon McGuinness constructed a roster for the Pittsburgh Steelers comprised entirely of the highest-graded single-season PFF grades for the team at each position.
Offense
QB: Ben Roethlisberger, 2015, 90.6 PFF Grade
RB: Le’Veon Bell, 2014, 80.8 PFF Grade
WR: Antonio Brown, 2015, 92.6 PFF Grade
WR: Hines Ward, 2007, 89.7 PFF Grade
WR: Santonio Holmes, 2007, 84.7 PFF Grade
TE: Heath Miller, 2011, 88.2 PFF Grade
LT: Kelvin Beachum, 2014, 83.9 PFF Grade
LG: Alan Faneca, 2007, 85.2 PFF Grade
C: Maurkice Pouncey, 2016, 78.1 PFF Grade
RG: David DeCastro, 2017, 90.1 PFF Grade
RT: Willie Colon, 2009, 86.4 PFF Grade
The offense doesn’t have a ton of surprises. The “Killer Bs” all made the cut with Roethlisberger, Bell, and Brown each holding the highest single-season grade at their respective positions. Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes round out the receiver group, and Heath Miller was an obvious choice at tight end.
The offensive line does have a couple surprises. I didn’t expect to see Beachum or Colon as the two tackles. I thought maybe Alejandro Villanueva would’ve had a higher individual season, or perhaps Marcus Gilbert. The interior offensive line isn’t going to surprise anybody with Faneca, DeCastro, and Pouncey holding down the middle.
The position with the lowest-graded peak for the Steelers on offense was surprisingly center (78.1). Pouncey never graded out all that well from PFF despite making five All-Pro teams and nine Pro Bowls. On the scale I mentioned above, Roethlisberger, Brown, and DeCastro are the only players to post elite single-season grades. Bell’s career high of 80.8 seems remarkably low for a player who had 2,215 yards from scrimmage and 11 total touchdowns in 2014.
McGuinness gave a couple interesting blurbs about the players who made the cut. Roethlisberger had an 80-plus grade in nine of the 12 seasons between 2007 and 2018. No quarterback has exceeded that threshold since his retirement for the Steelers.
As for Brown, he had a 94.5 receiving grade from 2013-2017, which only trailed Julio Jones over that time.
Defense
EDGE: T.J. Watt, 2019, 92.0 PFF Grade
EDGE: Alex Highsmith, 2023, 90.2 PFF Grade
DI: Cameron Heyward, 2019, 91.6 PFF Grade
DI: Javon Hargrave, 2019, 83.5 PFF Grade
LB: Lawrence Timmons, 2012, 87.7 PFF Grade
LB: Ryan Shazier, 2017, 82.2 PFF Grade
CB: Cortez Allen, 2012, 84.3 PFF Grade
CB: William Gay, 2008, 83.6 PFF Grade
Slot CB: Mike Hilton, 2017, 83.1 PFF Grade
S: Troy Polamalu, 2008, 90.8 PFF Grade
S: Minkah Fitzpatrick, 2019, 84.4 PFF Grade
The Steelers have always been known for defense, so this roster had less obvious choices with more well-graded seasons overall to choose from. The Steelers’ current edge duo of Watt and Highsmith both made the cut. That surprisingly leaves out guys like LaMarr Woodley, Bud Dupree, and James Harrison. McGuinness noted that Harrison may not have had the single-season high, but he owned five of the top 10 Steelers’ season grades at edge defender. According to PFF’s grading system, Harrison’s Defensive Player of the Year season was brought down by his run defense and does not trump the overall grade of Highsmith from 2023.
Heyward and Hargrave make the list along the defensive line. I was expecting to see Stephon Tuitt’s 2020 season make the cut with his 11 sacks, 10 tackles for loss, and 25 quarterback hits, but he only earned a 75.7 overall grade that year. Timmons and Shazier are no big surprise at inside linebacker. Shazier’s 82.2 grade is from the 2017 season in which he suffered the career-ending injury. He was definitely still an ascending player at the time.
The corner duo is pretty surprising to me. Cortez Allen is not remembered fondly in Pittsburgh. He only started three games in that 2012 season that PFF used here. William Gay was a solid player and made the list as part of the vaunted 2008 defense. I would have guessed Ike Taylor or maybe Joe Haden made the list instead.
Hilton is the obvious best choice at slot corner. The Steelers have been searching for his replacement ever since he left the team in free agency following the 2020 season.
No surprise at safety with Polamalu and Fitzpatrick.
The only players to post elite single-season grades were Watt, Highsmith, Heyward, and Polamalu.
Special Teams
K: Chris Boswell, 2023, 85.9 PFF Grade
P: Jordan Berry, 2017, 75.6 PFF Grade
KR/PR: Antonio Brown, 2013, 82.5 PFF Grade
ST: Cameron Heyward, 2015, 90.6 PFF Grade
