By admin 
After the Pittsburgh Steelers opened the 2026 season with a 20-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, Pro Football Focus released its grades for the performances of Pittsburgh’s players. While PFF’s grades can provide useful context and identify trends, several of its Week 1 evaluations do not appear to fully match what happened on the field.
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Three areas in particular stand out when comparing the grades with the actual performances. From the inside linebacker duo of Payton Wilson and Patrick Queen to Troy Fautanu at left tackle and Asante Samuel Jr. in the secondary, PFF’s numbers suggest significantly worse performances than the game film indicates.
Inside Linebackers
Grades: Payton Wilson (58.4), Patrick Queen (46.7)
This is where some of the issues with PFF’s grades come into play. Its grading system relies on evaluators determining whether individual plays were positive or negative. Sometimes those judgments are obvious, such as a missed tackle. However, situations involving players like Queen and Wilson can be more difficult to evaluate from the outside.
PFF’s grades do not always account for assignments, expectations, or the defensive concepts being used on a particular play. Determining how a player executed a zone responsibility or handled a run fit can be much more complicated than simply looking at the outcome. Based on the overall performance, neither Wilson nor Queen appeared to play at the level their grades suggest.
Offensive Tackle
Grades: Troy Fautanu (44.4), Dylan Cook (73.5)
Neither of Pittsburgh’s offensive tackles had a perfect performance, but the gap between their grades is difficult to justify based on what happened during the game. Fautanu held his own at left tackle, even if some of his reps did not always look pretty. Cook had some rough moments of his own and allowed a sack.
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There is no doubt that both players have areas to clean up, but Fautanu’s 44.4 grade seems particularly harsh. He spent his first two seasons primarily preparing to play right tackle and is now taking on the full-time left tackle role. Considering the context of his transition and overall performance, Fautanu’s grade should have been much closer to Cook’s.
Asante Samuel Jr.
Grade: 48.2
This grade is particularly baffling. Samuel controlled Drake London for much of the afternoon and allowed only one catch, yet his grade suggests he turned in one of the poorer performances of his career.
The Steelers played a significant amount of zone coverage, and Samuel did miss some tackles. However, those mistakes do not appear substantial enough to warrant a grade this low. His overall performance was better than the number indicates.
PFF provides useful information that can help identify trends and provide additional context for how games unfold. However, its grades are not always a perfect representation of what happened on the field. In these three cases, the grades appear to miss the bigger picture of the Steelers’ Week 1 performances.
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This story was originally published September 16, 2026 at 9:00 AM.