The Pittsburgh Steelers took their first loss of the 2026 season on Sunday, Sept. 20, against New England.
The low-scoring affair featured mostly positives for the defense, but reflected poorly on coach Mike McCarthy’s offense, as it managed just three points. It has scored just one touchdown through the first two weeks of the campaign.
Here’s a look at some of the highlights and lowlights through the eyes of Pro Football Focus evaluators, who study every play on film to grade each player individually. For context, players are graded on a 0-100 scale.
RB Rico Dowdle (55.1)
The numbers for one of GM Omar Khan’s key offseason acquisitions are not good. Through two games, he’s averaged
2.5 yards per carry. Worse, he’s averaging just two yards per carry after contact. That’s a bad combination when paired with an offensive line that’s allowing a lot of contact at or behind the line of scrimmage. Counterpart Jaylen Warren has been significantly better with similar blocking at 3.48 yards per carry after contact. Dowdle has no runs of 10 or more yards yet, and he’s allowed two pressures on his 14 pass blocking attempts. The one out we can give him so far is that he dealt with a toe injury in the first half of the New England game.
S Jaquan Brisker (29.8)
It wasn’t a great day for the Pittsburgh-area native against New England. He was targeted four times and allowed four receptions worth 68 yards. Worse, he missed a pair of tackles on seven opportunities for a whiff rate of 28.6%. Through two weeks, that number is 23.1%, which will be a problem if it doesn't shrink over a larger sample size. He has an interception from Week 1 against Atlanta to fall back on in terms of positives. Still, you’d like to see him button things up, particularly with the tackling, going forward.
RT Dylan Cook (73.2)
There will be calls this week for rookie and 2026 first-round pick Max Iheanachor to get the start over the undrafted veteran after a game in which the offensive line was conspicuously a problem. PFF does not consider Cook to be the weak link, though. In fact, through two weeks, his overall grade of 76.4 is the best on the team by a margin of 11.2 points over center Zach Frazier. PFF data faults him for just five pressures across 94 pass blocking snaps. And his 81.4 run blocking score is the best on the team by 20.1 points. Left tackle Troy Fautanu, by contrast, has a 59.6 grade for the season and a run blocking score of 55.9. He should be under more pressure than Cook analytically, but it’s possible his pedigree as a former first-round pick will insulate him.
LB Patrick Queen (83.7)
Sunday marked the first time in his Steelers career that he did not allow a single reception when targeted. The Patriots went after him only twice, and he cashed one of those targets in for an interception. Throw in two tackles and a stop – defined by PFF as a play that results in failure for the opposing offense – and it was a nice day for the veteran after a rough afternoon against Atlanta in Week 1. Queen remains under some roster pressure – he doesn’t have a contract for 2027. Stacking more of these performances could help him curry favor with the new coaching staff.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Steelers PFF grades: Dylan Cook getting solid marks amid offensive line struggles
