I love when PFF’s grades come out early! Here are some notables on their scores.
Best Offensive Grade: Daniel Fells (4.5)
Best Defensive Grade: Brandon Spikes (5.1 – highest defensive grade of the year)
Worst Offensive Grade: Deion Branch (-1.3)
Worst Defensive Grade: Steve Gregory/Kyle Love (-1.2)
Spikes’ season has been as extremely up and down as one could get. He was the worst rated defender in week one, 2nd best in week two, worst in week three, and now best in week four.
McCourty was the second best rated defender and he’s starting to look like a pro bowl cornerback again. He was targeted 6 times and only gave up two catches, as well as picking off two.
Kyle Love had a tough game as we expected him to. He’s not at his best trying to get upfield, and he was helpless against the Bills quick passing attack.
Vince Wilfork’s numbers show you how you can’t read too much into these numbers. He played a monster game but scored just a -0.7.
Solid 1.3 for Jermaine Cunningham, we knew his interior rush would be hugely important. He wasn’t dominant but he made some noise with a QB hit, a hurry and a stop.
Steve Gregory has been unspectacular, not that any of us expected him to be spectacular, but his performance against the Bills has us starting to wonder if Tavon Wilson will get more of a shot in the base defense now.
Ninkovich was the third ranked defender and was a 1.4 in run defense which given his spot is huge. He had 5 stops too.
Fells is a surprise to take the best score honor, but he was dominant in run blocking scoring a 4.1. Gronk scored a 4.6 in run blocking.
Sebastian Vollmer is putting together quite a nice season so far, he’s had high scores for the last three games. He’s their best offensive lineman so far. Now if he can just stay healthy.
Donald Thomas and Ryan Wendell both had -1.5 in pass protection. Along with Branch’s overall these were the only red grades for the offense.
The running game recorded a staggering 9.2 score running off tackle left. That’s where Fells and Gronk did most of their blocking damage. The ran well between the LG and C as well.
As expected Buffalo did most of their passing damage in the middle of the field, especially short.
Don’t look now, Tom Brady was 2-3 for 66 yards and a TD down the right side plus 20-yards.
See all our PFF Notes here.