What’s With Harrison Smith’s PFF Grade?
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NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors went to Harrison Smith in the first week of the season after a performance that looked dominant at first glance. Smith notched a game-sealing interception, a fumble recovery, a sack and some gnarly tackles for loss. But he also had some lapses in coverage that San Francisco failed to capitalize on.
Here’s a couple of those spark plays, broken down.
Here’s another standout play that @NicholasJOlson and some others have pointed out. That’s Earl Mitchell at Fullback, and he weighs 96 more pounds than Smith. So what do you do? Get under him, and use all that gravity against him. Fond memories of Antione Winfield. pic.twitter.com/yFreTIQk2U
— Luke Braun (@LukeBraunNFL) September 13, 2018
But looking at his grades, he had a 57.7 total grade and a 43.7 in coverage. What gives?
PFF doesn’t give a defender credit when the offense screws up an opportunity they only had because he screwed up himself. Take this play, where Harrison Smith bites really bad on the play action and gives Kyle Jusczcyk a clear path to the end zone. Garoppolo messes up, but PFF will count this exactly the same as if Jusczcyk had caught it and ran in for 6:
But PFF grades every play. And every play wasn’t so kind. Here, Smith bites on play action, and if Garoppolo doesn’t botch a gimme throw, this could be a touchdown for athletic Kyle Jusczcyk. We may forget it since it just registers as a drop to us, but Smith gets a minus here. pic.twitter.com/rGKnHKIk1T
— Luke Braun (@LukeBraunNFL) September 13, 2018
If you count this play, the actual touchdown in his coverage and the George Kittle miss broken down below, you could feasibly credit 3 touchdown opportunities to Harrison Smith’s mistakes. It makes sense that PFF would downgrade him and cut into all the good grades from the productive plays.
Last play I’m gonna do. Looks like Harrison is expecting a classic rub route here and cheats outside, but when Kittle breaks back in, it’s lights out. Thank god this throw was so errant (Garoppolo didn’t step into it, he was rattled), or “the fixer” may have had 2 TDs allowed. pic.twitter.com/39NoiqwyRr
— Luke Braun (@LukeBraunNFL) September 13, 2018
Statistically, Smith was targeted 6 times (too many for a safety) and gave up two: the 22-yard touchdown and a 10-yard completion on an out pattern with a less-than-stellar tackle.
It should be noted that his 3 run stops is a fantastic number (not sure if the play on Earl Mitchell is counted on that, but it should be regarded just as positively). His PFF run grade (81.8) does reflect that production, and most of PFF’s issues come from the poor coverage scattered across his day.
None of this should worry you too much going forward. There’s a lot of season for Harrison Smith to work these kinks out, or just decide to be a little less greedy. He’s still the all-world safety we know and love, and as the season progresses, he should continue to be a difference-maker.
Thanks for reading!