The landscape of the running back position in the NFL is shifting. Teams still run the ball sure, but the days of many teams building their offenses around elite running backs seem to be done. There have been exceptions like the Tennessee Titans and running back Derrick Henry, but that’s exactly what they are exceptions. The rule seems to be to build a backfield by committee, and more importantly, pay a backfield by committee.
If you look at the last handful of Super Bowl winners, their leading rushers consist of guys like Isaiah Pacheco, Darrell Henderson, Damien Williams, and Sony Michel. In fact, the last Super Bowl winner to have a real “elite” running back was all the way back in 2013, when the Seattle Seahawks won with Marshawn Lynch.
So what does this mean for the future of the position? Well, the first obvious shift is that teams no longer want to pay running backs big money anymore. They don’t feel like they need to bother, as they’ve seen these other teams succeed when not spending on the position. So why not save that money, and invest it in other positions like the offensive line?
But for every action, there is a counteraction. It would be foolish for the top running backs in the league to accept pennies on the dollar for their services. The question is: is there even a market for those top guys anymore? And we are seeing that question play out in real-time across the league. Contract holdouts, especially at the running back position, are getting more and more common.
Right now we are witnessing the holdouts of Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs, and New York Giants running back Saquon Barkley. Both guys were top five in the league in rushing last season, and they are still young, at ages 25 and 26 respectively. In the NFL of the past, both guys would be getting massive long-term contracts with no problem. These days their teams want to put them on the franchise tag, use their last good year or two, and let them go before the wheels fall off. It remains to be seen what the long-term solution is for the position.
And that brings us to the Steelers and Najee Harris. Harris has at least lived up to expectations in his first two seasons, rushing for 1,000 yards in both campaigns. However, Harris is pretty clearly at least a tier below guys like Jacobs and Barkley right now, and if those guys can’t get a long-term contract, Harris would be hard-pressed to expect one himself. By the time Harris hits free agency in 2025/2026 (depending on if the Steelers pick up his 5th-year rookie option), he will have a lot of miles on his tires.
So what’s the plan moving forward? I personally foresee the Steelers going down the same path as other teams, and getting as much as they can out of Harris, while he is still on his relatively cheap rookie contract. This is at least in part backed up by the fact that they haven’t really locked in on a third running back behind Harris and Jaylen Warren. Expect Harris to be used early and often in 2023 and 2024, but don’t expect the Steelers to dole out a long-term contract when the time comes.
