The Pittsburgh Steelers must have really liked what they saw out of their backfield last year, from top to bottom. Of the six running backs who are currently on the 90-man roster, four were with the team last season—two of them on the practice squad. And they only added two rookie college free agents to the mix.
Yet their backfield is viewed largely as little more than a one-two punch with Najee Harris on top supplemented by Jaylen Warren, who as a rookie college free agent in 2022 emerged from the pack and became a regular contributor on offense.
Many expected the Steelers to do more to add to the mix, especially after opting not to re-sign Benny Snell Jr., who remains a free agent. Even reporters felt that way, evidently, as one asked general manager Omar Khan—somewhat inexplicably—if Connor Heyward was one of the reasons they didn’t do more there, characterizing the position as being “a little shallow”.
“I don’t really agree with that”, Khan responded, via the team’s website. “We have Anthony McFarland [Jr.], he’s been here for a couple years. [Jason] Huntley’s here, and we’ve got some young guys and we have confidence in those guys. If we didn’t have confidence in those guys, we would’ve addressed it differently”.
McFarland was a fourth-round draft pick by the Steelers in 2020. He spent his first two seasons on the 53-man roster (or the PUP List for much of 2021) but contributed little. With Warren emerging last year, he got bumped down to the practice squad.
Still, his coaches felt that he had perhaps his best offseason last year and they certainly seem to feel, at least up to this point, that he is worthy of competing for that No. 3 job. His competition aside from Huntley currently consists of Alfonzo Graham and Darius Hagans, two players the team scouted during the HBCU Combine and Legacy Bowl earlier this year.
As for Huntley, who tends to be the one in the group who is always ignored, he’s been around the league for a few years as well, though without much experience in terms of actual playing time. He spent most of last season with the Steelers on their practice squad with McFarland. He does have some return ability.
it’s been policy for the Steelers to go into camp with what they have and re-evaluate when necessary, often supplementing where they feel they are at a deficit via trade. I don’t think that’s going to be necessary at running back this year. At worst, McFarland will make the team, or else will be beaten out by one of the younger players.
Some have argued that the Steelers should pay greater attention to the third running back spot this year with their purported emphasis on running the ball more. If either Harris or Warren were to go down, that would place a lot of importance on the next man up rather than asking the other one to shoulder the whole load. But at least for the time being, they feel as though they have qualified candidates for that role.
