Through two preseason games, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting offense has been white hot. Three drives, three touchdowns, numerous explosive plays. In fact, all three of those scores have been outside the red zone, something they almost never did in 2022. While Kenny Pickett, George Pickens, Jaylen Warren, and Pat Freiermuth have made those plays, starting RB Najee Harris has been an afterthought. In the opener, he only saw one touch, a short catch. Last night, he had just two carries for six yards.
Speaking to reporters after the game, Harris said he’d like to play as much as possible but knows the team has a plan in place.
“Of course I wanna play more,” Harris said via freelance reporter Amanda Godsey. “I always want to play more. I want to get my feet wet too, in a way. But there’s always a plan to everything also though.”
Pittsburgh has been protective of Harris this summer. Though he participated in all 16 of the Steelers’ training camp practices, he generally wasn’t allowed to be tackled by the defense during the “team run period,” the full-contact 11v11 session. That stems from last summer when Harris suffered a foot injury early in camp that he didn’t fully recover from until after the bye week.
This time around, Pittsburgh just wants a healthy Harris for Week One.
“These young guys that we have need this experience,” Harris said, “they need these reps. [Anthony McFarland Jr.] being his fourth year, this is the best he’s looked all four years he’s been here.”
McFarland has had a good summer that makes him the obvious internal favorite to become the team’s third running back behind Harris and Warren, though running lanes were tough to find last night when he got into the game.
Of course, it’s true Pittsburgh’s starting offense just hasn’t played a ton of snaps. In some sense, they’ve almost worked too fast. Mike Tomlin even mentioned the desire to play them more Saturday night but because they did their job so efficiently, they didn’t need to play more than they did. The starting offense has logged 17 snaps through three games, using quick scores to finish off drives.
Based on what Tomlin said yesterday, the starters should play in Thursday’s preseason finale against the Atlanta Falcons. It’s a tight turnaround, a Saturday to Thursday game, and it’s not clear how many snaps they will play. Perhaps Harris will see a little more action and get to make some plays himself. Or maybe he’ll have to wait until the San Francisco 49ers come to town in Week One.
