Pittsburgh Steelers RB Najee Harris is having a statistically unremarkable season. He is just one yard shy of averaging exactly four yards per carry, with 139 yards on the ground on 35 attempts. He has yet to score and has a success rate of 42.9 percent.
Statistically, Jaylen Warren is faring markedly worse, yet you wouldn’t know it to listen to the chatter about the state of the running game and the personnel being used to execute it. Warren and his 55 rushing yards have averaged just 3.2 yards per rush this season with a success rate of 35.3 percent.
Both backs are still dealing with a tremendously small sample size, making meaningful evaluation difficult. But Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette offered a pretty clear window into his view of Harris right now in his most recent chat, across several different responses.
“Harris is stuttering-stepping too much. Too much dancing in the hole”, he told one chat participant. “He had the same issues last season. For as big as he is you would think he has a natural inclination for contact, but he does not. Warren is much better at seeing and hitting the hole hard. But here we are, and Harris is still getting more touches than Warren”.
Not only does he offer strong criticism for Harris’ playing style, as well as his demeanor, he contrasts him negatively against Warren—which has become very popular to do these days. But Fittipaldo wasn’t nearly done at that point.
“I think Harris has to stop thinking so much and just hit the hole”, he told another participant. Still later, responding to a question about his hesitance, he said, “It’s more and more noticeable every week. Harris got off to a terrible start last year too. I thought he was better against the Raiders but he’s still not playing well”.
According to Next Gen Stats, Harris is averaging an astounding 3.37 seconds per rush in the backfield, the second highest among qualified runners. At the same time, he ranks 12th in rush yards over expected per attempt, and seventh in rushing percentage over expected. He also ranks slightly higher than Warren in rush efficiency, measuring how north and south a player runs.
Although their most recent game lacked some of the longer second-level runs, there were improvements in the overall run game last time out. That especially has to do with the blocking, Harris citing a thinning of the playbook to some more basic plays.
But there are still too many negative plays happening, with the backs being met in the backfield by defenders and not having a real opportunity to escape. That is the number one issue the team is facing right now on the ground, as Alex Kozora discussed earlier today.
