As Dave Bryan has talked about for years, run success rate is the key metric to look at for a player or a team. Yards per carry is a basic figure but loses context of the situation. A four-yard run on 2nd and 11 is less successful than a two-yard run on 3rd and 1. And those situations can skew numbers.
Individual Run success rate has now been incorporated into Stathead, the analytical arm of Pro Football Reference. Now, it’s as easy as ever for us to find this data and track it for 2023. Before the new season kicks off, let’s look at 2022 and past Steelers’ years to see the highs and lows of Pittsburgh running backs.
For the record, PFR defines a successful run as 40 percent of yardage needed on first down, 60 percent on second down, and 100 percent on third or fourth down.
2022
Here are the run success rates of Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren last season.
1. Jaylen Warren – 53.2 percent
2. Najee Harris – 46.0 percent
If you’re wondering, Kenny Pickett had a 60 percent run success rate.
Warren had far fewer carries than Harris, limiting his sample size, but his success rate was clearly higher. There’s no debate about that. One other note. Harris’ 2021 run success rate was slightly better than 2022 but still not close to Warren’s, coming in at 47.6 percent.
But these numbers don’t offer much relativity. There isn’t a lot of context. Let’s take a look at the most and least successful run rates across the league in 2022 (minimum 70 rushing attempts, quarterbacks excluded).
Top Five Highest 2022 Run Success Rates
1. Caleb Huntley – 61.8 percent
2. Cordarrelle Patterson – 60.4 percent
3. Gus Edwards – 59.8 percent
4. J.K. Dobbins – 57.6 percent
5. Josh Jacobs – 57.4 percent
It should be noted higher volume backs like Isiah Pacheco (57.1 percent) and Miles Sanders (56.8 percent) were right behind the top five.
Out of the 60 qualifiers, here’s the bottom five.
Top Five Lowest 2022 Run Success Rates
1. James Robinson – 35.5 percent
2. Zonovan Knight – 38.8 percent
3. Kenneth Walker – 39.9 percent
4. Michael Carter – 42.1 percent
5. Darrell Henderson – 42.9 percent
For further context, here’s Warren and Harris’ rankings.
Jaylen Warren – 14th-best run success rate
Najee Harris – 50th-best run success rate
How about relatively recent Steelers’ history? Here are the highest and lowest single season run success rate (minimum 70 rushing attempts) in the Mike Tomlin era, 2007 to 2022.
Steelers Top Five Run Success Rates
1. Isaac Redman – 53.6 percent (2011)
2. Le’Veon Bell – 53.3 percent (2016)
3. Jaylen Warren – 53.2 percent (2022)
4. Najee Davenport – 52.3 percent (2007)
5. Rashard Mendenhall – 50.9 percent (2011)
And the worst five.
Steelers Worst Five Run Success Rates
1. Willie Parker – 39.9 percent (2007)
2. Rashard Mendenhall – 40.4 percent (2010)
3. Isaac Redman – 40.9 percent (2012)
4. Willie Parker – 41.0 percent (2008)
5. Benny Snell – 41.4 percent (2020)
And one more piece of data. Across the NFL, the highest single-season success rate was Mark Ingram’s 2019 season at 58.4 percent. The lowest was Chris Johnson’s 2010 campaign, 37.3 percent (despite Johnson averaging on paper, a solid 4.3 yards per carry). Those are the parameters of what the league has seen over the last 15 years.
Conclusions
Overall, the data seems kinda…messy. We’ve seen Steelers backs be strong with their success rate one year and terrible the next. Obviously, offensive line quality has a lot to do with success rate and perhaps the team’s bigger backs have slightly more success because of their short-yardage work, though there isn’t an incredibly strong correlation and Pittsburgh has mostly employed larger power backs. While Warren’s success rate was considerably higher, the smaller volume helps him. Typically, backs who finished with higher numbers had fewer carries than their workhorse counterparts, as seen in the 2022 league leaders.
At the least, it’s a good set of data for us to carry into 2023. Behind an improved offensive line, the Steelers’ run game should be better and we’ll keep a close eye on Harris and Warren’s success rates.
