Entering the 2023 season, there is a lot of focus on the potential workload share in the backfield for the Pittsburgh Steelers, thanks to the emergence of second-year running back and former undrafted free agent Jaylen Warren and the inefficiency of third-year running back Najee Harris in his first two seasons in the NFL.
For some talking heads, Warren is the clear-cut top running back for the Steelers moving forward due to his explosiveness, success from a yards per carry standpoint and then his ability to rip off explosive players.
For others, Harris is the bell-cow running back and there is no discussion regarding workload and the snap count share in the backfield.
“Establishing The Run” NFL analyst Evan Silva took a different approach to the Harris and Warren discussion. On the latest episode of the ETR podcast, Silva believes that the Harris/Warren tandem in Pittsburgh is going to be used more like the Melvin Gordon III and Austin Ekeler combination with the San Diego/Los Angeles Chargers was used from 2017-19.
“I think Jaylen Warren is going to play quite a bit. I think it’s a Melvin Gordon/Austin Ekeler situation [in Pittsburgh],” Silva said regarding Harris, Warren and the workload splits in Pittsburgh, according to audio via the Establish The Run podcast.
Together for three seasons with the Chargers, Gordon and Ekeler were one of the top running back combinations in the NFL, helping the Chargers have not only one of the best rushing attacks in football, but one of the offenses in the NFL for a three-year stretch.
During their time together, the two complemented each other very, very well, largely sharing snaps and being on the field at the same time in certain situations.
From 2017-2019, Gordon and Ekeler didn’t have an even split in carries. Gordon had 906 carries during that span, while Ekeler received 285 carries. Gordon added 150 receptions while Ekeler had 158 in the same span. Gordon outgained Ekeler 3,864 on 1,056 total touches to 3,047 yards on 443 total touches.
Ekeler was a more explosive, big-play threat than Gordon, which is very similar to Warren compared to Harris, though very clearly based on workload Gordon was the bellcow compared to Ekeler. However, in the snap counts, Gordon and Ekeler were pretty close. Gordon had 1,700 snaps in the three years from 2017-19 while Ekeler had 1,142 snaps offensively. That’s roughly 39 percent for Ekeler in those three years, and 64 percent for Gordon.
The belief — at least from the outside entering the 2023 season — is that Harris and Warren will be more and more of a 50/50 split. That’s not happening. Steelers Depot’s own Jonathan Heitritter stated earlier in the summer that Harris and Warren could be more like former Dallas duo Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard. Last season, Harris was a 66 percent snap-count guy while Warren was a 31 percent snap-count guy. That’s pretty close to Gordon and Ekeler.
Realistically, Warren gets closer to 40 percent of the snap counts and the workload and Harris takes a lesser workload down to around 60 percent. If the two can be any semblance of Gordon and Ekeler moving forward, that’s great news for the Steelers. That should be the way the two are viewed, rather than one against the other.
