Explosive plays. They’ve been the big focus for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offense entering the 2023 season.
After scoring just 18.1 points per game last season, the Steelers need more explosive plays in 2023 and beyond. They have the pieces in place at quarterback, receiver and at running back to do it.
Now, they need to produce them consistently.
Count third-year running back Najee Harris as one of the guys that hopes to see explosive plays in 2023, especially on the outside at the wide receiver position. His reasoning? Explosive plays on the outside will create less stacked boxes that he and fellow running back Jaylen Warren will have to deal with this season.
Speaking with reporters Wednesday from inside the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, Harris stated that he hopes to see those big plays out wide to help take some of the heavy lifting off of the run game overall offensively, according to video via the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Chris Adamski on Twitter.
“I think it will help out a lot. I don’t know how much stacked boxes, but if we can make big plays on the outside, the splash plays, hopefully teams won’t stack the box as much. Hopefully it will create more running room for us backs and create more explosive plays [in the run game],” Harris said to reporters, according to video via Adamski.
In 2022, the Steelers were seventh in the NFL in rushing against stacked boxes, which means there are eight or more players within the tackle box, typically with teams placing an extra defender near the line of scrimmage to slow down the running game. Despite facing the seventh-most stacked boxes in 2022, the Steelers had the second-best successful run rate against eight-man or more boxes in 2023.
According to Next Gen Stats, Najee Harris ran against an eight-plus man box 25.37 percent of the time in 2022. Jaylen Warren did so against an eight-plus man box just 6.5 percent of the time in 2022. In fact, Warren faced an average of 6.4 defenders in the box. There’s a huge difference there between the two, showing that teams tend to play the two differently.
Of course, an increase in explosive plays through the air on the outside — whether that’s through run-after-catch or more vertical shots down the field — should help lighten the box up dramatically against the Steelers offense. That should lead to more successful runs on the ground for Harris and Warren and could lead to explosive plays through the run game in general.
It all works hand-in-hand. If quarterback Kenny Pickett can take that next step forward many expect him to in Year Two, and wide receivers Diontae Johnson and George Pickens are as good as expected, the Steelers should find themselves running against some light boxes. That, in turn, will make the offense extremely hard to stop.
