Third-year RB Najee Harris spoke up for his coaching staff yesterday, taking a moment at the end of his media availability to offer a defense for the Steelers’ staff. Speaking I would guess primarily to members of the media, he said, “Do you all know how football works? Coaches coach but we gotta execute the plays. We’re not trying to point the finger at all. This is not the time to do that either”.
“That has nothing to do with coaches”, he added. “It’s just players. We have to play better, you know what I mean? We can’t just keep looking at the coaches as an outlet or whatever y’all putting out there as outlets. It’s just stupid what you all are doing, really”.
Harris was right to say what he said. But he was wrong about what he said.
At least in part, anyway. Yes, the players have to perform better, no question. They’re never going to get perfect play, but there is still a lot of meat on the bone for many of these starters, young and older, and there’s only so much room for excuses.
But there is a lot of blame to go around for the structure in which the players are operating. Opposing defenses only have a limited amount of respect for the scheme that they run, only to the extent that they can figure out what play they’re going to run.
Let’s be clear about something for a moment: every team has tells. If you know what to look for, you can figure out a good percentage of what teams are most likely to run in given contexts. That doesn’t mean the Steelers don’t need to improve in that area, because opposing defenses have been telling us for a couple years now that they were able to make plays due to the fact that they could tell exactly what was coming.
But whether he entirely believes it or not—and I have no reason to assume he doesn’t believe it—Harris said the right things. As a player, you don’t call out your coaching staff in public. You don’t pass the blame. You take responsibility for your role and that’s it.
It would have done nobody any good if he came out and talked about how the play calling is lacking or the way the coaches are preparing them during the week is insufficient. That’s what you’re supposed to hear publicly even if it’s not the case in private.
The evidence on the field suggests this Steelers offense does have those issues. But do you really want your starting running back to announce it to the world? Yes, I’m sure some fans do, actually. But it wouldn’t be in the team’s best interests. So, again, Harris was right to say what he said—even if what he said isn’t entirely correct. Because saying the truth wasn’t a valid option. That’s leadership.
