Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: RB Jaylen Warren
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The second-year running back had a career game on Thursday night against the Tennessee Titans, registering the first game of his career with 100-plus yards from scrimmage. That included a career-high 88 rushing yards, just his third game of 50-plus rushing yards.
Things sure changed in a hurry. Following Jaylen Warren’s big game against the Tennessee Titans, he raised his yards per carry by 0.8 yards per attempt, jumping from 3.9 to 4.7. His success rate overall is still south of 50 percent but getting closer.
The second-year running back needed only 11 carries to amass 88 rushing yards, a new career high. It also marked his first career game with 100-plus yards from scrimmage by adding 25 receiving yards on three receptions. His previous high was 98 yards from scrimmage.
More importantly, he earned those yards. He forced missed tackles, he hit the holes hard, he navigated the sidelines for extra real estate. And he barreled over defensive backs who dared to meet him in a gap, the latter clearly getting the worst of it.
And he did his usual in pass protection as well. The argument that Warren deserves or needs more playing time is an old one by now and doesn’t need to keep being repeated. But Najee Harris, it should be said, also played well (aside from his dropped pass).
The bigger common denominator was the offensive line doing more to provide holes. But the point is, if this is how Warren, and Harris can run with an improved offensive line, then the Steelers have the template for an effective running game.
To that end, Warren’s 11 rushes marked the second-highest single-game total of his career, just one behind the 12 he had against the Baltimore Ravens last season when he rushed for 76 yards. It is also tied for his second-most touches in a single game at 14.
Head coach Mike Tomlin said after the game that it was really the first time that they were able to get a good look at what a true complementary running back tandem would look like with Harris and Warren, both of them having the opportunity to get extensive work.
Now that they have seen what that looks like, one can only wonder how that influences the play calling and the snap distribution moving forward.
