For the third straight week, second-year running back Jaylen Warren was the best player on the field offensively for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
On the road Sunday against the Cleveland Browns, Warren had a career day, rushing for 129 yards on nine carries, ripping off a 74-yard touchdown on the second play of the second half to give the Steelers some life. Warren was the Steelers’ offense throughout, generating 145 yards of total offense on just 12 touches. The Steelers had just 249 yards of total offense on the day.
Yet, Warren had just 12 touches, and the Steelers scored just 10 points in a miserable offensive showing.
For NFL Network’s Brian Baldinger, it might be time to feature Warren at the running back position moving forward if the Steelers want to score more than 10 points.
In his famous #BaldysBreakdowns video on Twitter Monday morning, Baldinger highlighted Warren’s performance against the Browns, praising the running back for being a real weapon for the Steelers offensively, as well as a key personal protector in the passing game when called upon.
Take a look.
Warren’s 74-yard touchdown run against Cleveland was a thing of beauty. He broke the tackle of cornerback Greg Newsome II in the hole and then was off to the races, doing exactly what he did in the preseason against the Buffalo Bills when he ripped off a 62-yard touchdown run in the blowout win over the Bills at Acrisure Stadium.
The touchdown run from Warren on Sunday was the longest touchdown run the Steelers have had since the 2014 season when former running back Le’Veon Bell ripped off an 81-yard run in Week Three that season against Carolina, according to stats and info provided by the team.
Against Cleveland, Warren created so much on his own, running through tackles, dishing out punishment and any chance he got and really was a major weapon for the Steelers. The 129 rushing yards was Warren’s second straight 100-yard rushing performance, which is the first time a Steelers running back has done that since Weeks 2-3 in 2020 by James Conner.
He’s on a real heater right now and the Steelers need to ride the hot hand, something they didn’t do enough of on Sunday. Over his last three games, Warren has 318 rushing yards and two touchdowns on just 35 carries. That’s an absurd 9.1 yards per carry. In that same span he’s recorded 11 carries of 10+ yards, which leads the NFL.
He’s outplaying Najee Harris right now. Though the Steelers don’t seem to want to admit that Warren is clearly the better back and deserves a greater share of the workload, if they want to try and correct some of the issues offensively, maybe lean on Warren a bit more and truly feature him offensively, rather than as a change-of-pace guy he currently is.
