There are certain statistical benchmarks in sports that just never go out of style. One-hundred-yard games for running backs and receivers may well always be one of them. There’s a natural sense of satisfaction when you top 100 yards—and an equally strong sense of annoyance to lose it.
I’m not sure whether Pittsburgh Steelers RB Najee Harris knew or cared—quite possibly he didn’t—but the third-year veteran recorded his first 100-yard rushing game of the season on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. And then he lost it on his last carry, a one-yard loss, to finish with 99 rushing yards on the day.
Sad trombone.
Logically, one yard doesn’t make a whole lot of a difference. He still averaged 6.6 yards per carry. He still scored a touchdown. He still recorded two explosive runs of 20-plus yards—even if just barely—tying for the league lead in explosive runs. It was an almost purely positive performance and certainly his best of the season as a runner.
And it’s hopefully a sign of things to come, because even if we see a surge in the passing game with the change at offensive coordinator and the opening of the field for QB Kenny Pickett, the Steelers are going to need all hands on deck on the ground.
So much oxygen and finger dexterity has been wasted on the Harris vs. Jaylen Warren debate when it has never been and should never be one or the other. Sure, there is room for some haggling in terms of snap distribution, but my solution is simple: ride the hot hand until it cools and then change it up. Rinse and repeat.
Have the Steelers always done that as well as they could have? Not exactly, not when Warren rushed for 129 yards on just nine carries the week before last. He had a 74-yard touchdown on the second play of the third quarter and only got five more carries the rest of the way.
Yet he was limited to only 49 yards on Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals on 13 attempts. He also fumbled the football in the red zone, which took at least three points off the board. Of course, that play never should have happened if the officials properly ruled that WR Diontae Johnson had scored a touchdown the play before, but I digress.
The 99 rushing yards marked a season-high for Harris, his previous high being 82 yards on 16 attempts against the Green Bay Packers. He has five games of 65-plus yards on the ground now, and that is without ever carrying 20 or more times in a game. It would have been the fifth 100-yard game of his career, and his first since rushing for a career-high 188 yards against the Cleveland Browns late in the 2021 season.
But the broader point is that the Steelers have had three straight games in which a running back rushed for 100-plus yards—if you round up, the difference being negligible. They’ve now rushed for over 150 yards as a team in four consecutive games, itself a feat not achieved in many years. The last time they did it, Bill Cowher was still coaching the team. It happened literally once in QB Ben Roethlisberger’s entire career, in his rookie year in 2004.
