You could make the argument that RB Jaylen Warren was the Pittsburgh Steelers’ best offensive player in 2023. And make no mistake, he played last season, and played a fair bit. His 210 offensive touches tied for the 29th-most in the NFL last year with the Baltimore Ravens’ Gus Edwards.
But new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith should work on getting him even more touches next season. That’s easier said than done given that between himself and Najee Harris, the running back position commanded nearly 500 touches. But it’s doable.
And not only should they get Warren more touches, the Steelers should get him better touches, particularly in the passing game. Too many of his targets came in low-success situations like third and long. Yes, perhaps he is your best target in those situations but target him in other contexts as well.
Not that they never tried, but there we’re largely talking about a screen game that has been broken for ages. Mental note for Arthur Smith: fix the screen game, too. But we can get to that in another article on another day.
The pressing topic of this article is Warren and his touches. Let’s start with the running game. The Steelers recorded 506 rushing attempts during the 2023 season, of which Harris claimed just over half with 255. Harris ranked ninth in the league in touches and sixth in carries. He may have the reputation of bruiser, but Warren makes defenders pay, too. And they don’t forget it.
But Warren ranked 37th in carries with 149. That’s only one more than Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, who rested in the finale, and fewer than Eagles QB Jalen Hurts. And that’s not the part that bothers me most in terms of his usage as a ball carrier.
Warren posted a 49.7-percent success rate on his carries. That ranked 12th among running backs with at least 100 rushing attempts and fourth among backs who also had at least 5.0 yards per carry. Once he started playing more, his rush-success rate picked up as well.
He only recorded 45 carries through the first seven games of the season for 175 yards, averaging 3.9 yards per attempt. The offensive line struggled, and other issues abounded, of course. The offense as a whole improved over the course of the year.
But from Week 9 on, he recorded 104 rushing attempts for 609 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 5.9 yards. At that point the fumbles marked his only real blemishes. Yes, he needs to hang onto the ball better, even if it’s not a catastrophic issue right now.
But I don’t think I’ll get pushback presenting the argument that the Steelers need to continue to work Warren into more touches. They managed that for much of the second half of the season, yet still often didn’t distribute evenly.
They should be more willing to ride the hot hand, in other words, and Warren often had the hot hand. Harris deserves credit, make no mistake. Over the final 10 games, he rushed for 722 yards on 171 attempts with seven touchdowns. And Warren’s yards per attempt is somewhat skewed by his long outlier touchdown run against the Browns.
Even when they began giving Warren more work, though, he only got 38 percent of the rushing attempts among the running backs. That’s not even quite a 60/40 split. Yet it should be somewhere closer to 55/45. No, it shouldn’t have a fixed proportion at all. Simply let the runner who is having more success dictate the flow of opportunity. It’s on Arthur Smith to figure out how to do that.
