One thing was very clear entering the 2024 season. The Pittsburgh Steelers wanted to be a physical, run-first football offense.
They brought in Arthur Smith, known for his high run rates as an offensive coordinator, and they selected offensive linemen with their first two picks of the 2024 NFL Draft. Mike Tomlin said that weekend that their goal is to roll people.
Through the first two games, their rushing attack has been okay, but not the dominant force that many hoped it would be given the offseason changes. The Steelers rank 12th in the NFL with 139 rushing yards per game. Teams with mobile quarterbacks like Justin Fields tend to be a little higher on the list anyway, so their true rushing attack with the running backs is average right now.
Ben Roethlisberger still likes what he is seeing, especially from RB Najee Harris.
“I thought they were physical [Sunday]. I thought the Pittsburgh Steelers put their will on the Denver Broncos running the ball. Naj ran like a madman,” Roethlisberger said via his Footbahlin podcast on YouTube. “Seventeen carries, 69 yards. I thought he had a buck 20 the way he ran. ‘Cause his 69 yards, the other team felt like it was 150 because he was running with anger, with physicality.”
That physicality was on full display in Week 1, too. At the beginning of the game, Harris delivered a punishing hit at the end of one of his runs that set the tone for the day.
Harris fell one yard short of matching his Week 1 production on the ground in Week 2 against the Broncos. He was slightly more efficient with three less carries, and he didn’t have a 20-yard run like he did in Week 1 to help buoy the average. His 4.1 average still surpassed what he was able to accomplish against the Atlanta Falcons.
Having 69 or 70 yards per game from their lead back isn’t what everybody was hoping to see from the Steelers’ ground game, but it is still an improvement over the first two weeks of last year. In fact, Harris’ 139 rushing yards through two games is the same total he had through the first three games last season, and he still managed to finish with over 1,000 yards rushing for the third time in his career.
He is on pace to have a career season, and the offensive line is still in flux with the recent changes at right tackle and Isaac Seumalo missing from the lineup for another week or two. There are still plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the ground game and Najee Harris having a breakout season.
