Despite a sluggish ground game behind Najee Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers nearly mounted an impressive comeback on Sunday. After leading three consecutive touchdown drives to chip off 11 points from a 14-point deficit, however, it all fell apart.
Taking over at their own 17 with under three minutes to play, the Steelers began their final drive successfully. After the two-minute warning, however, they started hurting themselves. First, Justin Fields failed to adjust to a snap that he set into motion. To make matters worse, after a dangerous pass on second down, Harris failed to go out of bounds.
That set up a 4th and 11 on which they had to hurry to keep the clock from running down. Granted, head coach Mike Tomlin could have simply used his final timeout, but he didn’t want to. Regardless, Harris should have known better.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger called him out on that, though he got the details wrong. He believed Harris did get out of bounds, but that he did so moving sideways, which doesn’t stop the clock.
“You can’t step out of bounds sideways or backwards, because they’ll keep the clock rolling. And that’s what happened”, he said on his Footbahlin podcast. “I think [Harris] got out of bounds but then he made a move and then jumped out backwards and they kept the clock rolling”. While he may have the details wrong, the point remains.
“That’s a learning [experience]. That’s one that [Harris] should know”, Roethlisberger said. “I mean, we used to harp on that as players, and coaches, I know, harp on it, too. Learning experience. You hate to have that learning experience and it costs you, but it’s a learning experience”.
Najee Harris is a fourth-year veteran with 2,458 snaps and 1,056 touches under his belt. There is no reason he shouldn’t have been abundantly aware of the importance of going out of bounds there. Tomlin and the Steelers consistently preach situational awareness, and he lacked that on this key play.
Granted, even if Harris had gotten out of bounds, the Steelers would have still faced 4th and 11. You don’t have great odds of converting such plays even under the best of circumstances. But you give yourself a better chance when you’re not rushing to get the next play off.
I struggle to figure out exactly what Najee Harris was thinking on this play. Did he think that he could juke the defender and gain extra yardage bouncing inside? He attempted to stutter step, but the defender was all over him. Perhaps the turf prevented him from being able to stop as quickly as he wanted to. To be clear, the defender initiated the tackle process before Harris touched out of bounds. Even if he had fallen forward, he wouldn’t have triggered a stoppage of time here.
Even in the most charitable reading, though, his primary job was to stop the clock at the end of the play. All he had to do was take a quick side step out of bounds. Then Tomlin wouldn’t have had to contemplate whether to burn his final timeout or not before a do-or-die 4th-and-11 play.
