Much was made this offseason about the Najee Harris’ weight loss, how he was the most agile and nimble version of himself and in the best shape of his life entering a contract year. Up until very recently, we hadn’t really seen his agility in action, but that changed in Week 6 against the Las Vegas Raiders.
“I wanna say apology, Najee, listen, I was not familiar with this part of your game,” LeSean McCoy said via FS1’s The Facility this morning. “And number 18, please pick up your cleats and your ankles at the nearest store, please. Crazy work 22, hey, Najee’s back though. He running you over and he making you [miss]. Look at that move.”
Harris had two runs where he completely juked the first defenders out of their cleats. One of those runs resulted in a 36-year touchdown. It was his first touchdown of the season, and it was a beautiful one to get him started. Robert Spillane had him dead to rights in the backfield, but Harris sidestepped the tackle before bouncing back outside and bursting up the sideline. He finished it with a dive that went about five yards to break the plane of the goal line for a touchdown.
The other run was Harris juking a defender at the second level. This is the one that McCoy was referring to with the broken ankles and lost cleats. CB Jack Jones had a good angle on Harris, but he cut back inside and sent Jones to the ground. These were just two of the three explosive running plays of 20 or more yards that he had in the game.
It was the most efficient game of his career with 7.6 yards per carry. While Harris is often billed as a between-the-tackles runner, he has a surprising number of explosive plays. Combining the 2023 and 2024 seasons, Harris has 12 explosive runs. Only Jahmyr Gibbs and James Conner have more during that span. He is also in a tie this season for the third-most explosive runs (four) after Derrick Henry (eight) and Jordan Mason (seven).
If the Steelers can find a way to balance their offense to alleviate some of the defenders in the box, Najee Harris could end up having himself a nice season. He is currently at 96 carries for 376 rushing yards and a touchdown. That has him on pace for 1,065.3 rushing yards this season. That is slightly ahead of his pace from the last two seasons. He is also well ahead of his pace through six games last year when he had 300 rushing yards.
Harris, and the offensive line, have traditionally done better down the stretch in the late fall and early winter months. There is still plenty of time for him to have a career season.
