The Pittsburgh Steelers were meant to be a run-first team that imposed its will on opposing defenses. They ran the ball a lot, especially early in the year, but the efficiency wasn’t there. Blame it on the offensive line, the lack of explosiveness in the passing game, or just not having the right running backs. Whatever the case may be, it wasn’t working.
There are currently no running backs under contract for the 2025 season with Najee Harris’ fifth-year option declined and Jaylen Warren set to be a restricted free agent. The Steelers can pretty easily retain Warren, but the chances that Harris returns are slim to none at this point.
One Steelers insider thinks that the running back position will be a top Steelers priority in the 2025 NFL Draft, and he believes they will be targeting a very specific type of running back.
“One of the priorities in the draft will be finding a running back who can get to the edge,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette insider Gerry Dulac said via the Rich Eisen Show. “They don’t have that kind of guy. They have two plodders, inside-the-tackles kind of guys. And so they need to find a guy who can get on the edge to kind of supplement what they already have.”
Warren is good in between the tackles, but he is probably a little better at working outside the tackles than a guy like Harris. He is explosive enough to get the edge. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have a guy who is a home run threat to ride the wave of the outside zone run and occasionally break free for touchdowns or explosive running plays.
The Steelers haven’t exactly had much success trying to find those types of running backs over the years. I remember back to Chris Rainey, Dri Archer, and Anthony McFarland Jr. All of them had that type of speed, but none of them came even close to working out.
The premier home-run threats at running back like Saquon Barkley, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jonathan Taylor, Breece Hall and others don’t come cheap. Those types of guys almost always go in the first or second round. The Steelers have greater needs, and I don’t think they will be making the same mistake that they did with drafting a first-round RB like Najee Harris four years ago.
There are plenty of examples of productive running backs from the mid to late rounds, but they can’t just grab a speedster again and hope it works out given some of their mistakes in the past.
This is lauded as a strong running back class, and there are a few speedy options in the early to middle rounds that are worth looking at. Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson, Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson, and UCF’s RJ Harvey could be among the names that get talked about.
