Fourth-year RB Najee Harris is one of the key free agents the Steelers have pending in March. A former first-round pick, Harris did not have his fifth-year option picked up by the team. Over the course of the season, he has addressed his future a number of times, always with the same attitude. Essentially, it’s not the time for that.
The Steelers’ season has come to a premature end, but Najee Harris still isn’t planning his future. Asked by Brian Batko if he would like to be back with the team in 2025, Chris Adamski quotes him as saying, “I haven’t given much thought to that.”
For the season, Harris finished with 1,043 rushing yards and six touchdowns on 263 carries. He averaged just around four yards per carry, but with a career-low success rate of 43.7 percent. Harris did figure more into the Steelers’ passing game with 283 yards on 36 catches. His six total touchdowns are a career-low in his four seasons.
Najee Harris’ season played out much like the Steelers’ on offense, fluctuating between hot and cold. In the final three games leading into the bye, he rushed for a combined 322 yards and two touchdowns on 54 attempts, rushing for nearly six yards per carry. Outside of that three-game stretch, he never topped 75 rushing yards in a single game.
Against the Ravens, the Steelers rushed for just 29 yards on 11 total attempts with a long of five yards. Najee Harris contributed six attempts for 17 yards, just 2.8 yards per attempt. His 17 rushing yards are the third-lowest for a game in his career, his fifth under 20 yards.
Notably, the numbers are particularly poor in the postseason. In three games, Najee Harris has 83 rushing yards, albeit on 35 attempts. That is still under 2.4 yards per attempt for the Steelers in three postseason games, with zero touchdowns.
The Steelers entered this season aiming to ignite the run game. While a lot of their failure to do so consistently falls on the offensive line, they must also consider a change at running back. Najee Harris is an unrestricted free agent, and they already passed on an affordable fifth-year option.
Their other answer in the backfield is Jaylen Warren, who is a restricted free agent in 2025. The Steelers are likely to tender him at the second-round level, but Cordarrelle Patterson’s $3 million contract may not survive. As for Harris, it will depend, perhaps, on what his market looks like.
An early look at the 2025 running back free agency market includes Najee Harris, Aaron Jones, Nick Chubb, J.K. Dobbins, A.J. Dillon, Javonte Williams, and a wide cast of characters. It’s unclear if the Steelers are still committed to a bell-cow back — if they were to have one. They obviously stopped viewing Harris as such a player over the course of his career. Warren’s emergence had something to do with that, but he would have played more if they saw him in that light. But how much does Harris want to come back, depending on what kind of market he has?
