With his fifth-year option declined and no deal in place beyond 2024, it seems likely that former first-round RB Najee Harris has played his last snap for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Despite earlier opinions from P-G insider Gerry Dulac that Harris would be likely to walk in free agency, he has now changed his tune.
Someone asked about the possibility of Harris taking a hometown discount in his latest Steelers chat via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“I will tell you there is no hometown discount,” Dulac wrote. “But I think the chances are better he returns than not.”
He will have a more complete opinion on the matter published later today via P-G, but it seems like an odd 180-degree turn from his previous opinion.
For more context, he was also asked how much blame should fall on Harris for his relative lack of success.
“I don’t blame Najee for anything,” Dulac wrote. “OK, maybe he’s not a game-breaker or difference-maker. And maybe he could use a little better vision sometimes. But the guy has never missed a game, despite the pounding he takes, and has rushed for over 1,000 yards in each of his four seasons…Productive and durable. That’s a pretty good combo.”
Harris is in a rare club for both his durability and 1,000-yard rushing seasons to start his career. Some argue that the 1,000-yard mark isn’t impressive in the 17-game era. But then why is he the only one to do it in each of his first four seasons since 2001?
If Harris rides off into the sunset with another team in free agency, which I personally still lean toward being the most likely outcome, then there will be a small part of me that wonders what if?
For the entirety of Harris’ tenure with the team, he has run behind one of the most abysmal offensive lines in the league. There was a brief stretch where they resembled a competitive unit over the back half of the 2023 season, and it’s probably no surprise that was Harris’ best stretch of play.
From Week 9 to Week 18 in 2023, Harris rushed 171 times for 722 yards and 7 touchdowns. That also included a three-game stretch in December where nothing was working for the offense, which pulled his average down a bit.
I am not going to directly compare him to Saquon Barkley, but there is something to be said about the kind of jump in production that can happen going from one of the worst offensive lines in the league to one of the best.
The Steelers won’t have an offensive line the same caliber as the Eagles in 2025, but it should be their best group since Harris entered the league in 2021. Keep in mind, he was running behind Dan Moore Jr., Kevin Dotson (out of position), Kendrick Green, Trai Turner, and Chuks Okorafor as a rookie, and it didn’t get much better in his second year.
The 2024 o-line took a step back partially because of the youth but also because of the inordinate number of injuries the group had to deal with. Nate Herbig, James Daniels, Isaac Seumalo, Zach Frazier, and Troy Fautanu all missed part or all of the season.
What can Harris look like with an offensive line that is at least in the top half or even third of the league? If there is an argument to be made in favor of keeping Harris, that’s it.
If you want an easy argument against keeping him, it’s the fact that Jaylen Warren can be retained for cheaper with an RFA tender, and this draft class has over 30 draftable running backs, according to multiple respected former scouts. If there was ever a year to get better and younger at the RB position, it’s now.
