Entering the 2023 season, there was a great deal of excitement around the progression of RB Jaylen Warren. Now, the season has come and gone, and it seems that the buzz around Warren will only be greater entering the 2024 season. Fans adore the hard-hitting nature of Warren’s game, watching as he does his best impersonation of a bowling ball on the football field. His style is reminiscent of a brand of Steelers football that seemed to no longer exist, and other teams are noticing this level of intensity as well.
During an episode of his podcast, Baltimore Ravens’ star cornerback Marlon Humphrey had his teammate, Pro Bowl safety Kyle Hamilton, on as a guest, and the two discussed some upcoming NFL free agents. One of the names that came up was Derrick Henry, and while initially Hamilton wanted to connect the dots and pair Henry with his former coach Arthur Smith in Pittsburgh, he decided against the idea once he realized Smith has Warren and Najee Harris with the Steelers.
While normally, the talk of Henry to the Steelers leads to comparisons to Harris because both players are big-bodied running backs who spent their college careers at the University of Alabama, Humphrey and Hamilton instead began to talk about Warren. In fact, the comparison drawn was instead between Warren and Isiah Pacheco, who just won another Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs and is known for being one of the hardest runners in the league.
“That boy be running hard. Respect to him,” Hamilton said of Warren. When asked to compare him to Pacheco, he also said, “Like Jaylen Warren, if he doesn’t get these extra two yards, like, something bad’s gonna happen.”
The two explain that they were doing a good job of defending the run against the Chiefs, so they didn’t get to see much of Pacheco. However, Steelers’ fans know the Ravens saw a healthy dose of Warren, and it seems Hamilton remembers that matchup well.
“That one drive against Pittsburgh, at Pittsburgh, he had like 60 of the yards on that drive,” Hamilton said, recalling Warren’s herculean efforts in the final quarter of their Week 5 match-up. “He hurdled Darby, spun me, and scored a touchdown, I think.”
Funny enough, Warren didn’t score a touchdown on that drive, or even throughout the course of the entire game, for that matter. It goes to show just how much of an impact Warren’s play left in the minds of his opponents. Here is just one example of a play from that game where Warren ran hard and left an impression.
Humphrey would go on to explain how he managed to arm tackle Warren once during that game and that it certainly did some damage. Hamilton joked that Humphrey was groaning in agony as he got back up.
While the dream of Henry in Pittsburgh is fun, it’s apparent that opposing players have enough respect for the Warren and Harris tandem as is. The rivalry of the Steelers and Ravens has always been marked by physicality, so it’s encouraging to see players like Warren continuing that tradition. The Steelers need to make some changes this offseason, but the running back position is not one of them. If a player runs hard enough to make the Ravens respect him, he’s proven enough to say he belongs in Pittsburgh.
