Ravens Promise to Eliminate Najee Harris
Najee Harris is about the only player on the Steelers’ offense to find success against the Texans last Sunday. And with Kenny Pickett’s injury, it certainly would seem that Harris is in store for another significant workload, even against a strong front for the Ravens. The Ravens know that, too, and they have one goal: eliminate Pittsburgh’s big running back.
With a fantastic duo at linebacker in Patrick Queen and Roquan Smith, the Steelers must be more honed in on their technique and communication than ever. But the Ravens feel like if they can shut down Harris, Pittsburgh will be able to do very little against them offensively. Harris has an uphill battle to take over the game without Pat Freiermuth, Diontae Johnson, and likely a few offensive linemen.
“Any time you’re playing a great player like [Najee Harris], you want to try to get after him. Obviously, when he goes, their team goes, and when you shut him down, their team shuts down. The biggest focus is definitely stopping [No.] 22,” Queen said.
Najee Harris has not seen that much volume this year, mainly due to Pittsburgh’s struggles. But even when he does see success, such as his success against the Texans, Pittsburgh got down early and could not rely on him to continue the drive. But Harris still maintains that the main issue with the Steelers’ offense is not rooted in the scheme but in the players and their execution. He gave a passionate defense of Matt Canada on Wednesday to back up that point.
“We can’t just keep looking at the coaches as an outlet or whatever y’all are putting out there as an outlet,” Harris said. “That’s just stupid what y’all doing, really. We can say what we want, but like I said, players play; coaches coach. We just can’t keep looking and pointing fingers. We’ve got to point at ourselves. It’s the man in the mirror. This is the NFL. Everybody runs the same damn plays, you know what I mean? Everybody disguises it differently, but it’s just how are we going to play it? I think we’re just not playing right with that edge right now. We need to do better.”
Harris said the Steelers have been lacking the physical mentality that powered the team through the second half of the 2022 season, which allowed them to succeed on the ground and created more openings for the rest of the offense. If they can find that on Sunday, they could perhaps thwart Baltimore’s goal to eliminate Haris.
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