Analyst Urges Steelers to Bench Najee Harris

The Steelers rushing attack averages a meager 3.4 yards per carry through the first five games of the 2023 NFL season. That’s a significant step back from a year ago when the team was clicking on all cylinders on the ground throughout the last half of the season. At this point, the blame for that can go around the yard, with each position group wearing that blame.

However, it is popular to rag on Najee Harris for being the main issue. The Steelers running back has never played like an efficient player with his bruising size and lack of long speed, but is he a critical part of the problem? Dave Kenyon of Bleacher Report believes he is, and the team should bench him in favor of the upstart Jaylen Warren.

“My dynasty fantasy football team would love Najee Harris to rekindle his once-star billing,” Kenyon wrote. “It’s tough to keep holding out hope for someone who finished shy of four yards per carry in 2021, 2022 and is currently below the mark again in 2023. Jaylen Warren isn’t a savior, but Harris is lacking vision and decisiveness to problematic levels.”

The Steelers have maintained that Najee Harris is the guy while Warren is the complement to him. So far, that has rang true, with the two splitting the carries and snaps about 55 to 45 in favor of Harris. Those two certainly do not view it as a completion, and Warren shut down that talk this preseason.

“No, it’s not at all (a competition),” Warren said. “Originally, I’m here to complement him (Najee Harris); that’s the workhorse. That narrative people have talked to me about it. Honestly, it’s not like that at all. I don’t go in there daily thinking about it like, ‘Oh, I’m going to take his job.’ You know, everybody that’s a fan of the Steelers, the roster, the staff, we all know we need Najee to win. I don’t care about that. When it comes to that narrative, I block it out. There will be critics everywhere, but they will have opinions. But that’s what’s great about this team. We don’t let it get to us.”

The run game has run in the mud all season, mainly due to blocking issues up front and schematic deficiencies in the run game. Pittsburgh has to fix those deficiencies before considering a vast change in the running back position. Harris and Warren have each had big games at different points in the year, and neither has been particularly efficient this year on the stat sheet.