PITTSBURGH — Two days before their 2022 season opener, the Steelers announced their plan to pay tribute to late quarterback Dwayne Haskins. Each player will wear a sticker with the No. 3 on the back of his helmet, the jersey number of Haskins, who was struck and killed by a truck in early April.
The stunning death of Haskins cast a pall over the team's offseason, given that he was trying to rejuvenate his NFL career after two rocky seasons with Washington. Despite being a low-level free-agent signing in January 2021, Haskins was far from a lone wolf in the locker room, opening himself up to his new teammates and becoming a beloved player and close friend to many of his peers. The 15th overall pick in 2019 was only 24 when he died.
"We just miss him," said longest-tenured Steeler and fellow Ohio State product Cam Heyward. "A lot of people are still hurting, a lot of people have his memory on our mind. We know it doesn't bring him back or anything, but he's still in our hearts."
In April, many Steelers coaches, players and staffers attended a funeral service for Haskins in Pittsburgh. The team did not reissue his No. 3 to any player for this season, even when they were carrying 90 players on the roster in training camp.
Recently named one of the team's five co-captains with Heyward, second-year running back and face of the offense Najee Harris had been in coach Mike Tomlin's ear about memorializing Haskins in some way. Harris was with Haskins at the group gathering in Boca Raton, Fla., where tragedy struck and rocked a number of offensive players who traveled to Florida to work with new quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
"That was one thing I reminded Mike T to do a lot of times," Harris said Friday. "Obviously, with Dwayne's situation, I tried to tell him as much as possible what the team really wants and what we all want. And we want to recognize Dwayne any way possible, every game this year. Putting the '3' on the back of our helmets was one of them."
Heyward agreed, confirming that the decision essentially came from the upper reaches of the franchise, but of course had the full support of the players, many of whom shared the field with Haskins for a year and a half.
"It was from the top," Heyward told the Post-Gazette. "We appreciate that the organization came up with the idea. Dwayne affected everybody, not only in this locker room, but in this organization."
Elsewhere in the AFC North, the Ravens will wear a helmet decal to honor late outside linebacker Jaylon Ferguson, who died of an accidental drug overdose in June at the age of 26, as well as former defensive tackle and Pitt alumnus Tony Siragusa.
No. 22 feeling good
Ever since Harris revealed after the last exhibition that he was dealing with a sprained Lisfranc injury, the outside world has been nervous about his health going into the season — and not just in Steeler Nation.
"I think it was the fantasy owners," Harris said with a smile. "I don't care."
But he does care about his ability to hold up to a workload that was heavier than all players in the NFL last year. Harris acknowledged that he's well past his recovery timetable of four weeks and feels "100 percent" for Week 1.
"I'm on track on everything, so we're good," he said.
Harris also appreciated that he was healthy in time to get some action in the final preseason game. The other side of the coin is that an early training camp injury may have saved him from himself, in a sense, because running backs coach Eddie Faulkner is always telling him to scale back his activity in anticipation of the games that really matter.
"Me and my position coach, and every now and then Mike T, we get in arguments every now and then because I want to get reps in — live reps, too," Harris said. "But they say that's not the best thing to do."
