PITTSBURGH — At times, it looks as if star Steelers running back Najee Harris is unsure of where to run. But he might be even less sure of what to say.
As Harris struggles for rushing yards in his second season, the 2021 first-round pick seems to be vacillating between frustration and positivity, disappointment and confidence. Shortly after his lowest-carry game of the year, and his fourth in a row held under 70 yards rushing, Harris was asked about running just four times for 0 yards in the first half of Sunday’s loss in Philadelphia. He said he can’t make the holes for himself, that he can’t do everything.
On Tuesday, with time to digest the film and pinpoint what went wrong against the Eagles, Harris doubled down. He does his best to control what he can control, but at least in that one, there wasn’t much he could do.
“What y’all want me to do? I can’t do anything about that,” Harris said in the locker room. “Do I want four carries for 0 yards? No. But I can’t do everything. Do y’all want me to get the ball and block to open up the holes, too? There ain’t nothing there.”
Harris insisted he’s not pointing fingers elsewhere, which is consistent with his remarks multiple times since late September, when he stressed patience and put the onus on himself to trust his offensive line. Previously, he has bristled at social media for dishing out blame and beat reporters for asking questions about why the offense was sputtering.
And there’s still some of that from Harris, who’s averaging just 3.3 yards per carry and has yet to hit 75 rushing yards in a game in 2022. He’s been besieged behind the line of scrimmage plenty of times, much like his rookie year, and it shows with 361 yards on the ground through eight games.
“I’m not throwing anybody under the bus,” Harris said. “People are going to take what I say and, obviously, run off with it. Me being a first-rounder, [having] accountability, a captain — the expectations are set higher than most people, which is cool. I’m not tripping off that.”
But Harris is getting tripped up by opposing defenses. The advanced stats aren’t kind to him, with 2.1 yards before contact (1.7 last season) and only 1.3 yards after contact (2.2 last season).
To his point, when the Steelers used the 24th overall pick on him a year ago, then-general manager Kevin Colbert spoke of his ability to be his own blocker. Much is expected from first-round backs, especially those out of Alabama. Perhaps that’s why Harris was so adamant a month ago that the focus should be on what he’s doing, not the blockers in front of him, but is he taking his own advice?
“[People] say, like, are you struggling this year? But I don't know what y’all want me to do. I can’t open up a hole, you know what I mean? I can’t make a pass,” Harris lamented. “For our run game, you need all types of elements for it to work. [Defenses] are just going to stack the box. They had seven, eight-man boxes, the Eagles — five down [linemen], a safety in the box. Do y’all know football?”
Harris continued on that he doesn’t know what kind of comments the outside world is looking for from him. He pointed out that he has taken responsibility before, admitting he needs to run harder, hit holes when they're there, and that he’s always going to be criticized.
His own position coach, Eddie Faulkner, mentioned seeing signs of Harris “carrying some baggage” because of how hard he is on himself. Faulkner tells his No. 1 running back when he sees a play on tape where Harris should’ve gone vertical instead of horizontal, or if he should’ve taken what a defense gave him rather than a predetermined cut. But Faulkner also tells his “RB1” to shut out the noise off the field — as he has since Harris became the face of the next generation of the Steelers offense — and not try to do too much on the field.
“He just wants to win. He was the same way last year when we had our strife,” Faulkner said. “He wants to win, he wants to do everything he can, and that’s heavy on his heart. That’s what you see: A guy who really, really cares.”
Teammates are expressing the same, with center Mason Cole calling Harris a captain who “does a really good job of staying positive” and “keeping guys locked in.” Left guard Kevin Dotson agreed that in this latest rut, it was mostly a matter of the Eagles being one step ahead of the Steelers.
Dotson added that it also didn’t help to fall behind so early, and when they did have chances to run the ball, missed assignments by the line were a factor.
“I thought that was part of their scheme,” Dotson said of the Eagles stacking the box. “It was one of those things where, once we’d seen it, we should’ve been getting out of it or something like that. But we either didn’t get out of it, or we didn't do the counter move we had for it. We’ve just got to be more on it.”
As for the scrutiny that often shifts from ball carrier to offensive line to coaches to quarterback, Dotson’s in his third season, so he’s been in the NFL long enough to know how that roulette wheel spins.
“We’ve all got pressures, man,” Dotson said. “I know they put a lot on [Harris], but they put a lot on quarterbacks, they put a lot on O-line, wide receivers. Everybody’s getting their criticisms. Everybody can criticize. Only a few people actually matter, though, so that’s how we go.”
On this play, Harris is following the big man straight through the hole.
“Y’all can write what y’all want to write. That’s y’all’s job,” Harris said. “Y’all got to create a stir, create a story or some [stuff]. I said what I said. I’m not blaming anybody. I’m trying.”
