Najee Harris believes Steelers running game is improving, vows that will continue
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On Tuesday, coach Mike Tomlin said Najee Harris was getting better “with each passing quarter.”
Thursday, offensive coordinator Matt Canada noted Harris’ improvement from his first NFL regular-season game to his second.
Friday, the rookie running back himself judged his play to be on the ascent.
In the wake of a rotten start to the season for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ running game, Harris can’t be wrong in the sense that there seems to be nowhere to go but up.
“It might not seem like a lot to fans,” Harris said of the running game’s incremental improvement, “but when we watch film, it’s a lot. And as long as we keep improving and keep getting better, we are going to find our identity. And then we are going to capitalize on that.”
Those on the outside will have to trust Harris and his coaches and teammates, because the statistical production in 2021 is not pretty.
In the wake of amassing 75 yards and averaging 3.6 per carry in the season-opening win at the Buffalo Bills, the Steelers produced just 39 yards (2.8 per carry) in the loss last week to the Las Vegas Raiders.
It should be noted, though, that those numbers are skewed by a 25-yard end-around by wide receiver Chase Claypool against the Bills. Harris’ rushing stats, indeed, improved from 2.8 yards per carry in Week 1 to 3.8 in Week 2.
Better yet, after catching only one of three targets and gaining 4 receiving yards in the opener, Harris had five receptions for 43 yards and a 25-yard touchdown against the Raiders.
“He’s gaining an understanding about what the (preparation) process does in terms of setting (a player) up for performance, and, thus, it should put him in position to let his natural talents come out in play,” Tomlin said. “I’m expecting him to get routinely better with each outing and excited about that.”
“Najee, he doesn’t duck no bump.” #SteelersCamp https://t.co/UIBR5Xvi8u
— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) August 2, 2021
Harris noted that, as a first-round pick and reigning Doak Walker Award winner as college football’s best running back, the expectation was he would repair a Steelers running game that foundered at or near the bottom of the NFL in recent seasons.
He embraces those expectations but is balancing that with maintaining patience.
“You want immediate results, especially being a rookie, and me, personally, I want to try to find a way to impact the game and the team,” Harris said. “But you’ve got to realize that it takes time because you just are new at something, so you just are really learning the small steps that you need to know to make those big plays to be that type of person that you want to be.”
A friend of Najee Harris called him after Week 1 to complain he wasn’t helping his fantasy team enough.
Najee hung up on him. pic.twitter.com/2tCg12csD9
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) September 24, 2021
There is little doubt Harris’ production has been hamstrung by a young offensive line that is starting two rookies, a second-year player, a newcomer signed over the summer and a tackle who was switched from right to left and back again over a span of nine months.
But despite his touchdown run and a stiff arm that went viral on social media last week, Harris hasn’t distinguished himself through two weeks of his NFL career. Pro Football Focus, for example, grades Harris’ running as third-worst among the 39 league running backs who have at least 15 carries this season.
In footballoutsiders.com’s quantitative ranking of running backs, Harris is 35th among 36 qualifiers.
Before the opener, Harris talked about the jump in competition and competitiveness between playing for Alabama in the SEC and for the Steelers among their NFL peers.
Two weeks later, he noted how the feeling-out process he’s going through as a rookie mirrors what he endured as a freshman in college.
“When I walked away from Week 1 against the Bills, I set that in my head: to (improve in) Week 2,” Harris said. “You want to do something so bad, but at the same time, you have to realize it is a learning (process) and you have got to go through certain stages before you get there.
“I think every … great player has had those times of adversity that they face, but for me, my freshman year at Alabama, there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t know about the college level coming from high school, and then (as a rookie) there is a lot of stuff I didn’t know at the NFL level. The only time you can practice it is in the game. At the level. We are going to get there, though.”
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