Volume, Poor Blocking Contributing to Najee Harris Hitting Rookie Wall
When the Pittsburgh Steelers selected Najee Harris with their first round pick in the spring, they envisioned the former Alabama star infusing life into their running attack.
Unfortunately, that has not happened. The Steelers are 31st in rushing yards and 28th in rushing success rate with Harris being the bell-cow of the backfield this season.
A quick look at Harris' efficiency numbers tell the story of how frustrating the season has been for him and the Steelers offense as a whole. Out of 77 players with at least 50 carries on the season, Harris' 3.6 yards per attempt ranks 66th in the NFL through 14 games. He's been hit at the line of scrimmage on 41.4% of his carries, almost exclusively due to the struggles of his offensive line.
Possibly the most frustrating part of it all, is that teams don't really have to commit many resources to stopping him.
Harris has 129 carries against six-man box counts with the next highest being James Conner at 103 carries. On those carries, Harris yards per attempt comes out to 4.0 yards per carry, which is an upgrade from his season totals, but still poor compared to the rest of the league.
Other AFC North backs in these situations: Kareem Hunt (6.7 YPC) Nick Chubb (5.7 YPC) and Joe Mixon (4.5 YPC). The Steelers offense just can't seem to make defenses pay for staying light in the box.
Football is a total team sport, but when placing blame in this instance, most of it falls on the offensive line. The Steelers went into the season with four new starters but failed to prioritize the position in the offseason. This is a group that needed, and still needs, an injection of talent. Especially when it comes to the run game.
Kevin Dotson started slow but is still their best run blocker from a talent perspective. However, he needed a stint on Injured Reserve due to a high-ankle sprain, which has led to the Steelers playing almost a half dozen players at left guard this season.
Dan Moore and Kendrick Green were mid-round picks forced into the starting lineup as rookies. While Moore has shown some improvement over the past couple weeks in both phases, he's still a day-three tackle prospect.
There's not a center in the league that has struggled more, particularly in run blocking, than Kendrick Green. A guard in college at Illinois, the transition to a new position in the league has been anything but seamless.
The team was forced to bring in Trai Turner late in the offseason, after it was discovered that David Decastro needed another surgery and wouldn't be ready for the start of the campaign. Turner has dealt with several injuries over the past couple seasons and those have zapped him of any athleticism that he had earlier in his career.
When working in a phone booth, he's mostly fine. When you ask him to pull or get out in space, it's a disaster.
Chukwuma Okorafor is a finesse player who specializes in pass protection but isn't physical enough to make a difference in the run game with any sort of consistency.
Long story short, the Steelers have just one above-average run blocker on their offensive line and he's still working his way back from IR. That's simply not a recipe for success if you want to be a team that runs the ball more effectively in this league.
There was no secret that the Steelers were going to invest in a running back early in the draft this past offseason. There was a ton of smoke around Najee Harris, linking him to Pittsburgh. The Steelers don't really do smokescreens very well come draft time. Follow where Mike Tomlin and Kevin Colbert make appearances at Pro Days, pick out the highly touted player where they have an obvious need, and boom - that player is a heavy favorite to be selected.
Everyone remembers the Le'Veon Bell saga in the Steel City, both the good and bad with the Steelers running him into the ground during the first five seasons as a pro.
It's been well documented that Tomlin is one of the ultra-rare coaches in the NFL that still values the true workhorse running back over the committee approach. After logging over 200 carries in his final two seasons at Alabama, Harris physical profile seemed like a natural fit to take over this role.
Matt Canada and company responded by giving him over 300 touches in the first 14 games. He's also playing 85% of their offensive snaps, an absurd number for any tailback.
Therein lies the problem. Harris doesn't quite look the same in recent weeks which is problematic considering the only source of running success they often have is predicated on his ability to make something out of nothing.
In the first ten weeks of the season, Harris forced eight tackles and eluded four more tackles in the run game. Since then, he's broken just three tackles and eluded one in five games, which is a noticeable difference that shows up on tape.
Harris also had the reputation coming out of college as being a reliable receiver who could make guys miss in space. In the first ten weeks of the season, he forced or broke a staggering 31 missed tackles on catches that ended up on highlight reels across social media. However, since then, that number has dropped to just six.
As the cliche goes, when the weather gets colder, it's nice to be able to rely on your run game. That seems unrealistic with the way that Harris is trending over the course of the season. The Steelers have no one to blame but themselves, though.
There is a ton of data out there that suggests selecting a running back in the first round is foolish due to many factors, the most significant being long-term return on investment. That's the route the Steelers chose to take, though. The bigger problem is that they didn't do enough to ensure this guy could succeed early on, placing him behind an offensive line that even Jerome Bettis in his prime couldn't make look adequate.
If the Steelers want to get enough short-term gratification out of this selection during his rookie contract, they need to invest heavily in the trenches in the offseason. That means acquiring proven talent at starting positions over taking gambles on unknowns, which is likely to cost a little more money, and that's okay.
It also wouldn't be a bad idea to go grab a cheap, reliable veteran running back. One that you actually feel comfortable with on the field for a few series every game. Doing so will reduce the wear and tear on their 23-year-old runner's body.
If you do those things, who knows... Maybe then they'll be able to ride their star running back towards a playoff push in December for years to come.
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