One of the more surprising moments of the 2024 Pittsburgh Steelers’ offseason was the team’s decision to decline the fifth-year option for Najee Harris. That move set up a prove-it 2024 season for the former Alabama running back. However, injuries early in the year will see Harris take a feature role on Sunday Night against the Dallas Cowboys. Expect to see Harris break out for the Steelers in Week 5.
Make Or Break 2024 For Harris
When it came to Harris’s fifth-year option, many fans and media members assumed it was a formality for Pittsburgh. Instead, on Thursday, May 2, the Steelers made the 2024 campaign into a make-or-break situation for the fourth-year player. Despite Harris being the only running back in the NFL to surpass 1,000 rushing yards in each of the last three seasons, Pittsburgh demanded to see more from him. The former first-round pick could have gotten in his head about the contract issue, but that isn’t the kind of attitude that got the bruising back to the NFL.
Once the Steelers’ 2024 training camp began, Harris put the distractions aside and hit the ground running with a focused, competitive attitude. That professional approach is one reason Harris will succeed against the Cowboys, which have one of the league’s worst rush defenses in 2024. He won’t only be used as the primary running back on Sunday night, with the Steelers hoping he’ll show the two young runners behind him how to pound the rock in primetime. Jonathan Ward will be the spell back to Harris, with Aaron Shampklin filling the third role in the backfield.
Steelers Can Trust Harris
Harris has been one of the more consistent aspects of a frustratingly fluid Pittsburgh backfield. Jaylen Warren hasn’t been healthy yet in 2024. Cordarrelle Patterson showed some much-needed change of pace in Week 4 but will miss Sunday night with an injury. After adjusting to being part of a dual-attack rushing game, Harris now finds himself as the feature back entering Sunday night’s clash. The former first-round pick will carry most of the load against the Cowboys, and everything points to a highly productive Week 5 for the Steelers running game.
Harris isn’t a stranger to leading the attack from the backfield, considering that is how he began his NFL career. In his rookie season (2021), he carried the ball 307 times for 1,200 rushing yards; the next closest was Benny Snell Jr. with 98 yards on 36 carries. In 2019 and 2020 with Alabama, Harris tallied three times as many yards on the ground as the next most productive back. The question everyone is asking now, with Harris in his fourth NFL season, is whether he can still be the kind of feature back that consistently moves the sticks for Pittsburgh.
Harris Has Been Featured Before
While a popular narrative is that Harris is off to a slow start, that isn’t the reality of his situation. Compared to his first three professional campaigns, each of which went over 1,000 rushing yards, he is actually ahead of his usual pace. Harris has rushed for 228 yards in 2024 so far. In the first four games of the 2021 season, his rookie year, he had 185 yards. In 2022, it was 202 yards; in 2023, he had 210 yards after Week 4. Based purely on the numbers, Harris is working towards his best season in the NFL instead of the slow start that is being touted by most in sports media.
In such a crucial year for the running back, having the opportunity to play a one-back role could lead to big things for Harris in 2024. Warren has been the change-of-pace complement to Harris for the last two seasons, with Patterson filling in admirably when Warren’s injury hampers the back’s full participation. However, Sunday night will be different as Warren and Patterson watch from the sidelines, and Harris is expected to receive the lion’s share of the carries. Sunday could be a memorable outing for Harris as long as he can shift from being a 1A running back to a three-down runner.
Conclusion
Harris has plenty to prove in 2024 despite his singular consistency since entering the league. The Steelers clarified that the $6.9 million price tag was too high for the franchise to commit to without seeing another productive season. Whether that was due to the diminishing value running backs have in the NFL or the first-round label that raises expectations exponentially, Harris knows how big this Sunday night matchup against the Cowboys could be for him and his future in the league.
Offensive coordinator Arthur Smith will not have any trouble crafting an offensive strategy highlighting Harris’s strengths, considering what Smith did with Derrick Henry in Tennessee. Justin Fields is improving with each game, so the combination of Harris and his quarterback will be dangerous for the Cowboys’ injured defense. Harris will have a primetime stage to perform on, and nothing will stop him from running all over Dallas en route to a 4-1 record for the black and gold.
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