Two-year extension for Jaylen Warren

Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse
He's going the distance
No trophy, no flowers, no flashbulbs, no wine
He's haunted by something he cannot define
Bowel-shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse
Assail him, impale him with monster-truck force
In his mind, he's still driving, still making the grade

CAKE

 

@Formerscribe

Yards per run don't always tell the whole story....Just to look at the success rate

Harris last season:43% of success rate and 46% on his career,this is among the bottom in the league

Warren for this season,53% of success rate and he is at 51% in his career....Gainwell is at 58% this year,among the top in the league....So they are both much more efficiant that Harris and when your success rate is low,you need to be explosive and this is not the case for Harris....Sometimes you need to take the L since Harris is nothing special

 

Harris gained 1,000 yards every year as a Steeler. His critics said that doesn't matter because it is so easy to reach that number. If that is true, why isn't Warren going to get there? Warren is on pace to gain fewer yards than Harris did last year with the same average per carry. Why on Earth would I take an L when things are unfolding with Warren exactly as I predicted. He has been less durable than Harris was. As he moved into the lead role, his average per carry dropped significantly. He hasn't been able to carry as heavy a workload as Harris did.

The way I was wrong, which I have admitted multiple times, was in my evaluation of Gainwell. He has far exceeded my expectations. Even with that gift, the Steelers' running game is significantly weaker than it was last year.

Success rate has an element of subjectivity and it measures circumstance as much as performance. Back's can't control the down and distance in which they get the ball and the lines used for what is a successful run seem arbitrary. It is also affected by the team. Harris had a weaker offense around him last season than what Warren has this year. Despite one bad stretch of games in the middle of the season, Rodgers has been a significant upgrade over the quarterback play the last four seasons.

By the real measures of a running back, total yards and yards per carry, Warren isn't even in the top 15 in the league. He has the same average per carry Harris had last year. His numbers are declining later in the season, too.

 

The running game is not weaker that last season....The difference,they were 4th in rushing attempts last season vs 27th this season....The rushing success is much better this year that last year(52% this year vs 46% last season and this number would been even lower without the 54% of Justin Fields)

 

So if Jaylen Warren goes from 5.3 to 4.3 and now its 4.0 its also a concern?

Just wondering. I know he has a chance to improve it these last 3 games but that seems like a concern to me if we are using your logic.

 

If rushing success rate was a valid replacement for rushing yards and yards per carry, that might be a fair assessment. It is not. Your claim that it is due to more carries also doesn't hold up because it isn't just the total yardage that has decreased. The Steelers are also gaining fewer yards per carry this season at 3.9, down from last year's 4.1. That isn't all about Fields, either. Subtract his numbers from the Steelers' team rushing statistics and they are still at 4.0 yards per carry, more than this season.

The Steelers are 27th in the NFL in total rushing yards and 28th in average yards per carry. They were 11th in total rushing yards and 20th in yards per carry last season. They got worse at running the ball.

This decline is despite having the support of an improved passing game due to the presence of Rodgers. That should have made it easier for the Steelers to run, but they got worse.

 

What folks are really doing in here is just admitting that we have a better QB than in years past.

That success rate argument is weak.

We aren’t gaining more yards on the ground, we aren’t running more plays and we aren’t winning at a high clip.

If Najee was a Steeler with Aaron Rodgers at QB best believe he would eat well.


We are just benefiting from a down AFCN this year and while that is great for us, under normal circumstances I don’t think anyone will be giddy over a “53% success rate” if the Rats or Cincy led the division at 10-4 or 11-3.

Yall really out here talking like less yards has been better for our ground game because of success rate. Smh.. no, we aren’t gaining more just lucky the rest of the division is ass juice this year.

 

Why GP / DK canceled and not Warren / Harris? We are missing prime DK > GP!!!

 

Yep.

Not sure why you think this is some kind of gotcha question.

As I told you many times on the previous site we posted on, I don't think Warren is a starter in the NFL. I think he's best suited to the 40 in the 60/40 split that he had previously. But he can be the 60 in that split in a pinch.

It was very concerning that the team seemed to view him about evenly with Najee. It was a less extreme version of Kenny getting benched by Mason. Mason being better than Kenny wasn't about Mason being good (he's a journeyman backup at best). It was about Kenny being bad. Warren looking about as good as Najee last year wasn't good for Najee. Gainwell looking about as good as Warren this year isn't good for Warren.

And I will be concerned if we run him back as RB1 next year without strong competition. We should be looking for a better starting RB. Like many, I was hoping Johnson could be that guy. But this year has been disappointing.

And the FO would be insane to pay him the contract Bell wanted this off-season (pay him like a RB1+WR2). I don't think we should cut him because he's not a negative (just like I wouldn't have cut Najee). But anyone who wouldn't be concerned if he wanted to get a huge raise with a bunch of guarantees in the off-season would be pretty foolish IMO.


Honestly, with RBs we should always be looking for the next starter. Because they don't last very long.

 

Because given what we are viewing right now statistically you should be bashing/doubting Warren this year.

and I agree we should always be looking for the next RB but we just drafted Johnson as Najee’s replacement. Guess I should be happy that he is going to out gain Najee this year. So much for plug and play and RB’s being the easiest position to replace.

 

Trust me, if Warren had 1300 yards and 4.9 ypc these folks would be taking victory laps.

They have to use success rate because its the only metric they have. Deep down these folks know Warren had been a disappointment so far this season on the ground. I think Gainwell will continue to get more reps and next year he is the starter or hopefully Johnson is ready to do something because Warren doesn’t look like a feature back.

 

I didn't "bash" Bell during the season when it was happening. In fact, I never even bashed him afterward. Always saying that I don't think players are bad people when they try to get every last penny they can out of organizations. I believe that they are trading life and healthspan for money playing in the NFL. And I will never begrudge a player for trying to get everything they can out of a team. I think time clearly showed that he and his (by all accounts crazy) agent were asking for way more than his market value, but he never did anything that was against the CBA when he opted not to play under the tag. I don't think he was a bad person for doing it.

I was actually for him playing under the tag. Because it wasn't the money I was worried about so much as the structure of a long term deal and all the guarantees he wanted.

What I did say was that it would have been a big mistake for the team to sign him to the big contract he wanted (RB1+WR2 + lots of guarantees). I didn't even want the team to offer him the more reasonable (but still too high) contract they did. This was a pretty obvious position to take given the sharp decline he had that season. And it was clearly proven to be the right call in hindsight. Thankfully he turned down that over payment and saved the team from itself. Although it's possible that the structure wasn't so bad that we could have cut him without too much pain.

It didn't really matter though. By that time Bell wasn't good anymore. Ben was declining hard re: deep ball accuracy. And Brown went crazy. The window was closed. We were only trying to hold it open with hope.

I wish he could have been healthy enough to contribute to more playoff runs. I think people mostly forget how bad our "injury luck" was in those playoff runs. I think if he could have stayed healthy in the playoffs, he could have been a real legend for the team. When he was at his peak, I think he was the best back in the NFL. And he took over the few playoff games he played in.


Re: The Present. I currently believe that all of our skill positions are under performing and are below average (with the possible exception of Washington, who we've thankfully realized is the best TE on this team). We're forced to keep DK because of his contract. Then we have a bunch of WR3/4s. Warren isn't going to get cut, but I hope he goes back to being second fiddle (where I think he's best). I would be strongly against extending him this offseason if that was on the table (which it isn't). And if we get a RB1, we can have Warren (who will be in year 2 of his extension) go back to the 3rd down role he's best at. Which means it won't hurt when someone pays Gainwell more than he's worth. I think PF would be around average, but we refuse to use him more because A Smith loves playing J Smith even though we're worse at running and passing when we make that substitution.

 

Harris got the majority of the snaps on first and second down. Warren got the third-down snaps and the backup work on first and second down. It's not as if he was running it all that often, with fewer than nine carries per game.

 

But all in all it’s pretty obvious keeping Harris and signing him to the option would have been a bone head move

 

same for Warren....I mean Warren had only 11 run on 3rd down last year vs 9 for Harris

For this year,Warren has 15 runs for only 39 yards but he has 13 first down,so he does the job in this situation.Not good for the yards per run but this is still good for the team!

But it don't matter since Khan was right to not pick the option to Harris....He is not a special back.He had 3 good game in a row against the raiders,jets and giants,all awful team last season but outside of that,he was not good.Below average before and after that

 

Rinse and repeat

 

Yeah, seeing your points buried by facts would get frustrating for you. But hey, cheer up! Despite Warren's recent decline, the team has one two in a row to take first place!

 

He was better than Warren has been this season, gaining more yards with the same average per carry. Warren isn't going to get to 1,000 yards, a mark Harris never missed as a Steeler.

 

Only if you assume Harris still would have blown out his Achilles this year, which is an example of some folks here showing off their 20/20 hindsight. I was the one trying to tell people wear and tear on Harris was likely a major factor in letting him leave. His critics wanted to dismiss that right up until the moment of Harris's injury this season.

 

Not as long as you deny facts, no. Probably not.

 

I think you're correct that this was true last season. Because the team ultimately decided that there wasn't much difference in value between Warren and Najee. It was a pretty clear indication that we weren't going to try to keep Najee.

I should have said 40 in the 60/40 split again (like I did earlier in the post).

And even if Warren is the 40 in a 60/40 split (which I think is what he should be), he's clearly playing more than just 3rd downs.

IMO it's also a good example of why you don't give a 5th year option to a RB who isn't elite. Because RB is an easier position to fill. I think Dave at the Depot is right that every year it's worth bringing in as many UDFA RBs as you can to just throw them at the wall to see if they stick.