Two-year extension for Jaylen Warren

Apparently they liked Warren better than Harris or the would have kept him

Pretty hard to argue with that

 

The problem with @Bubbahotep messing with my post that way is I can't quote him properly, but here goes.

Yes, their yardage went down. They had a few great games against terrible defenses that masked one of the league's worst rushing offenses. Having a better quarterback should have created more opportunities for them to run, not fewer.

I love how you want to use hindsight and a false assumption to prop up your argument. The Steelers did not know Harris would suffer a freak injury two years later when they turned down his option. None of you did, either. In fact, I'm the one who was talking about potential concerns regarding wear and tear on Harris's body, but his critics wanted to dismiss that as a factor in the team letting him go. See, at that time, it didn't fit into the ridiculous narrative that the Steelers thought Warren was the better back in 2024, but they still gave Harris the ball more starts, snaps, and touches for ...well, their logic falls apart completely there. Regarding the injury, well, some of y'all need to understand the butterfly effect better.

To reiterate, no, it is not an odd statement at all to point out that the team favored Harris over Warren when they had both. They did what was best for the team in 2024. That was starting the better back, giving him more snaps and more touches. That was Harris. I don't know why y'all can't wrap your heads around that simple concept, but that's your mistake.

 

They do when one has a lot more mileage on his body. They do when one is demanding more money. They do when one runs his mouth about mouth about the need to get paid.

Harris didn't think he was going to be cheap. How do you not realize that?

Teams don't start a back every game, give him more playing time, and give him the ball more if they don't think he is better.

 

Then why did Harris start every game, get more snaps, and get more touches in 2024?

Could it be other factors, such as his attitude and the wear and tear on his body, led to the decision? Of course it was, but y'all want to dismiss that.

 

Just maybe we can't wrap our heads around your statement is because it doesn't make one bit of sense that the team felt Harris was the better back but also decided not to keep him.

Najee Harris, speaking for the first time since the team declined his fifth year option, said the Steelers told him they were declining because “they didn’t know which direction the offense is headed.”
— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor)​

— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor)
​

According to you, a team that thought Harris was the better back, favored him over others, gave more touches, and had a better rushing offense with him, decided he wasn't in their future offense but the RB2 was?

Maybe the team was as smart as you and decided they were not gonna take that injury risk, the mileage and the guaranteed contract? In which case, bravo!

btw, I agree with one of your statements; "They did what was best for the team in 2024"..... i.e., they declined Harris' option year.

 

Great post [Note: I was quoting the Bubbahotep post above, but since the answers are "in line" in the quote he had nothing shows up...I'm not talking to myself...I promise].

Also worth noting that in the post you quote the statement "the coaches knew Harris was the better back" needs some support. Ever since Warren made the team, he steadily ate into Najee's carries. And by the end, I think carries were evenly split across the month or so of Najee's final season with us.

I think the only time Najee would be the obviously better back to have on the field is if you were nursing a lead and you absolutely didn't want to fumble (and weren't too worried about going 3 and out).

They had different styles and different positives / negatives. But Najee was not clearly the better back.

No matter what some posters say, the money tells us what the team thought of these two backs.

We let Najee walk. He signed with the chargers in March of 2025. One year. 1.5MM guaranteed, $3.75MM signing bonus. Incentives up to $4MM. These were "unlikely to be earned" bonuses, meaning that he had to best targets that get set by his previous year. Najee has good numbers because of volume. The chance that he was going to beat his 2025 numbers with us dropped close to zero when the Chargers took a RB in the 1st. Even if he doesn't get hurt, he probably misses on most (or all) of those bonuses.

We extended Warren on Sept 1 2025. 2 years worth $17.5MM including $12MM in guarantees. This is a better deal than the one Najee signed. It's also a higher AAV than the 5th year option we declined on Najee.

Q.E.D.

 

LoL. Crazy because you were also the 1st thing I thought of.

 

The option didn't affect the 2024 team. Nice try, but you missed badly on that one.

The posts that make no sense are the ones that insist the Steelers thought Warren was the better back, but never started him, played him less often and gave him the ball less than Harris in 2023 and 2024. How do you not see that?

The more accurate representation of the facts is that the team saw Harris as the better back and played him accordingly, but they did not want to keep both going forward. Harris hard far more mileage on his body. He was making noise publicly about wanting to get a big contract. At the time they declined the option, he had made it clear he wasn't going to be happy settling for what they thought was reasonable. Warren, on the other hand, was going to be easier to keep and was more likely to have more good seasons left in him.

Keep in mind that when I was arguing in favor of them exercising the fifth-year option, I also wanted them to let Harris leave after 2025. I also argued that letting him leave would cost them resources and I was proven correct when they spent the third-round pick on Kaleb Johnson.

My argument was also based on the idea that the Steelers need to pair Warren with a back who can carry much of the load on first and second down. They showed they agree with me by signing Rico Dowdle, a better back than Warren, this offseason.

 

Warren was the third-down back in 2023 and 2024. That wasn't all he did, but that was his role.

 

Now we are back to you dismissing the mileage on Harris's body, except when you want to bring it up regarding the Achilles injury even though I presented evidence that the two aren't necessarily related.

Are you arguing that his fatherly love is why Harris played more snaps and got the ball more than Warren in 2023 and 2024? So he weakened his team by giving the ball more to the lesser back, but then he agreed to let the guy leave? How does that reasoning make sense?

 

I have literally been presenting factual support for my statement that the coaches thought Harris was the better back since the Steelers declined his option. They started him in every game. They gave him more snaps. They gave him the ball more. Those are actual facts, not your vague guestimate regarding the final month of the 2024 season.

Other factors decided what they did after the 2024 season, not just the quality of the two players. I presented those, too, but y'all just don't want to hear.

 

Warren plays for the Steelers

Najee is unemployed

Steelers didn’t want Najee

31 teams didn’t think much of him

I will stick with the facts

 

It's true that Najee outsnapped Warren in 2024 if you look at the whole year (including early in the season when Warren was clearly dealing with injury issues and was less effective...like Najee in his 2nd year).

But in the back half of Najee's last season with us, in how many games did he outsnap Warren?

One of these columns is Najee's OFF SNAP%, the other is Warren's...I'll let you guess which is which!

I bolded the higher number so you can easily see if RB- A or RB-B got more snaps in a given game.

Game 8: 39.4% 59.1%
Game 9: 44.9% 47.4%
Game 10: 33.3% 57.7%
Game 11: 56.5% 39.1%
Game 12: 36.2% 52.2%
Game 13: 52.3% 41.5%
Game 14: 53.5% 32.6%
Game 15: 66.7% 28.3%
Game 16: 53.3% 45.3%
Game 17: 37.7% 49.2%

Data comes to us from PFR.

Remember that I'm only arguing against your position that "the coaches knew Najee was better". I am not arguing that the coaches necessarily viewed Warren as better.

I think this shows us that the team viewed the two RBs are pretty interchangeable. But usage was favoring Warren by the end of the season.

Najee was likely still preferred for short yardage carries. Not so much because he was good at it (if we can find succ% for "and short" carries, I think we'll see this). But because Najee has elite ball security...and Warren wasn't good in this area (he was better this year IMO..but not like Najee who basically never fumbled for us).

You might also want to check out the snap counts in the 2024 playoff game. One of our backs had 54.3% of the offensive snaps. The other had 45.7%. Again, I'll let you check out which was which. This is a change from 2023 when Najee had significantly more snaps than Warren in the playoffs (56.9% / 43.1%). More evidence that the view on who was the better RB changed as Warren played more.

But people that watched the games in real time should remember who was getting more snaps at the end of the season that year.

I think it's pretty clear that Warren continued to "steal" snaps from Najee throughout the time they were both on the team.

Even in 2023 (when they had to make the decision on Najee's option), they were pretty close to splitting snaps. Warren had 48.5% on the year. Najee had 53.1%. And Warren's usage increased throughout the year just like in 2024.

I think the team put them at a similar value after 2023. Which is why they didn't exercise Najee's option. They didn't want to guarantee money for an OK RB (who had gotten a lot of work and had shown great durability to that point) when they saw that the value of their UDFA RB who would be "cost controlled" for a while was giving about the same value.

Then they let Najee leave to sign a contract that was worse (much worse?) than the contract they gave Warren.

It seems very clear that that the statement "coaches knew Harris was the better back when both guys were in Pittsburgh" was only really true in Warren's first year ('22). After that, I think the team saw that they provided similar value by the middle to the end of Warren's 2nd year ('23).

This is supported by the usage (when both were healthy). And the financial decision is even stronger evidence that you are not correct.

 

I wasted a lot more time and words to get to the same point.

 

Get a room

 

So now you want to parse it down to parts of the season becasue the full-season data doesn't support the narrative you want to present.

No, it is not at all clear that the coaches only thought Harris was better in '22. Harris got the ball much more than Warren in 2023 and 2024, so your claim there is laughable.

Harris still got the majority of the snaps in 2023, and an overwhelming majority of the carreis, 255 to 149. (The gap in touches isn't quite as big, 284-210, but still significant enough to show who was the better back. Keep in mind that this was also the year Harris was limited by a foot injury early for the first eight games or so.

You mentioned the end of the season. Let's look at touches in 2023. They still favored Harris.
Week 17: Harris 31-14
Week 16: Harris 27-17
Week 15: Haris 19-13
Week 14: Warren 15-12
Week 13: Harris 15-11

The gap in carries was even wider in 2024, mostly due to Warren missing two games, at 263-120. The gap in touches was 299-158. That wasn't just a matter of Warren having some injuries. It was Harris being the favored back.

Funny how you mention watching the games when you ignored why the snap count went that way in the playoff game against the Ravens. Baltimore blew Pittsburgh out, building a 21-0 lead by halftime. The Steelers couldn't run, no matter who got the ball. They put the whole offense on Wilson throwing, which meant their third-down back was going to be on the field most of the time. Even with all that, Harris still got more touches, nine, than Warren, who got only six. I'll have to take a look at the touch counts in those late-season games, too.

The same was true of most of the games late in that season. The Steelers were getting their asses kicked, so the third-down back had to be on the field more. I guess you chose to ignore the actual circumstances when compiling your data.

The financial decision wasn't based entirely on production and ability. It was based on Warren's superior attitude and the heavy workload Harris had already carried to that point in his career.

If your point was so strong, given how data-driven you are as a poster, you wouldn't be making so many claims you can't support.