Jaylen Warren is the Steelers Digest Player of the Week

Your first paragraph tells us one important thing, that you agree with me that Harris is better than Gainwell. That alone means they weakened the team by replacing Harris with Gainwell. I didn't forget Johnson, but right now, he seems to be a long way away from contributing. Also, that cost them more resources, a third-round pick, that they could have spent elsewhere if they had simply kept Harris on that very reasonable option. Instead, they made a poor decision that weakened the team.

The viable comparison is if they get more out of the top two backs now than they did in the past. That seems very unlikely with the drop-off from Harris to Gainwell, who is playing way too much so far.

Regarding explosive plays, they got those out of Warren in the past. If they wanted to flip to giving him the starter's touches this year, they could have done that while keeping Harris, thus giving the same amount of opportunities for explosive plays. Instead, they keep wasting snaps on Gainwell, who is a weaker runner and blocker than Harris.

Warren still hasn't shown he can handle 20-to-25 touches per game. Even as the starter Sunday, he only got 18. That "just a guy" is a proven workhorse, the only back in the league with over 1,000 yards each of the last four seasons. You like to dismiss that, but if it was so easy, why didn't anyone else do it?

You also keep ignoring the question about Warren's role. He is a fantastic third-down back. He is a dynamic threat as a receiver and runner, but he is also able to pick up blitzes. He doesn't do that last part as well as Harris, but he is very good at it. The wiser course of action would have been to keep him in that role and expand his work on first and second down. That means their No. 2 back should be a guy who can spell Warren on those downs while not being a liability in passing situations. That is Harris, not Gainwell. The switch from Harris to Gainwell forced them to take Warren out of a role in which he does his best work.

 

I'll preface this by saying I preferred they keep both Harris and Warren initially as well. If they still wanted to draft a Johnson, fine; Najee finishes his fifth year here and it's Warren/Johnson (or Johnson/Warren) in '26.

Fast forward to now and I just don't see where it makes a difference. First, the offensive line has got to start opening lanes. Meyer needs to be thanked for his contributions and wished best of luck in his future endeavors. Second, while a Gainwell may be less explosive than Warren on third downs, they may have seen Warren as more explosive than Harris on first and second down. And if Warren > Harris on those two downs, there's less third-and-long situations to worry about.

Third, players are starters until they aren't. That Harris continued to get more touches last year IMO was a combination of them seeing whether Smith's scheme would do anything for him, and Warren dealing with a nagging injury. I don't read much into the game that Warren supposedly was skipped over for starting duties because it was a single decision over a someone who'd been fighting off a soft tissue injury, and made by a team whose collective minds thought the best way to go all-in on Ben's last year was to draft a guy who played 98% of his college snaps at guard, and name him their opening day center.

Last, while it wouldn't have taken much to keep Harris on his option, the club ended up using all but ~$7.5M of their cap with their different moves this offseason. Any chance of holding onto Harris went off the table after another average season last year, and they knew they were moving on. Gainwell ended up being around $6M cheaper. Could they have moved more money around to make room? Sure, but their mind was made up by then.

 

I have to be fair. You did say that quite a few times, that you thought they should pick up the cheap option, and then let him go after that.
I actuallywanted them to resign him, but they didn't, and now I root for the other RBs in Black , and Gold.