Halicke: Harris could benefit most from changes on offense

The quarterback position will certainly garner a lot of attention in Pittsburgh this season, especially because the position was completely overhauled by Omar Khan. However, in hiring Arthur Smith as the team's new offensive coordinator, there's no doubt that this offense will go as far as the running game will take them.

That's one of several reasons why Najee Harris might be the Steelers' best candidate for a monster season in 2024.

The Steelers are heading into the 2024 season with one of the best duos at running back in the NFL. Harris and Jaylen Warren were one of only two duos in which each back eclipsed 1,000 yards from scrimmage in 2023. Smith has plenty of talent at his disposal when it comes to the running game, and even using either Harris or Warren in the passing game.

Therein lies some of the ways Harris can be better utilized -- ways that Matt Canada never did. We'll get into those here shortly.

One thing that will benefit the offense as a whole is more premium talent being added to the offensive line. The Steelers drafted tackle Troy Fautanu in the first round and center Zach Frazier in the second round. They also added an intriguing option at guard by taking Mason McCormick in the fourth round of the draft. 

Adding those three to a formidable pair of guards (Isaac Seumalo and James Daniels), 2023's first-round pick Broderick Jones and other guys such as Dan Moore and Nate Herbig, the Steelers have more talent and depth up front than what Harris has ran behind during his first three NFL seasons.

The conundrum with Harris so far is efficiency. It sure isn't production. He's recorded 1,000-yard performances on the ground in each of his first three seasons, totaling 3,269 yards. Only Derrick Henry, Jonathan Taylor and Josh Jacobs have more rushing yards than Harris over that time. 

However, Harris has averaged only 3.9 yards per carry during those seasons, which is rather pedestrian. Harris is coming off his best season in which he averaged 4.1 yards per carry, but that ranked 23rd in the NFL. Not exactly efficient. This is where fans and fantasy football players are infatuated with Warren, who finished third in the NFL among qualifying players with 5.3 yards per carry. Only Lamar Jackson and Christian McCaffrey had better averages. 

However, there's more context here as to why Harris might be lacking in efficiency, and it has a lot to do with things out of his control.

According to Pro Football Focus, 37.5% of Harris' rushing attempts in 2023 were against a stacked box (8-plus defenders). Only 23.6% of Warren's rushing attempts were against stacked boxes. Teams were fully prepared for running plays when Harris was in the backfield, and the Steelers' usage of the backs helped telegraph those tendencies.

Of Harris' 2023 snaps, 52% were on running plays. Conversely, only 35.1% of Warren's snaps were on running plays. In other words, if Harris was on the field, it was a good chance the Steelers were running. If Warren was on the field, there was an even better chance the Steelers were throwing the ball.

Now, Warren's a great receiving option for the Steelers. It's not a surprise that he's used more often in the passing game. But maybe, just maybe, Canada and the old offense completely forgot about what Harris can do as a receiver:

That's Harris executing a flawless catch on a back shoulder fade, funnily enough up against Patrick Queen. Over his final two seasons at Alabama, playing all 26 games, Harris caught 70 passes for 729 yards and 11 touchdowns. While Harris caught 74 passes during his rookie season with Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback, Harris has taken a backseat in the passing game, catching only 70 passes over the past two seasons, a total of 34 games. 

Maybe if Harris is a bit more involved in the passing game, defenses won't stack the box quite as often against him. One area where Smith is much better than Canada is disguising plays and tendencies. One way of doing that is to make a lot of plays look the same. Nobody's better at that than Sean McVay, who runs his offense almost exclusively out of 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end), a ridiculous 93.1%. 

Smith finds his own ways of doing this, particularly by how he sequences his plays out of similar formations, how often he calls play-action, etc. Under Smith last season, no team deployed more 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends) than Atlanta, and the Falcons used play-action 41.9% of the time, the second-highest percentage in the league.

With the Steelers, Smith is expected to use plenty of 12 personnel and other formations with multiple tight ends. There will also be a heavy dose of play-action, much more than the 22.6% of passing snaps the Steelers did last season. Only five teams threw out of play-action less often.

The combination of better play sequencing, more play-action, less telegraphing and a better offensive line should all benefit Harris. And, even if teams continue to stack the box against Harris, he's already proven he can be more efficient in those scenarios than Warren. According to PFF, Harris outpaced Warren in overall efficiency against stacked boxes last season, including in average yards per carry (3.1), yards after contact per attempt (2.7) and first-down/TD rate (18.0%).

And, when Harris does absorb contact, he's one of the better backs in the league at getting more yards. Last season, Harris ranked 10th in the NFL with 3.03 yards after contact per carry, among running backs that had at least 150 carries.

It's also worth noting that if defenses continue to stack boxes with Harris on the field, that typically means defenses are in some sort of single-high coverage. That would then open things up for Russell Wilson to throw his patented deep ball to the likes of George Pickens or maybe speedster Calvin Austin III.

In terms of a scheme fit in Smith's wide zone offense, Harris is a much better outside zone runner than most people think. Whether it's because of his size, speed or whatever reason, some fans don't think he can do it. On the contrary, Harris has consistently been a more efficient and consistent runner in outside zone.

Over the past two seasons, Harris has logged 141 carries for 606 yards and three touchdowns when running outside zone, an average of 4.3 yards per carry, according to Sports Info Solutions. In fact, he's averaged exactly 4.3 yards per carry in outside zone over each of the past two seasons, so it's not like he was really good one year and terrible in another.

Here's a great example of how Harris can be a productive and efficient runner in outside zone, and the defense even has eight in the box on this run:

The running back's primary aiming point in outside zone is the backside of the play-side tight end. Here, you can see Harris initially look to where Connor Heyward and Darnell Washington were initially lined up. At that point, it's up to the running back to decide to hit his primary aiming point, cut back up the middle somewhere or completely cut back against the grain, primarily by reading the off-ball linebackers.

Harris reads both linebackers on the second level (Nos. 0 and 54), who are pursuing to the edge and get washed out by great blocks from Moore and Seumalo. Harris makes the best read here by cutting inside of Heyward, which cuts inside both linebackers. Mason Cole does a good enough job to seal off the play-side 3-technique (No. 64) and Harris has enough speed to beat the 0-technique (No. 93) that beat James Daniels off the line of scrimmage. Harris then finishes his run with the physicality you'd expect from a back of his stature for a big gain.

According to PFF, Harris averaged 0.99 yards per carry before contact last season. Part of that could be because of Harris. He could probably afford to do more to avoid contact earlier. But, a lot of that has to do with playing behind mediocre offensive lines and running into stacked boxes when defenses know a run is coming. If the blocking is consistently better under Smith, then all running backs would obviously benefit.

And, even if Smith decides to implement more gap/man concepts than he did while he was in Atlanta or while he was offensive coordinator in Tennessee, Harris put up promising numbers after Canada was fired last season. From the time Eddie Faulkner and Mike Sullivan took over through the end of the season, Harris gained 269 yards on 58 carries in man/gap concepts, an average of 4.64 yards per carry.

Harris has long had the talent to be a first-round running back. But, this might be the best situation he's had since the Steelers drafted him in the first round in 2021. The team opted to not pick up Harris' fifth-year option, going for a bit of a wait-and-see approach with how Harris fits in this offense. But, I have it on good authority from team sources that there is real potential for a long-term deal to be ironed out this summer.

When you take all of the evidence into account -- a better coordinator, better offensive line and perhaps better quarterback play -- arrows should be pointing up for Harris in 2024. That's why the Steelers are still considering him for the long term.