we wronged james conner. im happy to say it. well not sure wronged him is the right word. We used him incorrectly and obviously gave up on him WAY too early for najee freakin harris. Who i wouldnt give a bucket of piss for and cant leave this organization soon enough..
Yeah.
Letting Conner go for a first round draft pick Harris is damn near criminal..... And I actually like Harris as an effort guy. Not a first or second draft day effort guy..... but a 4th or 5th round effort guy who plays special teams and gets a few carries here and there.
@Zeldas Open Roof im replying to you too. If you’re a personnel guy, would you keep a guy who couldn’t be depended on because of health and invest in him? Help me out, was Najee here at the time or did they draft Najee that off-season? I think 32 out of 32 teams would have made the exact same decision. I remember interviews with Kevin Colbert when JC was here and Colbert absolutely adored JC. But the quandary existed because he was always hurt and his playing style invited punishment to his body.
Yeah the issue wasn’t parting ways with Connor. It was drafting a guy in Najee who is a servicable Rb in the first round
i went thru his 2019 and 2020 stats and im not sure, you may have a point. the backup RBs for those years behind conner was bennie freakin snell, mcfarland and jaylen samuels. so basically, nothing behind Conner. WIth that said, he didnt have a terrible amount of carries. 170 carries in 13 games in '20 and 116 carries in 10 games in '19. That's not exactly running the tread off the tires..
I don't know that is was the running that did him in as much as the rhetoric. He's the same player in Arizona. Stats are almost exactly the same and he's averaged 13 games. In Pittsburgh, he's fragile. In Arizona, he's a playmaker.
I hated the Najee pick for several reasons. But ever since Terrell Davis, I’ve been of the opinion that RBs are a dime a dozen unless you have a slam dunk generational HOFer that you can draft like a Derrick Henry. Now everyone is of that opinion except Kevin Colbert and a few others. Lol. But even at that, do you even know that’s what you’re getting? Maybe that’s what the Steelers thought, but I’d be weary of drafting any back from Alabama or Georgia who run behind elite offensive lines.
So we are going cheap on QB, RB, and WR, and then paid an average TE $12mil/year . Have 3 rookie contracts on OL .
watch this, i guarantee you either
i dont think anyone is concerned about his rookie contract eating up the salary cap room we have. Moreso on going so high on a rb, wasting a first rd pick and then buidling an offense around what is a below avg NFL running back.
Interesting. It looks like almost every run is to his left and in almost all cases his first cut is to his left.
Lol. I was just going to try to dig that up and ask folks to attempt to analyze that without any bias. My thought is this…just as QBs miss reads or throws, RBs are going to miss holes. You can always put examples on X and then run with a narrative. We saw it with Kenny. But this is every single carry. So it is what it is. Many holes weren’t there and then some he didn’t see. But he lacked explosion and decisiveness for me. Lev Bell was a patient runner but had an incredible first step and burst. Najee doesn’t have that. Is Najee banged up a little and that’s what is causing him to be tentative? Maybe. But there’s also a few years history that suggest that we can get similar or better production with a replacement.
Lev Bell's hesitancy and patience actually helped him because he had that insane burst. Harris just dances behind line of scrimmage, consistently misses the holes and then is painfully slow once he gets going.
Buddy, our roster is our roster and he is a bargain as we sit here today. But the decision has to be made moving forward. You can’t run a business paying someone more than their worth in a salary cap. You always need to upgrade somewhere and overpaying him is less money for someone else. And speaking of bargains, imagine getting the same or better production from your current RB #2, RB#3, snd/or a mid to late pick who makes the roster next year.
Is this a real question? I don’t even know where to begin.
i love this mindset. The "he's on a rookie contract and it's not that much so lay off" is quite an argument...
I don’t understand the argument though. No one is questioning his value. Our #1 back is on a rookie deal. The question becomes do you extend him/pay him this off season. And I think most of us can’t justify a raise for a man with his limited production.
Some of this is him missing holes but he's not really an east/west RB who can make a cut to daylight. The offense is asking him to be that and what they really need is someone quicker. He doesn't look bad running down hill but then that's where the line makes it tough.
I think the Steelers made it quite clear that they're not interested in paying him by declining his option. He'll get a minimal offer but you don't have to be a football genius to know they really don't have a plan. There isn't anyone on the roster they'll miss.
He still got paid so it wasn't like he's a hard luck case. The Jets are just an ATM for players where careers go to die. I like to think that his days were numbered just because there are very few guys who are durable enough to go more than five or six years. Who knows what happens if he plays and signs but given the way things went before all of that, they might have one another playoff game or two but that's all.
And of course AB was at a HOF level then too. HOF level RB and WR, HOF QB, and it all yielded zilch.
I look at things from an expense to production ratio .
Because you need balance and the defense was old during those years .
He refused to play under the franchise tag which meant he made Zero dollars that season instead of $18 mil- so he didn’t make it up .
In fairness I hated the prior Cam Heyward extension before this current one because I generally hate paying older players .
Did we watch the same video? Najee hit the very few holes that opened in that video. Try pausing the video each time Najee is about to get the ball, then imagine where you'd run and then un-pause it. I bet your opinion matches with every decision Najee makes.
Dude was a bone head. But man what a player.
that’s why I was interested in unbiased opinions. It wasn’t all bad from him. It was similar to Kenny last year. You do need a team around you to do their jobs. But there were holes he missed too. The difference between Najee and Kenny are that Najee is coming up on a decision date. Kenny was still a guy with no support to go along with his 22 appearances.
Funny how they were able to open holes for Patterson though...........when he was in the game.
That’s so true. Bingo!
Trying to translate your post, but I think I understand what you’re saying. And I don’t agree. Those weren’t all passing downs for Patterson and Najee is a more effective receiver than he has been a runner. Gotta get Najee in space.
Much like the difference last year with Warren. But Im sure that also is just a coincidence.
patterson and jaylen didnt practice today, so not good. think it's gonna be najee again on sunday. hope justin fields is up for it because we wont have a run game sunday night.
I don't have NFL+ Premium but it sure looks like they did on the one and only drive he rushed the ball. Did any of Najee's holes look like this?
