While we know Jaylen Warren will be the Pittsburgh Steelers' lead running back in 2025, we don't know exactly what that entails as far as his workload is concerned.
Head coach Mike Tomlin recently revealed that Warren is the team's featured back, and that was cemented further after the Steelers signed Warren to a two-year contract extension.
However, there is some doubt about how much work Warren is going to get. When asked if he views Warren as a "high-volume back," Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith did not provide a direct answer.
“There are very rare guys that can almost sustain close to 300 carries a year. Give (Najee Harris) a lot of credit. That was unique about him. So that’s kind of been the history. There’s been a kind of feature back. We had that in Tennessee (Derrick Henry). Different strengths. We’ve got a unique running back room,” he said.
“Jaylen was injured a lot of last year, so he wasn’t fully healthy at times. Jaylen is a really unique player," Smith added. His contact balance, his yards after contact, his ability underneath, unique, really good pass protector. Then you have Kenneth Gainwell, kind of a unique skill set. Kaleb [Johnson] is a young guy.
"Sometimes, you look at the strengths of your room, there’s only so many carries, but if you look at the totality of the season, hopefully, if we’re playing longer, that’s a lot of carries to divvy up. It can change week to week; something can come up. All three of those guys will be ready.”
Based on that answer, there should be serious doubt about Warren getting the kind of workhorse load former Steelers running back Najee Harris did.
As Smith points out, the Steelers have two other backs to help spell Warren. The team signed veteran Kenneth Gainwell in free agency and drafted rookie Kaleb Johnson in the third round of April's draft.
On the Steelers' depth chart, Gainwell is listed as the top backup behind Warren and Johnson falls behind Gainwell. That suggests Gainwell will be the first man off the bench instead of Johnson, but that hasn't been confirmed yet.
We'll have a better idea of how the Steelers divvy up the work in their backfield when Pittsburgh travels to New York to take on the Jets on Sunday in Week 1.
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