The Fantasy Football Case For Najee Harris In 2023

I’m glad you showed up today. I know, the name Najee Harris isn’t a very beloved name when it comes to fantasy football. In some circles, analysts will actually argue he’s bad at football. I’m not kidding, there are those with that opinion. Now, we’re not even going to entertain that, but we are here to talk about what his fantasy football value is for the 2023 season.

Harris was widely regarded as one of the biggest fades last season, largely due to the fact that Ben Roethlisberger was no longer in Pittsburgh to dump the ball off to him every game. To be fair, his target volume did decrease. As did his half-PPR PPG early in the season, but does that tell us the full story?

One thing that has largely been forgotten about is that Harris suffered a lisfranc sprain in the preseason that he did manage to play through the injury, but required a steel plate in his cleat. You can read more about that here. Now that he’s healthy, how should fantasy managers be valuing Pittsburgh’s starting running back? With fantasy football right around the corner, please be sure to use promo code "BOOM" at checkout for 10% off of any premium purchase.

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Pittsburgh’s Hog Mollies

While some will point out that Harris has been an inefficient running back since entering the NFL – they’re not entirely wrong – a good running game does not fall completely on the running back’s shoulders. It requires good offensive line play, as well.

Does anyone think Ezekiel Elliott would have been as efficient as he was had he not been running behind the league’s best offensive line the first few years of his career? Of course not. So while Harris’s efficiency metrics have always made you want a little something more, he hasn’t been given any sort of help in his two seasons with Pittsburgh.

Following his rookie season, PFF ranked the Steelers' offensive line as the 26th-“best” unit. That means only six teams were worse. Any running back is struggling to be efficient behind that. However, Pittsburgh’s offensive line is seemingly moving in the right direction. Following the 2022 season, PFF concluded Pittsburgh’s offensive line was the 16th-best.

It gets even better though. In the 2023 NFL Draft, the Steelers traded up to select Broderick Jones, a left tackle out of Georgia at No. 14. They also signed former Eagles guard, Isaac Seumalo. He earned a 75.2 overall grade from PFF and was a Pro Bowl alternate this past year.

The Steelers also drafted the massive, 6’5 and 265-pound tight end, Darnell Washington out of Georgia. He’s not much of a pass-catcher as of yet, but was widely and almost unanimously viewed as the best blocking tight end in the 2023 NFL Draft. He’ll essentially operate as the team’s sixth offensive linemen. With the trade of Chase Claypool, we can reasonably expect the Steelers to run more 12-personnel this year which will get Freiermuth and Washington on the field at the same time. With their improvements along the offensive line and the addition of Washington, this personnel grouping is going to be old-school, punch you in the mouth kind of football and with the hog mollies they got up front, it should be very, very effective.

The Steelers had a league-average offensive line in 2022 and they just added two, very talented, offensive linemen to that unit, and the best blocking tight end in this year’s draft. It’s not an understatement to say that Harris will be running behind the best offensive line in his NFL career by a long shot.

Najee Harris’ Two-Year Career Broken Down into Four Quarters

We’ve already touched on Harris’ preseason Lisfranc injury, but this is a truly important piece to remember because while he was able to play through the injury, his effectiveness was clearly affected. That’s something that we could see with our eyes, but we can also see it in the numbers too.

In the table above, you’ll find some efficiency metrics and volume stats from Weeks 1-9 in 2021, Weeks 10-17 in 2021, Weeks 1-9 in 2022 (Lisfranc injury), and Weeks 10-17 in 2022. Not surprisingly, Harris recorded the lowest number of carries per game, his worst broken tackle rate, his lowest YAC per attempt, and his worst RYOE average from Weeks 1-9 of this past season when he was dealing with his Lisfranc injury.

Not only that, but the Steelers also had Mitchell Trubisky start the first five games of the season. It’s not that Trubisky was worse than Pickett, but anytime an offense has a quarterback change, it’s an adjustment. Following the team’s Week 9 bye this past year, fantasy managers finally started to see Harris look like the player he was in 2021. Coincidentally – or maybe not – with Harris finally healthy, his fantasy value sky-rocketed.

Najee Harris' splits from his first 8 games of last season to his final 8 (omitting Week 12 when he left injured): pic.twitter.com/AzfQSR3jai

— Jared Smola (@SmolaDS) April 4, 2023

He went from averaging 9.4 half-PPR PPG in weeks 1-9, which ranked RB29 to 14.3 in Weeks 10-17, finishing as the RB9 during that span. Breaking down his career into four quarters, it’s so clear that his “third quarter” or Weeks 1-9 this past season is the clear outlier. In every other quarter, Harris finished as a top-10 RB in half-PPR PPG.

Going into his rookie season, fantasy managers were worried about the state of Pittsburgh’s offensive line, fearing Harris would be so incredibly inefficient. He finished as the RB6 in half-PPR PPG.

Entering his second season, the concerns were about the fact that Big Ben was no longer there to dump the ball off to him. However, once he got over an early-season injury, he closed on a hot streak, and finished as the RB9 in Weeks 10-17 despite not having Roethlisberger.

Why was he able to overcome both concerns? Simple, because volume is king when it comes to fantasy football running backs, and in back-to-back seasons, Harris had gotten it. He finished with 381 touches in 2021 and 313 this past year.

Volume IS King

We hear this all the time in regard to running backs in fantasy football, but it seems it doesn’t apply to Najee Harris. However, I’m here to tell you that since 2012, there have been 70 running backs to finish any given season with 300 touches or more. 43 of those 70 finished as a top-5 RB in full-PPR scoring. Only 11 of them failed to finish in the top 10. The average finish was RB5.6.

History repeats itself. Those running backs who get 300 touches end up being incredibly valuable fantasy football assets significantly more often than not and to reiterate, Harris has touched the ball 381 times in year one, 313 times in year two, and that’s despite struggling with a Lisfranc sprain.

2023 Expectations for Najee Harris

During the second half of the 2022 season, Harris played on 67% of the snaps. We don’t typically look at Week 18 for fantasy football since no fantasy games are played, but in Weeks 10-18 (Pittsburgh had a playoff spot on the line in the final game of the year), Harris averaged 19.2 carries, three targets, and two receptions per game.

Those per-game averages over 17 games would result in a workload of 326 carries, 51 targets, and 34 receptions. 360 total touches. That’s not so far off the 272 carries, 45 targets, and 36 receptions he had last year. The biggest change is in regard to the number of carries per game, but we’ve already established just how big of an outlier the first nine weeks of the 2022 season were for Harris.

Using his 2021 season and his per-game averages from Weeks 10-18 this past year, he averaged 18.4 carries per game. Using this average, we can reasonably expect Harris to finish with around 310-315 carries in 2023.

It would be unfair to use his 2021 target stats to look at 2023 since Big Ben did dump off more, but across the entire 2022 season and just the second half of the season when he was healthy, we find he had very similar utilization. In the end, fantasy managers should expect Harris to finish with 312 carries, 50 targets, and 35 receptions. 347 total touches.

For his career, his yard-per-carry average is 3.9, but with the improving offensive line, fantasy managers should expect an improvement for Harris in this department. If his yard-per-carry average increases to just 4.1, he’d finish with 1,279 rushing yards. His career yard-per-reception average is 6.1 and using our projected 35 receptions, he’d add another 214 receiving yards for a total of 1,493 scrimmage yards. Now, what about touchdowns?

Most times stopped at the one-yard line and did NOT score on the same drive in 2022:

Najee Harris (7)
Dalvin Cook (6)
Jamaal Williams (4)
A.J. Dillon (4)
Travis Etienne (4)
Tony Pollard (4)
Kenneth Gainwell (4)
Leonard Fournette (4)
Breece Hall (4)

— Ian Hartitz (@Ihartitz) April 20, 2023

He’s scored 10 touchdowns in 2021 and 2022, so assuming he maintains his two-year average, he’d finish with 226.8 half-PPR points. That’s an average of 13.3 half-PPR PPG. Last year, that would’ve ranked as the RB11.

All in all, there are a lot of reasons to like Harris for fantasy football in 2023. One, he’s healthy. Two, Pickett will be in his second season and will likely have improved. Three, the team made significant upgrades to its offensive line. And four, and this is the most important: volume is king and there’s no reason to believe Harris won’t be getting it in 2023.

He can often be drafted in the RB12-RB16 early on this season and that is excellent value. As long as he stays healthy, there is plenty of room for value at his current price. As a reminder, please use promo code "BOOM" at checkout for 10% off of any premium purchase.

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