The Pittsburgh Steelers backfield has morphed into a full-blown timeshare over the last five weeks between Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. With both backs failing to score 13 fantasy football points in any game this season, which RB is the better start in Week 9? Let’s take a closer look.
Should You Start Najee Harris or Jaylen Warren This Week?
In the Pro Football Network Start/Sit Optimizer, PFN’s Consensus Rankings say that Harris is the player to start. His projected 9.6 points include a projection of 39 yards rushing and 11 more receiving yards on two receptions. That doesn’t seem like a big stat line, but it outperforms the consensus projection for Warren (9.1 points).
Warren is currently the RB28 in PPR formats, which edges out Harris, who resides at RB32 for the time being. Warren has never seen more carries than Harris in any game this season, but the snap count barely favors Harris, who has been the less efficient back of these two players this season.
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Where Warren is significantly outscoring Harris is in the passing game. Warren’s 26 receptions this season is exactly double the amount of Harris (13) through the first seven games. Harris did see a season-high five targets against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8 but has mostly hovered around 2-3 targets on a per-game basis.
Harris burst onto the fantasy scene in his rookie season with 74 receptions on 94 targets but nearly saw that production cut in half when Warren burst onto the scene in 2022. Warren’s fantasy floor in PPR formats feel smuch safer because of his consistent involvement in the passing game.
While Warren has seen an expanded role on the ground this season, he still hasn’t topped 40 yards rushing in any game this season, while Harris has hit that threshold on four occasions this year.
The point is, this backfield feels like it is quite literally split right down the middle with pretty defined roles. The problem for Week 9 is they will both be facing a traditionally stout Tennessee Titans run defense that only gives up 107 yards per game on the ground.
Since both players are struggling with efficiency on the ground, both feel like they have a fairly low fantasy ceiling this week. However, if you have to choose between these two options, Warren feels like the safer play with a slightly higher floor, given his production in the passing game.
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