Najee Harris fever has hit its peak with the Pittsburgh Steelers. It’s not a bad thing, because there is no doubt Harris has a bright future in the NFL. Harris is a lock for the first round in the 2021 NFL draft and many mock drafts have the Steelers taking Harris.
But the Steelers don’t need Harris to win in 2021. In fact, a case can be made if the Steelers do spend a first-round pick on Harris, the Steelers will actually be worse for the foreseeable future.
The Steelers have no offensive tackles under contract beyond the 2022 season. Multiple tackles including Matt Feiler and Zach Banner could be gone this offseason. The play of guys like Alejandro Villanueva, David DeCastro and Maurkice Pouncey have dipped and the young guys on the team aside from Kevin Dotson are unknown.
Drafting Harris won’t fix the problems upfront. When this offensive line is playing well, we have seen what a player like Benny Snell Jr. can do behind it. And with Matt Canada taking over as offensive coordinator, there will be a role for Anthony McFarland Jr. who played for Canada at the University of Maryland.
If the Steelers can add talent along the offensive line and assuming Ben Roethlisberger returns, this team can compete with anyone in 2021.
