Where Can You Feel Comfortable Selecting Najee Harris in Fantasy Football Drafts?

The Fourth of July is in the rearview mirror, which means it’s time to start preparing for fantasy football drafts for the upcoming season. Several NFL teams have already commenced their official training camps as of this writing, and things are only going to ramp up as we head into the summer’s hottest months.

For years, the most hotly debated position in the fantasy football landscape has been the running back position. Each year drafters find themselves asking how to approach the position: is it best to load up on studs in the early parts of drafts? Should they take a balanced approach across several positions? Or is it possible to ignore the position until the later rounds in hopes of finding a hidden gem on the waiver wire?

Pittsburgh Steelers running back Najee Harris has found himself in the middle of these debates in his first two seasons as a pro and has already been used as an example both in favor of taking running backs early in drafts and against focusing on the running back position at all.

With that said, where will he fit into the grand scheme of the league in 2023?

Najee Harris Fantasy Football Projection

Projections are via numberFire.

2023 Fantasy Points: 240.5 (203.0 in 2022)
2023 Positional Ranking: RB15
2023 Projected Stats:

• 295.0 carries
• 1,250.0 rushing yards
• 8.9 rushing touchdowns
• 63.4 targets
• 46.5 receptions
• 295.7 receiving yards
• 2.1 receiving touchdowns

Najee Harris Fantasy Football Outlook

A Promising Beginning

Harris entered the league as a first-round pick after his dominant collegiate career with the Alabama Crimson Tide. His ability to thrive as an every-down back in college carried over into the pros; he has not missed a game yet and has amassed over 600 touches through his first two seasons.

His first season was a prime example of volume leading to the kinds of production numbers that fantasy managers covet. As a rookie, he carried the ball 307 times for 1,200 yards and 7 touchdowns and caught 74 passes for 467 receiving yards and 3 receiving touchdowns. In Ben Roethlisberger’s final season, during which he emphasized getting rid of the ball as quickly as possible, Harris ate up touches on the ground and through the air. He finished that season as the RB4 in fantasy football with 263.7 fantasy points.

Harris headed into the 2022 campaign with one of the highest projected workloads in the league, but his lack of true efficiency as a rookie was a red flag for some fantasy managers in draft season. In most drafts, he was a consensus first-round pick in fantasy football, but others considered the former first-round pick a landmine to avoid in fantasy drafts.

The Sophomore Slump

The 2022 season was not quite as kind to Harris as his rookie season. While playing through a foot injury for much of the early part of the season, he finished the year with 272 carries for 1,034 yards and 7 touchdowns. His receiving work came crashing down without Roethlisberger, too. He totaled 41 catches for 229 receiving yards, and 3 receiving scores by the end of the year. That work resulted in almost 40 fewer fantasy points than the previous season, getting Harris to finish as the RB14 in total points by the end of the season.

It wasn’t a bad season by any means, but getting RB14 numbers out of a first-round draft pick is a potential season-killer in fantasy football. Other managers mustered similar or better production out of players drafted much later than Harris such as Tony Pollardor Rhamondre Stevenson, putting themselves in a much better position to win on a weekly basis.

His 2022 season was an excellent example of how volume-based plays in fantasy football can struggle without efficiency. The “down” year had him finish with the sixth-most touches in the league, but because he wasn’t particularly efficient he fell behind a handful of other backs in fantasy scoring. Backs like Tony Pollard and Aaron Jones, who handled far fewer touches than Harris, outscored him in fantasy because they produced more efficiently than him.

Harris doesn’t possess elite speed, so when compared to other top fantasy running backs he needs to either drastically out-touch the competition and/or put up a season with spiked touchdowns in order to keep up with his peers. His 10 touchdowns last year kept him afloat despite the dip in receptions and receiving yards, but if his usage in the passing game remains limited, he’ll need more than 10 touchdowns to rejoin the ranks of elite fantasy backs this season.

Paths Back to the Top

The biggest difference between Harris’ first two seasons was his declining usage in the passing game. As we mentioned earlier, Harris was a top target for Roethlisberger in his final season – even posting a hilarious 19-target game in 2021 – and finished the year second on his team with 74 receptions. Those receptions weren’t efficient, either, producing just 467 yards, but the extra catches did help buoy his numbers in PPR (point per reception) scoring fantasy leagues. Just on receptions alone, he amassed 16.5 fewer fantasy points in 2022 than he did in 2021 because of the dip in receiving volume.

The emergence of Jaylen Warren in the team’s offense could prevent Harris from reaching matching the 74 receptions he had as a rookie. The projections at numberFire have him catching 46 passes in 2023 – a slight bump up from the 41 he caught last season. It’s hard to envision him having another spiked receptions season as long as Warren remains in the offense, though if Warren suffers an injury at any point during the season, that could boost Harris’ projected work in the receiving game.

Harris’ most clear-cut path to regaining his status as an elite fantasy back would be for him to have a strong season in the touchdowns department. Jamaal Williams finished as the RB8 in fantasy football last season while barely cresting 1,100 yards from scrimmage by scoring a league-best 17 rushing touchdowns. Touchdowns unfortunately don’t grow on trees, and without an ability to break off long, efficient plays, Harris won’t be creating too many touchdown opportunities himself. Like Williams a season ago, who led the league with a whopping 28 carries inside the 5-yard line, Harris will need his offense to put him in the red zone much more frequently than it has in previous seasons in order to produce a strong fantasy season. Harris only had nine carries inside his opponents’ 5-yard line last season, so there’s substantial room for growth there.

Of course, getting close to the end zone would require the Steelers’ offense as a whole to take a step forward in 2023. The team struggled between starting Mitchell Trubisky and rookie Kenny Pickett last year but could improve in Pickett’s first full season as the starter. Marginal improvements in the offense as a whole could help Harris’ efficiency -- as well as his touchdown output.

The Steelers’ Upward Trajectory

We’ve seen plenty of second-year quarterbacks take the next step after disappointing rookie campaigns. Pickett doesn’t even need to take the kinds of leaps those players did in their second seasons to help Najee Harris produce solid fantasy numbers.

For starters, Pickett struggled mightily in the condensed fields of the red zone. As a rookie, he completed under 40% of his attempts inside each of the 20- and 10-yard lines, forcing his team to settle for three points too often. As a result, the Steelers led the league in field goal attempts last season (44) and tied for the second-fewest total touchdowns (29), as well. They converted red zone appearances into touchdowns at the ninth-lowest rate in the league, so even regression to a league-average conversion rate could see the Steelers scoring several more touchdowns than they did last year.

At 6’1” and 232 lbs, Harris offers the kind of mass that offensive coordinators value when they only need a few yards. The problem for him last season was that he was never quite put in those situations near the goal line. He scored three rushing touchdowns inside the opposing 5-yard line on just nine attempts – a solid 33% conversion rate – but will need substantially more opportunities in that area of the field to have a successful fantasy season.

The Steelers made multiple moves this offseason to help boost their offensive production, selecting an offensive lineman and a difference-making blocking tight end in the first two days of the 2023 NFL Draft and signing former Eagles lineman Isaac Seumalo in free agency. Furthermore, PFF ranks their offensive line as a top-third unit for the upcoming season -- a stark change from the battered line we’ve seen the team trot out over the past few seasons.

Harris still isn’t a likely candidate to break off huge gains in the rushing game, but small improvements on the offensive line could certainly help boost his efficiency by a noticeable degree.

Where Does Harris Fit in for Fantasy?

Early fantasy drafts have Harris’ average draft position (ADP) sitting at 29th overall, making him a third-round pick in most 12-person, half-point PPR leagues. He’s coming off the board as the RB11 on average behind players like Rhamondre Stevenson and Tony Pollard but ahead of options like Kenneth Walker III, Joe Mixon, and Travis Etienne.

Fantasy managers that start their drafts by selecting top talents at the wide receiver or tight end positions might look to Harris in the third rounds of their drafts for guaranteed production at the position. He should still have one of the heaviest workloads in the league this season. The wide receivers going around his area of the draft, such as Chris Olave, Deebo Samuel, and Keenan Allen, each have somewhat similar outlooks as Harris – high projected workloads with one or two question marks.

Harris’ current value as a third-round pick in most fantasy drafts feels fair for his strong projected workload. His current ADP as the RB11 also allows some room for him to out-produce his draft slot, meaning he could turn into a relative “value” by the end of the season.

Whether or not you should take him at that ADP will likely depend on build type, but managers seeking a reliable running back should consider Harris over peers like Walker or Etienne -- especially if you are optimistic about an improved Steelers offense.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.