If the Steelers want to keep rookie running back Najee Harris around for a while, head coach Mike Tomlin might consider sitting Harris down for a serious discussion.
The hurdle.
The leap.
The jump.
Whatever you want to call it.
“The hurdle—that scares my life,” Harris’ mother, Tianna Hicks, shared in AL.com’s “Najee Harris: Road to the Pros.”
It was high school when Harris first started the habit of hurdling defenders, and Hicks was not pleased.
“You can’t do that,” Hicks told her son. “We gotta figure out another way ’cause that’s dangerous. I can see somebody just catching you in the air and, oh my God, you helicoptering, spinning across the field.”
The jaw-dropping plays made for great collegiate highlights, but defenders in the pros aren’t so forgiving. Harris won’t have any legs to catapult him into the air over would-be tacklers if he keeps it up.
Tomlin and running backs coach Eddie Faulkner might consider working with their prized running back to reverse the hurdling habit this offseason.
If Pro Football Focus tracked yards-hurdled as an advanced NCAA stat, I’d bet Harris was first — and probably by a longshot.
Every Najee Harris hurdle was a work of art at @AlabamaFTBL pic.twitter.com/v4q9DcVjde
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) February 24, 2021
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