In the storied history of a franchise long associated with a run-first offensive mentality, only five Pittsburgh Steelers have more career rushing yards than Najee Harris.

Three are in the Hall of Fame, another earned an All-Pro honor and the other has two Super Bowl rings.

But after four seasons in which he provided durable and workmanlike production, Harris is fully aware Saturday could be his final game with the Steelers.

“Compartmentalizing (those feelings) is not hard,” Harris said Thursday from UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, two days before the Steelers open the playoffs at the Baltimore Ravens. “But (I am) realizing the situation, what it is. You realize what it is. And (come) the offseason, whenever it is, whatever happens after this season … all you can do is see what happens next.”

Harris has not missed any of the Steelers’ 70 games since he was taken by them with the 24th overall draft pick in 2021. That includes wild-card playoff games at the end of the 2021 and 2023 seasons, each of which was a Steelers loss.

Harris started each, just as he has all of the 68 regular-season contests the Steelers have played since he joined the team. Over that time, Harris has 4,312 rushing yards, 1,149 receiving yards and 34 touchdowns.

Only Hall of Famers Franco Harris (11,950), Jerome Bettis (10,571) and John Henry Johnson (4,381), plus three-time Pro Bowl honoree Le’Veon Bell (5,336) and two-time Super Bowl champion Willie Parker (5,378) have more career rushing yards for the franchise. Harris, Bettis, Bell and Rashard Mendenhall are the only running backs with more rushing touchdowns for the Steelers.

While arguably unspectacular — Harris’s career yards per carry is an ordinary 3.9 — that’s quite a notable first four years of an NFL career. Still, Harris isn’t allowing himself to get too sentimental.

“Soak it in? Shoot, man, this is a business,” Harris said. “This is a production business, obviously. All you can do is … I’ve been put in situations where I’ve got to make the best of my opportunities. Whatever that is, it is, and if you can say you’ve done the best you can, that’s all you can do.

“Would you want to change stuff? Yeah. Would you want to have done better at some things? Yeah. But sometimes people are put in certain situations, and you have to make the best of it. That’s the reality of it.”

Harris is joined by special teams captain Miles Killebrew as the only players who have appeared in every Steelers game since 2021. Harris was named to the Pro Bowl as a rookie and is the only NFL running back to surpass 1,000 yards in each of the past four seasons. No back had surpassed 1,000 rushing yards during each of his first four pro seasons since Chris Johnson from 2008-11.

Harris downplayed the achievement, perhaps, in part because, the writing on the wall suggests his career performance hasn’t been good enough for the Steelers’ liking. Not only has his share of playing time diminished each season, this past May, the Steelers declined a 2025 contract option for Harris that would have paid him a not-unreasonable $6.97 million.

As such, Harris is on a contract that expires in March. He could be set to enter free agency at that point, and unless the Steelers win Saturday, he will do so without yet having won an NFL playoff game.

“You can’t lose sight of the fact that that’s the main goal at the end of the day,” Harris said. “Yeah, you want to have good (individual stats) and everything, but, at the end of the day, it’s about the team win. If the team wins, everybody eats. If the team doesn’t win, it really doesn’t matter.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)