With pro debut on tap, Steelers’ Najee Harris knows NFL is a different level than SEC

Najee Harris is eager to fulfill his dream of playing in a meaningful NFL game. About 48 hours away from that becoming a reality, the Pittsburgh Steelers rookie running back was opining about the step up in competition.

Arguably, dealing with bigger, better, stronger and faster defenders isn’t even the biggest adjustment Harris will have to make during Sunday’s 1 p.m. game at the Buffalo Bills. For Harris, who played at Alabama, it might be that — for perhaps the first time since high school — he will enter a game without the bigger, better, stronger and faster teammates than his opponent.

“I tell a lot of guys, you know, they say, ‘What’s the difference between college at, say, Mississippi, or Alabama?’ ” Harris said after practice Friday. “I just say it’s a disadvantage (for opponents), you know?”

Harris referenced how while playing for the Crimson Tide the past four seasons, his teammates on offense often included winners of the Heisman Trophy or other awards recognizing the best players at their position in college football.

“So, you know, to go in the NFL,” Harris said, “it’s more like, you know, fair.”

Make no mistake, the Steelers have a quality roster, one in which the majority of its players contributed to last season’s AFC North title. But in the NFL, even for the best team, the talent gap isn’t all that wide when it’s playing among the league’s worst rosters — and certainly not anywhere close to the chasm in differing talent levels Alabama has over several of the teams on its schedule.

The Bills, for example, last season had an average NFL defense (16th in yardage allowed among the 32 teams). That’s miles better than what Harris faced when in college he played against, say, Vanderbilt.

“It’s more detailed in your work in knowing that when you go out there, you’ve got to give, like, 200% every time and play,” Harris said. “And the little things matter.”

“Najee, he doesn’t duck no bump.” #SteelersCamp https://t.co/UIBR5Xvi8u

— Tribune-ReviewSports (@TribSports) August 2, 2021

Harris was drafted in the first round to help lift a rushing offense that ranked dead last in the NFL last season and has been among the bottom three of the league each of the past three years.

Harris can’t singlehandedly fix that alone, of course. But he vowed it would get done.

“The run game, we’ve improved from Day 1 all the way until now,” Harris said. “And that’s all that matters.

“But expectation wise, the standard is the standard. What we want to do is nothing less between that and try to have a good running attack this year. That’s our goal. That’s our plan. How we do it? It really doesn’t really matter. Just we’re going to get it done, either way.”

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