Najee Harris spent four seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Although he surpassed 1,000 rushing yards in each, he seemed to fail to live up to the expectations of the fan base. As his rookie contract ran out after the 2024 season, it quickly became clear he wouldn\u2019t be returning to Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n
Harris eventually landed with the Los Angeles Chargers, and the Steelers brought in Kenneth Gainwell, while drafting Kaleb Johnson in the third round to supplement the position. While it\u2019s been a while, Harris did share a conversation he had with Mike Tomlin as he left the Steelers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe was chopping it up for like 10, 20 minutes about some random stuff. And then, we was like, alright, we gotta talk about business now.. And so I was like, hey man, what\u2019s up though? He said, Najee, I always talk to you not as if you are a player, but as if you are my son\u2026 He was like, if you was my son, I would tell you not to come back here. I was like, alright bet,\u201d Harris said on Marshawn Lynch\u2019s Get Got podcast<\/a>. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t no hard feelings or nothing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Mike Tomlin has always been described as a players\u2019 coach, and Najee Harris clearly respects him deeply. This episode was seemingly recorded before Tomlin decided to step down. Harris had a lot of praise for his former head coach.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also notable because Harris didn\u2019t talk too favorably about the Steelers organization immediately after leaving. He made comments about the Chargers\u2019 facilities being nicer than the ones in Pittsburgh. Harris also hinted that the Steelers hadn\u2019t used his skill set correctly<\/a>.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Harris\u2019 time in Los Angeles didn\u2019t go too well in 2025. A fireworks accident before training camp injured his eye, sidelining him for a while. However, he made it back to the field towards the start of the season. Then his bad luck continued, as he tore his Achilles<\/a> tendon in Week 3, sidelining him for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n Neither Najee Harris nor Mike Tomlin is a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers anymore. But the last portion of Tomlin\u2019s tenure in Pittsburgh came with Harris as his starting running back, and the two clearly still have a lot of respect for each other. Harris\u2019 comments are the latest example of the impact Tomlin leaves on players, even after they leave Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Najee Harris spent four seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Although he surpassed 1,000 rushing yards in each, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":692836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,36426,1255,4125,6,691],"class_list":{"0":"post-692835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-get-got-pod-with-marshawn-lynch","10":"tag-mike-tomlin","11":"tag-najee-harris","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-trending"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115931146195069584","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=692835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/692835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/692836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=692835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=692835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=692835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}