The Pittsburgh Football Podcast

Chris Gates | The Pittsburgh Football Podcast

The Pittsburgh Steelers have plenty of recognizable names on their roster. Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback. DK Metcalf is the star wide receiver. T.J. Watt and Cam Heyward headline a defense loaded with established veterans.

But through five games of the 2026 season, there’s a strong argument that the Steelers’ most valuable offensive player has been someone who doesn’t generate nearly as many headlines.

Jaylen Warren.

And it’s about time we started talking about him as one of the best running backs in football.

Warren Takes Over Against Indianapolis

The Steelers’ 34-22 victory over the Indianapolis Colts was perhaps their most complete performance of the season, and Warren was at the center of just about everything that went right offensively.

He finished with 15 carries for 101 yards, averaging 6.7 yards per attempt. He also caught six passes for 87 yards, giving him 188 total yards from scrimmage.

His two biggest plays were spectacular.

Early in the game, Warren took a short pass from Rodgers and turned it into an 80-yard touchdown, breaking tackles and racing down the sideline with some help from an excellent block by Metcalf.

Later, he broke free for a 50-yard touchdown run that showcased the same explosiveness, as well as his ability to burst through the line of scrimmage and find an open lane.

Those plays are obviously going to make the highlight reels. But what makes Warren special is everything he does between those moments.

• He’s consistently productive.
• He breaks tackles.
• He creates yards when there doesn’t appear to be much available.

And he brings a combination of physicality, vision, balance, and speed that makes him incredibly difficult to defend.

Warren isn’t simply a running back who can occasionally break a big play. He’s a complete offensive weapon who can impact a football game in multiple ways.

The Numbers Put Warren Among the NFL’s Elite

It’s one thing to watch Warren play and come away impressed. It’s another to look at his production and realize just how impressive his season has been.

Through five games, Warren has accumulated 640 yards from scrimmage, including 410 rushing yards and 230 receiving yards.

That ranks third in the NFL, trailing only Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs and Atalanta’s Bijan Robinson.

Think about that for a moment.

When people discuss the best running backs in football, names like Gibbs, Robinson, Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey, and Jonathan Taylor typically dominate the conversation.

Warren deserves to be part of that discussion, too.

In fact, he just went head-to-head with Taylor, one of the league’s most accomplished running backs, and was unquestionably the more productive player.

While Warren totaled 188 yards from scrimmage, Taylor was limited to 45 rushing yards and another 37 receiving yards by Pittsburgh’s defense.

One game doesn’t determine who the better player is, of course. But Warren’s performance wasn’t an isolated occurrence, either.

He’s been one of the most consistently productive players on Pittsburgh’s offense throughout the season.

At some point, when a player continues producing at this level, we have to stop calling him underrated and start recognizing him for what he is.

One of the NFL’s best running backs.

Warren Is Everything You Want in a Steelers Running Back

There’s also something about the way Warren plays that feels particularly appropriate for Pittsburgh.

Throughout their history, the Steelers have featured running backs with different styles and strengths.

Jerome Bettis brought overwhelming power and physicality. Willie Parker brought incredible speed and explosiveness. Le’Veon Bell brought patience and vision to the backfield.

Warren isn’t necessarily the same as any of those players. But he possesses some elements of all of them.

He’s physical enough to run through contact and slippery enough to make defenders miss. He has the vision to identify running lanes, the burst to accelerate through them, and the speed to turn a modest gain into a touchdown.

Most importantly, he refuses to go down easily.

Defenders rarely bring Warren down on first contact, and that ability to manufacture additional yardage is incredibly valuable for an offense that has struggled with consistency.

He can turn a play that appears destined to gain two yards into a five- or six-yard pickup.

Those aren’t necessarily the plays that dominate highlight packages, but they’re the plays that keep an offense ahead of the chains, sustain drives, and create scoring opportunities.

Warren has become the type of dependable, physical playmaker that Steelers fans have historically embraced.

He’s Making the Entire Steelers Offense Better

Perhaps the most important thing about Warren’s emergence is that his production doesn’t exist in isolation.

He’s making everyone around him better.

That was particularly evident against Indianapolis.

The Steelers entered the game having struggled to establish consistent offensive production through their first four contests. There were encouraging stretches against Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Cleveland, but those moments were frequently followed by extended periods where the offense couldn’t get anything going.

Against the Colts, Pittsburgh finally appeared to find a formula that worked.

And it started with Warren.

When a defense has to respect a running back who can consistently gain five or six yards per carry, it changes how that defense approaches the rest of the offense.

Linebackers have to account for the run. Defensive linemen can’t simply attack the quarterback on every snap. Safeties have to be mindful of what happens if Warren breaks through the first level.

And because Warren is also such an effective receiver, defenses can’t assume that he’s merely staying in the backfield to run the football or provide pass protection.

In short, the eyes of every defender have to at least partially focus on the backfield during each play.

And all of that creates opportunities elsewhere.

Rodgers looked considerably more comfortable against Indianapolis than he had during Pittsburgh’s loss to Cleveland, completing 22 of 31 passes for 235 yards and three touchdowns.

Pat Freiermuth caught five passes for 44 yards and two touchdowns.

The Steelers were able to utilize formations with multiple tight ends, creating opportunities to establish the running game while also threatening defenses through play-action passing.

The offensive line deserves plenty of credit for its performance, too. Warren isn’t creating all of this production by himself.

But his ability to consistently make plays gives Pittsburgh something it desperately needed through the first month of the season.

An offensive identity.

The Steelers Need to Keep Feeding Warren

One of the more remarkable aspects of Warren’s performance against Indianapolis was how much of the rushing workload he carried.

Warren had 15 rushing attempts. Every other Steelers player credited with a rushing attempt had exactly one.

With Rico Dowdle unavailable, Warren was essentially the entire running game.

And he delivered.

Moving forward, the Steelers will need to be mindful of his workload, particularly over the course of a long NFL season. Getting Dowdle healthy and having another dependable option in the backfield would certainly help.

But that doesn’t change the larger point.

Pittsburgh has found a player capable of being the centerpiece of its offense.

There’s no reason to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Get Warren involved early. Establish the running game. Use his versatility to force defenses into difficult decisions. And allow Rodgers and the rest of the offense to take advantage of the opportunities that follow.

The Steelers scored 34 points against Indianapolis, putting points on the board in every quarter.

That’s the kind of offensive consistency Pittsburgh has been searching for.

And Warren was the biggest reason it happened.

It’s Time to Give Warren His Flowers

The Steelers have spent much of the early season trying to figure out exactly what kind of football team they’re going to be.

There have been frustrating losses, inconsistent offensive performances, and plenty of questions about whether this group can put everything together.

But through all of those ups and downs, Warren has consistently given Pittsburgh something it can depend on.

• He’s explosive.
• He’s physical.
• He’s versatile.

And he’s producing at a level that places him among the most productive running backs in the NFL.

There are plenty of talented running backs around the league, and determining exactly where Warren belongs in that hierarchy is certainly open for debate.

But whether he’s third, fifth, or somewhere else near the top, the conversation needs to include him.

Because at this point, Jaylen Warren isn’t simply one of the Steelers’ best players.

He’s one of the best running backs in the NFL.

And it’s time he started getting recognized that way.