The Fantasy Football Impact of Najee Harris to the Los Angeles Chargers

On Monday, March 10th, it was announced that Najee Harris would be heading to the West Coast by signing a one-year deal worth “up to” $9.25M with the Los Angeles Chargers. The longtime Steeler slots into the RB1 role vacated via the release of Gus Edwards, with the still-unsigned J.K. Dobbins and 2024 sixth-round selection, Kimani Vidal, the only things standing in the way of a huge share of the workload.

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Najee Harris’s Running Back Profile

Though Harris had a bit of a bounce-back season in his one year inside the Arthur Smith offense, it was quite negligible on a week-to-week basis, earning only 0.4 more half-PPR points from the year prior, with a slight uptick in receiving game usage. However, with Jaylen Warren missing some time and the Steelers scrambling to find a legitimate No. 2 option behind George Pickens all season, that only amounted to 2.82 targets per game. All this happened while Russell Wilson sported an 11.6% checkdown rate, the fourth-highest among 39 qualifying quarterbacks.

Harris continued to cede work to the rest of the backfield in 2024, marking a new three-year low in snap rate (51.0%) and share of the team’s rushes (49.3%) as the Steelers continued to get both Warren and Cordarrelle Patterson involved when healthy.

The underlying stats tell a better story, though. On top of a new career-high in yards per route run (1.29), the four-year vet also eclipsed a 20% broken-plus-missed tackle rate (20.9%) for the first time, despite being hit at the line on 50.6% of his carries (Sports Info Solutions). Harris made do with what he had: an offensive line that ranked 30th in RB yards before contact (1.12) and a never-ending backfield rotation. But are things going to be better in his new home?

How Najee Harris Fits in Los Angeles

In short, there weren’t many better places Najee Harris could have gone.

Starting at the top, Harris has a bit of a history with Jim Harbaugh. All the way back in 2016, Harbaugh attempted to scoop the promising young back into Michigan territory before losing out to Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide, but in just Harbaugh’s second free agency cycle since his return to the NFL, he finally gets his man. Maybe it’s nearly a decade since the head coach began pursuing the back, but both parties are in a good place to go above and beyond what Gus Edwards and Co. accomplished in the first year of the new Chargers regime.

Despite Dobbins doing his best to resurrect his career with a fantastic 32.7% breakaway rate, it’d be hard to classify the 2024 rushing offense as an explosive unit. Los Angeles RBs ran for zero or fewer yards on 78 of their 373 carries, a 20.9% “stuffed” rate that ranked 28th in the league.

No one is confusing Harris with De’Von Achane as a game-breaker, but as a “Gus Edwards-plus,” there’s no reason to think he can’t turn five yards into ten at a higher rate than the plodding back he’s replacing. Over Edwards’ 101 attempts last season, he averaged -0.38 rushing yards over expected and 3.6 YPC, both numbers that Harris (-0.01, 4.0) easily blew out of the water behind a much worse offensive line.

The big question for “fit” is whether or not the former Steeler is going to be comfortable behind a much more gap-heavy scheme.

Over his four-year career, roughly 35% of Harris’ professional carries have come from gap runs, a far lower number (53.7%) than Chargers backs ran last season and miles away from what OC Greg Roman was running in Baltimore for half a decade. But staying between-the-tackles is not only where Harris should probably be utilized in the first place; it’s not like he’s been used as a perimeter runner in Pittsburgh anyway. According to NGS’s numbers, Harris had 46.4% of his rushes hit inside the tackles, which is actually higher than Edwards’ number last season (43.6%).

Keeping Harris North-South is what will be best for both parties, and if that’s going to happen 12-15 times a game, we might have a better fantasy commodity on our hands than we’d think at first glance.

Fantasy Outlook for the Chargers’ Backfield

Najee Harris basically is the Chargers' backfield at the time of this writing. The general consensus is that L.A. will bring Dobbins back after his promising return to an NFL field for next to no money, but there’s certainly no guarantee that will happen. Dobbins suffered an MCL sprain in Week 12 —against the Baltimore Ravens, ironically enough— that shelved him for four games, though he did return for Weeks 17, 18 and the team’s Wild Card loss to the Houston Texans.

That four-game absence may have been the final catalyst that pushed the team to make a move on Day 1 of free agency, as Edwards, Kimani Vidal, and others combined for 61.5 running back rushing yards per game, down from 97.5 in the remaining 13 regular season games. Vidal’s season-high in carries (eight) came in Dobbins’ first missed game, but his subsequent 34 yards weren’t enough to keep him on the field, as he saw only three carries (and nine yards) the following week.

When all is said and done, we should expect Harris and Dobbins to hold a majority of the workload, with Najee’s touch share possibly even higher than we can imagine if they leave the backfield as it is, sans Dobbins. Betting on Harris’s durability in a run-heavy offense with a continually improving O-line built through the NFL Draft makes him a solid RB2 in fantasy.

Bottom Line

• In fantasy terms, it’s hard to imagine a better landing spot for Najee Harris than the Los Angeles Chargers.
• Harris will operate in the Gus Edwards role of an early-down grinder but offers more pop with the ball in his hands, including in the receiving game.
• The running back room behind Harris is still up in the air, but it’s hard to see them making a move that will greatly impact his bottom line, whether or not they bring J.K. Dobbins back in the fold.
• According to current Underdog ADP, Harris is coming off boards as the RB32 (103.6). This will undoubtedly be climbing over the next month and could continue ascending into an uncomfortable range if the Chargers leave the NFL Draft without competition (which seems plausible). Regardless, he should be considered a back-end RB2 with high-volume weeks in his new home.