Najee Harris was more than willing to talk about his injury in training camp, and directly contradicted the initial explanation given from his head coach, Mike Tomlin.
“Just to give everybody an update, I never did get my foot stepped on,” Harris said following Pittsburgh’s 19-9 preseason win over Detroit Sunday. “I had a sprained lisfranc. That’s why I was out for a majority of the camp.”
Harris was not asked about the injury, or to explain what happened. He offered that on his own, unprovoked.
Initially, Tomlin downplayed Harris’ injury, saying that he had his foot stepped on. Harris went on to miss most of camp practices, and did not play in the preseason until Sunday.
“It was good to get back out there,” he said. “I was kind of rusty, a little bit. I’ve been down for about four weeks.”
The news of a lisfranc injury is a surprise. A severe injury to a lisfranc, located in the arch of the foot, could be a season ender. But that, clearly, was not the case for Harris, who reportedly suffered a foot sprain during his sophomore year at Alabama.
“It felt good. It felt good,” he said. “I sprained it, so that’s about 4-6 weeks (of recovery). It’s been about four weeks, four to five weeks. I’m just now getting over it.”
Harris going of his way to contradict Tomlin’s initial report came off as if he was bothered by the misinformation. He also seemed somewhat displeased with initial plan for his workload in Latrobe.
"They told me, even before camp, they said, 'you'll have one day of live (practice) and that's it,’” he said. “That can be a good thing, obviously, but also a bad thing because of stuff like this. And then me being out and not really getting a feel for my o-line of how things are going to be...”
That said, Harris — who ran for just ten yards on four carries and caught three passes for eleven yards — did feel that there was some progress made.
“I think we’re getting there,” he said. “We’re going forward. Is it where we want to be at? No. But are we working there? Yes. All that matters is us being ready September 11.”
That’s when the Steelers head to Cincinnati to face the Bengals in the opening week of the NFL regular season. Harris admits, that between now and then, the offense needs to come together more, and he needs to get some of his sharpness back.
“I felt really rusty, I wasn’t too happy about my performance,” he said. “It’s good that it’s the preseason right now. I’ll watch the film and just get better at it.”