Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell: A Season in Review

The Pittsburgh Steelers’ rushing attack was inconsistent at best in 2025. It had stretches of reliable play, but in the biggest games of the season, it was nowhere to be found. Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell handled most of the workload for the rushing attack, and both did what they could.

They brought unique skill sets to the Steelers’ offense, often asked to take on larger roles than anticipated. While neither player is an elite running back, they did the best they could in an offense that sometimes seemed designed to make it as hard as possible for them to be efficient.

Jaylen Warren

Jaylen Warren, in his first season as Pittsburgh’s primary back, was solid. He’s a shifty player in the backfield, rarely going down at first contact. There were multiple plays per game where it seemed like he’d break a couple of tackles to turn a negative play into a positive one. As a result of the increased touches, Warren had the most productive season of his career, finishing with nearly 1300 yards from scrimmage and ten touchdowns.

At just 5’8″, Jaylen Warren is surprisingly strong and extremely tough, making him a punishing runner. His best game of the season came against the Lions in week 16. He ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns on ten yards a carry. Another aspect of his game that helped the Steelers offense in the 2025 season was him as a receiving threat. He caught 40 passes this season. Jaylen Warren managed to do all this despite dealing with a nagging knee injury for the first month of the season. Had he been fully healthy from the start, he probably would’ve finished with over 1000 yards rushing.

Kenneth Gainwell

Kenneth Gainwell provides a different set of skills compared to Jaylen Warren. Gainwell is more elusive back than Warren is, relying on avoiding contact rather than embracing it. As a result, Warren was afforded the luxury as the team’s primary rushing threat, but Gainwell still got plenty of touches. Gainwell finished his season with over 1000 yards from scrimmage and eight touchdowns. Most interestingly of all, he led the Steelers in receptions this year with 73.

As the season wore on, Aaron Rodgers grew more and more comfortable with Kenneth Gainwell as his safety valve out of the backfield. Gainwell had a staggering seven games this season with 6+ receptions, with five of them coming after week 10. Despite this chemistry with Rodgers, Gainwell was not the full-time starter for Pittsburgh, only starting two of the 17 games. Those two games, against Minnesota and Chicago, produced his two best rushing performances of the season with 90+ yards each.

Arthur Smith’s Scheme

The inefficacy of Pittsburgh’s scheme was the primary reason why the Steelers struggled to maximize their offense. While Jaylen Warren and Kenneth Gainwell are not elite players, they were good enough to lead an effective rushing attack, and the tape shows it. They were often thrown into low-leverage situations where the defense knew a run was coming and there was little they could do beyond accept three yards and a cloud of dust.

The offensive line isn’t even the biggest culprit. They finished top five in overall block win rate, and individual players like Troy Fautanu and Zach Frazier showed improvements in their technique and feel for the game. Ultimately, Arthur Smith’s system was low risk but low reward. With a 42-year-old quarterback under center, he didn’t want to put him and the offense at risk of negative plays that would get the offense off schedule. Smith used a lot of two, sometimes three tight end looks on early downs to get the offense in position for second and manageable. And to be fair, this approach did what it was designed to do.

Pittsburgh was good at avoiding negative plays, at least until they faced elite defenses. Teams like the Texans stuffed the run and were able to man up to Pittsburgh’s receivers. Pittsburgh’s receivers had trouble creating separation all year, which forced Rodgers to use his checkdowns in Gainwell and Warren more. Teams were ready for it come playoff time, and it was game-set-match from there. If Pittsburgh wants to go back to being a great team running the football, then they’re going to have to get good at testing defenses down the field. If they don’t, their offense will continue to come up short when it matters.