The Pittsburgh Steelers kept their free agency news rolling ahead of the NFL’s legal tampering period, officially placing a second-round tender on restricted free agent (RFA) running back Jaylen Warren on Monday morning, Tom Pelissero of NFL Network reports. The tag will pay Warren $5.346 million for the 2025 NFL season, per Over The Cap.

The news isn’t unexpected, as Steelers GM Omar Khan indicated during the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine that the team would tender the RFA and expected him back for the season.

Now, as noted in BTSC’s 2025 Offseason Almanac, teams in free agency will have the opportunity to pay Warren, with the Steelers having the right to match any offer negotiated by Warren with a new team. If the Steelers were to decline to match the new offer, they would receive that team’s second-round pick.

Given that former first-round pick Najee Harris has not yet come to an agreement on a new contract with the Steelers, he’ll be heading into the start of the legal tampering period as a presumed free agent and test the market. The team initially declined Harris’ fifth-year option in the 2024 offseason, which would have paid him $6.79 million — not much more than Warren himself received. Harris reported himself the reason the team declined his fifth-year option, a surprising move at the time, stating, “It was [because] they didn’t know where the offense was headed. That was it.”

Warren, 26, was an undrafted free agent out of Oklahoma State and has been an absolute gem in the Steelers offense to this point in his career. Warren has now had back-to-back-seasons posting 800+ scrimmage yards as the backup to Harris, praised for his efficiency (especially compared to Harris), a brash running style that allows him to earn yards after contact and his ability to force missed tackles.

Warren dealt with some injuries in 2024, including a knee injury that forced him to miss two games, as well as a back issue and back issues, and he saw a decline in his overall efficiency. However, over the last two seasons, Warren ranks in the 97th percentile among running backs with a 31% missed forced tackle rate, 90th percentile in yards after contact per attempt average (3.47) and 85th percentile with 0.06 breakaway runs per rush attempt — all numbers that paint a more accurate picture of what he brings to the table rather than his counting stats from the 2024 season.