Dowdle left Carolina for a Steelers backfield that already had a starter in Jaylen Warren, and reunited with Mike McCarthy, the coach who once turned him into a lead back in Dallas. McCarthy has called the pair a 'dynamic one-two punch' and wants both of them touching the ball on early downs, but his own history says these things rarely stay even -- and by his account to Fox Sports, the plan now is for Dowdle to be the workhorse who fixes a Pittsburgh running game that finished near the bottom of the league last season.
On tape he's a one-cut, downhill runner who plays with the tempo and violence his coaches in Carolina praised, more comfortable trusting his eyes to find the crease and finishing through contact than making someone miss in space. He's built to carry the ball between the tackles and near the goal line, not to solve third downs -- the book on him in Carolina was that he's a clear downgrade as a receiver from Kenneth Gainwell, the back he's now replacing in Pittsburgh's plans. Early downs and short yardage are where Dowdle actually moves the needle.
The catch is that Warren was the name the Steelers put atop their own depth chart when camp opened, and he's long been the better receiver of the two -- exactly the skill a run-funneling defense would push Pittsburgh toward on passing downs. Dowdle has also never actually walked into a healthy backfield and taken the job outright; in Dallas he only became the guy once Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard had both moved on. If McCarthy's history of unbalanced backfields breaks the other way, Warren keeps the passing-down work and Dowdle ends up short of the bell-cow role he's being counted on to fill.
That history matters against the alternative here: Chuba Hubbard, who spent last season stapled to the bench behind Dowdle in Carolina and is now fighting to reclaim the job he lost -- this time against Jonathon Brooks, a former high draft pick still working back from consecutive ACL tears. Dowdle has already beaten one of those two backs for a starting job in the same building; Hubbard has to beat both Brooks and his own recent history just to get back to where Dowdle left him. Given a coach on record wanting him to be the workhorse and an actual track record of winning this exact battle, Dowdle is the runner I'd rather build around.
