Jaylen Warren Camp Update — August 31: The Room Shrinks to Three
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Cut-day weekend reduced the Pittsburgh backfield to Jaylen Warren, Rico Dowdle and seventh-round rookie Eli Heidenreich — Kaleb Johnson traded to Green Bay, Travis Homer released, Lew Nichols waived and unclaimed. Warren sat the finale with the rest of the core players, so the carry split enters the season on one even game of evidence.
When Jaylen Warren's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
The full episode, in writing
The Pittsburgh backfield got smaller on cut-day weekend, and Jaylen Warren is one of the two backs left standing at the top of it. The team traded Kaleb Johnson to Green Bay for a sixth-round pick in 20 28 — first reported by Jeremy Fowler at ESPN, official on the team's transaction list per Teresa Varley at Steelers.com — released veteran Travis Homer, and waived Lew Nichols, who went unclaimed when waivers cleared Monday, per Alex Kozora at Steelers Depot. The number three job went to Eli Heidenreich, who ran nine times for 35 yards with a touchdown in the finale and won the spot over Homer and Nichols, per Brian Batko's 53-man analysis at Steelers.com. Heidenreich is a seventh-round rookie out of Navy whose best path to a rookie role is special teams, per Jack Markowski at Sports Illustrated's All Steelers. That is the room: Warren, Rico Dowdle, and a seventh-rounder, with no waiver additions behind them.
What the weekend did not do is score the question that actually defines Warren's season. He did not play Thursday in Buffalo — Bob Labriola at Steelers.com listed him among the 27 core players held out, writing that none of them had any chance to sustain an injury in a meaningless game — and neither did Dowdle. So the carry split got no second data point, and there will be none before the games count: the only game backfield these two have ever shared is the Jets game that came out five carries apiece. And the Johnson trade is not a Warren promotion — the beat's verdict on Johnson himself had been building, with Matthew Marczi at Steelers Depot writing two days before the deal that the verdict was "all but in" on him as Omar Khan's worst draft pick so far.
Back in June we said Warren's own case — the career year, the 40-catch receiving role — was never the question, and the carry split with the newly signed Dowdle was the entire bet. That is still the whole file, and cut day narrowed it without settling it: fewer bodies, the same unanswered split, and no third contender for whatever share of it opens up. We'll check back as Week One comes into focus.
_Data via nflverse._
Keep going