Steelers Must Be Careful to Manage DeAngelo Williams' Workload Down the Stretch

For the third time this season, Pittsburgh Steelers running back DeAngelo Williams totaled over 100 rushing yards in a game, running for 134 yards on 26 carries in the team's 45-10 win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday.

Since starting running back Le'Veon Bell suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 8, the majority of the Steelers' carries—and snaps played by a running back—have belonged to Williams.

For a time, they had Isaiah Pead along with Jordan Todman to back him up.

Pead has since been replaced by Fitzgerald Toussaint, but Williams' dominance remains: Todman has had just four carries heading into Week 13 and was inactive against the Colts. Only Williams—and from Weeks 3 through 8, Bell—has been the center of Pittsburgh's running offense as of late.

And it's paid off, to be sure.

Williams has carried the ball 141 times this season for 697 yards and six touchdowns, and he has even become a bigger piece as a receiver in recent weeks. He's definitely the Steelers' best free-agency signing of the year and perhaps even the best in the league as a whole.

Week	Atts.	Yds.	TDs	Snaps	Snap %
Week 9	27	170	2	81	93.1%
Week 10	17	54	0	62	89.9%
Week 11	8	29	1	77	95.1%
Week 13	26	134	0	69	92.0%

But that still doesn't change the fact that Williams is 32 years old and the Steelers clearly need him very much.

That's why they need to manage Williams' workload for the remainder of the season, especially now that Pittsburgh has penciled itself back into the AFC playoff picture. Losing Williams to injury—including the potential for one brought on by overuse—is simply not an option.

In Week 9, Williams had a season-high 27 carries (and 29 touches) and then dealt with foot inflammation in the days that followed. While it didn't affect his availability going forward, it's an important reminder of Williams' age, how many career carries he's had—1,573 counting Sunday night—how many carries he's been getting this year and how many snaps he's been playing.

Toussaint did have some carries against the Colts—four for 12 yards, to be exact.

According to Pro Football Focus' Nathan Jahnke, however, Williams played every single one of the team's 40 first-half offensive snaps and was on the field for 93.1 percent of them in Week 9, 89.9 percent in Week 10 and 95.1 percent in Week 12, per PFF. Jahnke noted that Williams easily finished with 92 percent on Sunday.

While this is a testament to Williams' value to the team in all phases of the offense, Toussaint and even Todman should see more carries in the coming weeks—if only to attempt to keep the much-needed Williams relatively fresh for a postseason run.

Toussaint and/or Todman cannot replicate what Williams provides the Steelers. That's a solid argument against them taking carries and snaps from Williams.

But it's also an argument for why Toussaint and/or Todman should be spelling Williams more often. Not having him for five, 10 or 15 snaps a game compared to the possibility of not having him in the important final weeks of the regular season or the postseason seems like a justifiably conservative move.

Dale Lolley of the Observer-Reporter reported that even Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger saw the value in doing so at least once on Sunday night, motioning to his coaches to pull out Williams for Toussaint after a long fourth-quarter run.

When Bell suffered a Week 17 knee injury last season, it held him out of the Steelers' Wild Card playoff meeting with the Baltimore Ravens and almost single-handedly led to Pittsburgh losing the game.

The Steelers cannot risk a similar fate for Williams.

While injuries happen, there are ways to protect key players. If the Steelers do like Toussaint or Todman, why not get them more touches?

Williams is important and must be on the field, yes. But that importance also means Pittsburgh must balance risk and reward with the amount of carries and snaps he plays going forward.