Harris Questioned the Rotation on Sunday. By Tuesday He Was the One Released

On Sunday, Najee Harris started a game for the New York Giants. On Tuesday morning, he was released. The two days in between are the story, and most of them happened in front of microphones.

Harris was one of four backs the Giants rotated through Sunday’s loss to New Orleans. Pro Football Rumors records that he got the start while Cam Skattebo’s workload was cut back over fumbling issues, and that the rotation stayed heavy all game. Harris carried four times for two yards. Tyrone Tracy Jr and Devin Singletary both did more with their chances, as Steelers Depot notes in its report of the release.

What did Harris say after the game?

That the rotation itself was the problem. Via reporter Pat Leonard, in Steelers Depot’s account, Harris said he had never been through anything like it: a play here, then out for a series, with no way to build rhythm. It was a complaint about usage from a veteran who had been a workhorse before. In Pittsburgh, Harris played out his rookie contract with four straight 1,000-yard seasons and never missed a game, a durability run this site’s list of most consecutive starts in the NFL puts in context. His 2025 season with the Chargers lasted three games: a fireworks accident cost him his summer, then he tore his Achilles. The Giants signed him in August, he made the 53-man roster, and across five games he never played more than 16 offensive snaps in any of them. His best day was nine carries for 52 yards against Tennessee. A player with that history was being used like a situational back, and on Sunday night he said so.

What did Harbaugh say back?

Two things, in two answers, and this article keeps them apart because the reports do. Asked about the running game after the loss, in comments carried by ESPN’s Jordan Raanan and quoted by Pro Football Rumors, John Harbaugh said he did not like divvying up the snaps between four backs either. One of those guys, he said, needs to step up and be the back, and none of them has done that yet. Asked about Harris’s comments specifically, in the version carried by USA TODAY, he said the wish for rhythm was understandable and that rhythm is earned, and it had not been earned yet. Read together, the coach agreed with his running back about the rotation and rejected his explanation for it in the same media session. By Tuesday, the rotation had one fewer back in it, and it was the one who had spoken.

Did the comments cause the release?

The reports do not establish that, and this article does not claim it. The timing is the fact: a public disagreement on Sunday night, a release on Tuesday morning. The contract is part of the explanation too. Harris was on a veteran-minimum deal with no guaranteed money, per Pro Football Rumors, so the release costs the club almost nothing. A player producing 31 carries for 99 yards, on that contract, in a backfield the coach had already said was too crowded, did not need a press conference to be cut. What the quotes did was give the move a public argument attached to it, one the coach had already answered before the decision landed.

Who is left in the Giants’ backfield?

Three backs, and the question Harbaugh posed on Sunday is still open. Skattebo remains first in line, with Tracy and Singletary behind him, and 2025 seventh-round pick Phil Mafah on the practice squad, per USA TODAY’s depth-chart rundown. Skattebo’s fumbling is what opened the rotation up in the first place. The Giants have now settled the numbers question (three backs, not four) without settling the performance question Harbaugh actually asked. Their next game will show which of the three gets the first series. This site’s waiver wire explainer covers what happens to Harris next: as a vested veteran cut mid-season he can choose his next team if one calls, rather than going through the claim process a younger player faces. The Giants’ own recent history includes the 27-27 overtime tie with Washington, where the clock ran out on them against the Commanders; the backfield has been a running story all season, and nobody at the club has closed it yet.

Why was Jihad Ward released on the same day?

For a roster-rule reason, not a performance verdict, on the facts reported. Ward is a defensive end who played for the Giants in 2022 and 2023 and knew Harbaugh from Baltimore before that. The Giants signed him off the Minnesota Vikings’ practice squad last month. He played two games, made one tackle and recorded no quarterback pressures. A practice-squad player can be elevated to the game-day roster three times; after that, the club has to sign him to the active roster or release him. Pro Football Rumors reports that Ward had reached that point, and that the Giants chose to release him. Same announcement day as Harris, different mechanism entirely. Around the league, Tuesday’s other roster news ran on injury rather than depth charts, with the Rams losing Davante Adams for six to ten weeks to a ruptured hamstring earlier in the week.

Teams release veterans on Tuesdays every week, and most of those moves mean little. This one is worth a story because the head coach and the player explained opposite sides of the same decision in public before it happened. Harbaugh’s standard, that someone needs to step up and be the back, is now the standard the remaining three backs will be judged against, in his own words, on the record. If the rotation stays muddled, Sunday’s quotes will be quoted back at him, which is what makes a routine October release a story with a second act.