RB Rico Dowdle agrees to free-agent deal with Steelers: Sources

Veteran running back Rico Dowdle has agreed to a free-agent deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, league sources tell The Athletic.

Dowdle was ranked No. 51 overall among The Athletic’s top 150 free agents and was considered the third-best running back in this free agency class.

This offseason marked the second consecutive year that Dowdle entered free agency with some momentum from the previous season. Dowdle entered the league as an undrafted free agent out of South Carolina in 2020 with the Dallas Cowboys but the first four years of his NFL career were littered with injuries and lack of opportunity.

Dowdle broke out with a late-season surge with the Cowboys in 2024 and posted his first 1,000-yard season. Despite his stellar showing in the second-half of that year, the Cowboys opted to not re-sign Dowdle so the running back signed a one-year with the Carolina Panthers to join a backfield that featured Chuba Hubbard.

Hubbard suffered an injury in Week 4, which handed the keys to the Panthers’ running back role to Dowdle. The sixth-year back took full advantage, running for 206 yards in Week 5 against the Miami Dolphins and totaling 239 scrimmage yards against the Cowboys in Week 6. Although Dowdle’s two big performances earned him a bigger share of the backfield, he was back to splitting the workload with Hubbard when the latter returned from his injury.

In the final 11 games of the season, Dowdle had just one more 100-yard game, which came in Week 9 against the Green Bay Packers. Dowdle also had two touchdowns in that game, which is also how many touchdowns he had in the other 10 games combined.