Move Al Harris to Safety
by SlowJoe445 on Mar 8, 2010 9:07 PM CST
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PrintThere's a big mystery hovering over Ted Thompson's plans this off-season, and one of the biggest issues is at the secondary. The Packers can do a number of things to address the problem: sign free agents Bigby, Collins and Blackmon; Draft DB's in the first rounds; Draft 'em late; sign free agents from other teams ('though the pool is trimming).
But one option I have yet to encounter is moving Al Harris to the strong safety position alongside Nick Collins. Not only is Harris 35 years-old, he is coming off an ACL, so it's difficult to imagine him back at full speed and strength come training camp.
Al is arguably the Packers best tackler and run stopper among DB's, so you know he's well equipped to play strong safety. Meanwhile, Tramon Williams showed he is more than capable to be a starting CB in the NFL and has long years ahead of him as a top notch CB - so all that's left is to fill the depth chart with a couple of good rookies with plenty of upside. And of course, probably the most asked-for move - release Jarrett Bush!
What you think?
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I like this idea I think this would work out well except the fact that harris hasnt finished a season healthy in 3 years and being at safety would olny bring more contact Now TT is kicking himself for letting go of Aaron Rouse this past season for no apparent reason
except for the reason...
that he is downright awful. I don’t know if you watched him on the Giants, but it was a series of him getting burned every game. The only DB’s in the NFL that I can think of that he is better than are Jarret Bush and Josh Bell… Damn.
+3
Rouse showed good potential in his first 2 seasons, then just basically hit the ceiling if not got worse. TT’s big mistake last year was releasing S Anthony Smith after Preseason. I’m still ticked about that one! Not as ticked as his release of P Jon Ryan though. Like seriously, wtf was he thinking?
"No player is greater than a team."
-Vince Lombardi
I know right? Smith was actually looked really good in the preseason, and is a guy I was hoping would actually start over Bigby. So much for that idea right? As far as cutting Ryan goes, that just makes no sense.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 10:05 AM CST up reply actions
Don't know if you knew this...
but Jon Ryan signed a long term deal with Seattle. Apparently he had a really good season after a really good Preseason with Green Bay.
"No player is greater than a team."
-Vince Lombardi
Yeah, I had seen that. He got a pretty nice contract if I remember correctly too.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 8:40 PM CST up reply actions
I'm more in favor of drafting Myron Rolle,
in the 2nd round and hoping we somehow sign Lito Sheppard.
They want power. We want respect...
I like his ability
but I’m not sure how long of an NFL career he plans on having. Also, I’m not too comfortable drafting a Safety in the 2nd Round. Perhaps in the 3rd Round though. We need to address our needs at OT and OLB first.
"No player is greater than a team."
-Vince Lombardi
Interesting proposition
However this does require him learning a new position while not healthy. I think using him as some sort of hybrid could be sweet though. I also always thought we never properly utilized his blitzing abilities
I think Al could do it, but that would leave the Packers even more short-handed at CB than they are now. And the last time we played with moving a CB to safety – Charles Woodson, bless his soul – it was pretty obvious that there’s a learning curve there: CBs and safeties aren’t interchangeable. Historically, Al’s tough as an old boot, but even old boots have their limits as they age. It’s a good idea, but I don’t think it’ll fly.
Packer draft priorities as I see them: (1) Heir at LT. (2) CB depth, since neither Bush, Lee, Underwood nor Blackmon have demonstrated the ability to play nickel back (or even dime back) and/or stay healthy. (3) Safety help opposite Nick Collins: Atari Bigby can hit, but I still don’t know if he too can stay healthy and cover. (4) LOLB competition. I know that we’d love to have someone like Brandon Graham out of the 1st round, but I think we’re likely to run out of top-flight LT candidates before we run out of athletic OLBs.
My personal “dream draft” for right now: LT Charles Brown in the first round, CB Charles Cook in the second, Myron Rolle in the 3rd, and O’Brien Schofield late for LOLB. Everything beyond that would be gravy.
We already drafted these guys…cant one of them step up and play the position.
Are we going to draft another player to put on this list:
T.J. Lang
Jamon Meredith
Josh Sitton
Breno Giacomini
Allen Barbre
Daryn Colledge
Jason Spitz
Tony Moll
We should drat a player who can step in a play this year.
those guys suck
first, meredith (bills) and moll (ravens) are not even on the team anymore.
second, giacomini and barbre are garbage and should be cut.
third, colledge will lose his job as soon as we get someone else in there who can play (e.g. tj lang).
fourth, sptiz has a recurring back issue that makes him entirely unreliable.
which leaves us with josh sitton, our starting RG, and tj lang, who will likely be starting at either LG, RT, or LT by the end of the year, depending on injuries and who we draft.
Well Meredith and Moll are both gone. Lang is a RT or LG, Colledge is a LG, Sitton is our RG, Spitz is a C/LG. So that leaves us with Barbre (horrible RT) and Gianconmini (who hasn’t seen a snap I don’t think.) From reading some stuff this offseason it would appear TT is really hoping Gianconmini will pan out. He was sort of a project pick two years ago, and if he isn’t ready to play by this next year I don’t think he ever will be.
No matter how you shake we NEED to draft our replacement LT in this years draft, and we can’t really afford for TT to miss on it. We have no guys on our roster now that can play LT and do a good job, so we’re just going to have to hope Clifton can make it through one more year and if not we’ll have to hope he can last long enough to the point where our rookie LT feels a little more comfortable.
As for RT, I don’t think it’s as much of a worry. The RT class in this years class is really talented and really deep, so we could try and pick up a guy in the 4th or 5th in hopes that they work out for us later on in the future. In the mean time it looks like Lang is going to start the year off at RT, which puts Colledge or Spitz at LG (hopefully Spitz) with Wells playing at C. I would almost rather prefer we bring Tauscher back because next year his knee will actually probably feel better, and he played pretty good last season. Having him would allow us to play Lang at LG which is his natural position.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 8:48 PM CST up reply actions
Lang, Sitton, and Spitz are keepers
The rest are garbage.
"No player is greater than a team."
-Vince Lombardi
Yeah, Sitton was really good for us this past year. Spitz was good for us in 2007 and 2008, and Lang was good this past year and that wasn’t even playing his “natural” position. The 3 of them could form a pretty good interior OL for years to come. Le’s just hope Spitz can come back from his injury and play at the same level.
by packallday555 on Mar 10, 2010 10:06 AM CST up reply actions
SS in our 3-4 system
what do you need to do as the SS in our 3-4? I’ve heard people say in other threads that it is less of a “hitter” and more of a coverage spot. If thats the case Al makes sense. Any football x and o guru’s can enlighten me?
Definitely more of a coverage spot, especially in our system. Collins plays more of the free roaming type FS spot in our defense and Bigby is kind of the guy who is supposed to hold down the fort in a sense. I think playing Harris in there could make sense but he has never really been great in zone coverage, which is what he would playing the majority of the time so I don’t really know.
There was a recently an article on him in the Milwaukee Sentinel, and Harris said in there that when he comes back he’s going to go back to playing to more of the bump n run style he used to. And also added that Capers would let him.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 8:52 PM CST up reply actions
this is crazy-talk
Al Harris is a good corner for one reason: he’s really good at jamming receivers at the line of scrimmage. Period. In every other DB skill area, he’s ranges from okay to mediocre.
Don’t get me wrong. He’s a good player. …borderline excellent. But only because (to paraphrase what they said about Earl Campbell) Al Harris jams things, and things fall down. But he doesn’t tackle all that well (meaning that he’s okay at it, but it’s not a strength). He’s hopeless in zone and useless in space. He’s nothing special when blitzing or taking on blockers. But… put him across from a receiver and ask him to disrupt his release and ruin his route-running? Then, Al is straight magic.
Therefore… at the risk of being ungentle, the proposition stated in this blog post is a terrible idea. If Al Harris was at safety, he would rarely get to do the things he does well, and he would constantly be asked to do the things he does poorly. I mean, put him at nickle corner before you put him at safety.
The writer of this post seems to think that “safety” just means “slow cornerback”. It doesn’t. It’s a whole different position. One that Al would be ill-suited for.
by Curly Lambeau on Mar 9, 2010 1:29 PM CST reply actions 3 recs
agreed
finally. a reasonable response.
al harris would be awful at SS for the packers.
think about it: atari bigby is our current SS. what — other than hairstyle — do bigby and harris have in common?
not a thing.
as curly lambeau said, we would be taking harris away from his strength and putting him in a position to fail.
as harris gracefully ages, we should move him inside to the nickel DB. that will be his best chance at continuing to have an impact on the team.
Yeah, you guys make a good point. There is no way Harris could excel having to play so much zone coverage.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 8:53 PM CST up reply actions
Agreed
Harris at Safety is just dumb!!! He is a Press CB… he is even miscast as a zone CB or off man CB… To succeed Harris has to get in the WR face, redirect his route and throw of the timing w/ the QB. Its the thing he does FAR better than anything else!!! He doesn’t have the speed, quickness, fluidity, agility of a zone CB, nor does he have the instincts or ball skills!!!
Just a BAD idea all the way around!!!
Right on.
Some people say the glass is half empty, some say half full. I say, are you going to drink that?
by BleedsbluinMI on Mar 11, 2010 8:38 AM CST up reply actions
Lets not forget about Pat Lee 3rd year man out of Auburn he has been injured his first two seasons but we spent a second round pick on him so i dont TT will be willing to give up on him. He might be able to step in as the #3 guy. Your thoughts?
I’m sure he would be able too. In what I watched of him in 2008 I thought he looked alright. The only problem is it was only 5 games which is an awfully small sample size.
Obviously with Woodson we have our #1, Williams is probably our #2, Harris at #3 (I think that’s where he’ll start off at least.), and then I think it’ll be a competition between Underwood and Lee to be the nickel guy. Though Underwood and Lee could end up having to play our nickel and dime spot if Harris can’t come back from that knee injury.
I think Underwood has a lot of potential and will eventually be a #2 Cb for us. He is tall, with good speed and athletic ability, and can tackle. He played the dime last year as a rookie and actually did an ok job until he got hurt and was replaced by Josh Bell. MM said the players he expects to improve most from this past season to next season are T.J. Lang and Underwood, so let’s hope he is right. I’m sure we’ll still draft a Cb in this years draft but with guys coming back from injury we should be ok.
by packallday555 on Mar 9, 2010 8:59 PM CST up reply actions
I agree, we haven't seen Lee enough to see if he'll pan out or not.
Considering he hasn’t played a lot, he’s still basically a rookie in our eyes. A rookie coming off 2 injury plagued seasons. Tramon Williams should be our #2 CB, I agree. Let Al Harris get a few reps in as our Nickel CB. Have Lee and a CB we pick early in this years draft battle it out for the #4 CB position. That sounds like a big investment now, but the reality is we have no idea if Harris will make it through another full season and the same applies to Pat Lee. Brandon Underwood at the moment looks like the next Jarrett Bush, but he’s still young yet and has time to develop. He’s not ready for extensive playing time yet.
"No player is greater than a team."
-Vince Lombardi
Brandon Underwood at the moment looks like the next Jarrett Bush, but he’s still young yet and has time to develop.
No, not at all. Underwood actually did a good job when he came in and played. He replaced Harris after his injury against the 49ers, and covered Crabtree and didn’t allow much of anything to him.
Underwood will probably be a solid guy in our secondary in the future. He has all the ability to be a good Cb, and an interesting past.
by packallday555 on Mar 10, 2010 10:09 AM CST up reply actions
If Harris is healthy, he will start
You guys and your dumping on Al Harris. You’d think Pro Bowl conrnerbacks grow on trees to read what you guys write.
All Harris had a perfectly fine year last year. He is good at press coverage, but all of you who say he can’t play zone or “cover in space” (like you know what you are talking about!) are just plain wrong. He is a perfectly fine starting cornerback, far above average, and much better than Tramon Williams. This all assumes he is healthy.
But I agree with those of you who question whether he is a safety. I say he’s not.
Pat Lee? Eh — he hasn’t stayed healthy yet. That’s a very bad trait in a defensive football player (see Harrell, Justin). I’d say he has one more chance this season. First round picks get four years (see Harrell, Justin), but post-second rounders don’t get that much time.
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