The Al Harris Mystery

al harris

Al Harris spent the first five years of his career with the Eagles, most of that time as their nickel cornerback.  Throughout all those years there was an odd contradiction surrounding him.  Television announcers constantly raved about how good he was.  It was almost obligatory for the color man, at some point in the game, to say that Harris would be starting for just about any other team in the league, but was stuck behind Pro Bowlers Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor.  The Eagles coaching staff echoed those statements, which I guess is the type of thing coaches say about their players, but they backed up those statements by continuing to put Harris out on the field.

Meanwhile, if you asked an Eagles fan what they though about Harris, it was almost guaranteed that the response would involve a lot of head-shaking and four-letter words.  Eagles fans, almost without exception, hated  the guy, and the fact that announcers kept praising him so much only intensified the hatred.  Everyone knew that Harris was good for at least one game-altering, 35-yard pass interference penalty every game.  It got to the point where you would just laugh every time it happened, especially because the announcers would be saying something like, “Oh, an uncharacteristic mistake by Al Harris, who is really one heckuva corner!”.

It was almost like there was a conspiracy going on, like everyone involved in the NFL got together and decided to pick one really terrible player and act like he was awesome just to see if everyone would go along with it.  Well, Harris has been in the league ten years now (the last five with the Packers), and the conspiracy plot appears to be going as strong as ever.  He’s been a starter since he went to Green Bay and was voted to his first Pro Bowl this season. 

Obviously, I haven’t seen him play nearly as much since he left the Eagles and I only saw about two Packers games this year before yesterday’s game.  I will admit that he does seem to have the tools to play the position well.  He’s got good size, good speed, and he plays very aggressively, but it’s pretty obvious that he plays over-aggresively.  I thought maybe he had gotten better, maybe all those years everyone thought he was good based on potential that he had finally realized.  That was not the case.

Yesterday’s game was maybe the best ever illustration of the Al Harris Mystery.  With the recent Pro Bowl selection to back them up, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman heaped praise on him.  Harris was assigned to cover Plaxico Burress, and Aikman spent most of the game talking about the “amazing battle” going on between the two players.  The word ‘battle’ was used at least four times.  I think ‘massacre’ might have been a better description.  Harris was used and abused by Burress all game, to the tune of 11 catches for 154 yards, only stopping him by (surprise!) committing two penalties.  To Aikman’s credit, he did start suggesting late in the game that the Packers give Harris some help on Burress, but there was no mention of the terrible performance Harris had given.  I’ve never seen such a discrepancy between the media’s portrayal of a player and the opinion of almost every fan that watches him.  I don’t understand the Al Harris Mystery, but at least I don’t have to suffer through it anymore.  I know all too well how Packers fans are feeling today.

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4 Responses to The Al Harris Mystery

  1. STRI says:

    Harris is overly-agressive. It’s a strategy works on small recievers or an offense that relies on timing patterns, which is why Harris plays well in some games and gets credit for being a good corner. However, it does not work against a big strong receiver like Burress who knows how to get off a jam, which is why he got dominated yesterday. By the way, here’s my favorite quote on this topic:

    “Thanks to Burress, Harris was the warmest person in the second-coldest game ever played at Lambeau. Why? Because Burress burned Harris enough times to heat half the stadium.”

  2. Doogan says:

    Again, maybe he’s gotten better, but I saw almost every game he played the first 5 years of his career and I don’t remember one ‘good’ game. I remember certain great plays and interceptions, but they were always off-set by terrible blunders.

  3. Todd says:

    Ive watched Al Harris play over the years and am a Packer fan from Milwaukee. Im glad someone finally put out an article on this “conspiracy” about Al Harris. Ive never understood it and always hate how much hes talked up by the media as this great corner, for making 1 great play every 4 to 6 games. Are they not watching the same games as we are ? Al Harris does play a very agressive game but if your unable to adapt to other wide recievers such as Burris, your pretty much useless. He never fails to give up some big penalty at an important part of the game for playing his “agressive” style. Ive never seen a player so overconfident and so errogant about himself as Al Harris is… it drives me crazy when you see him get burned, have the reciever drop an easy pass and have him waiving his hands back and forth (10 yards back where he got burnt) acting like he did something fantastic. If all the packers are looking for is some agressive style and a jam off the line, we might as well put KGB over there, hed probably do a lot better. Hopefully the packers will have a good draft year and im sure McCarthy will address the same problem we saw in the NFC championship game this year … Al Harris.

  4. J says:

    Haha, Doogan…did you ever notice this complete and total confirmation of what you were saying the Packers fans must be thinking? Posted only a few weeks after you wrote this and apparently it just recently cracked the top 10 most viewed articles.

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