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Al Harris spent the first five years of his career with the Eagles, most of that time as their nickel cornerback.\u00a0 Throughout all those years there was an odd\u00a0contradiction surrounding him.\u00a0 Television announcers constantly raved about how good he was.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, if you asked an Eagles fan what they though about\u00a0Harris, it was almost guaranteed that\u00a0the response would involve a lot of head-shaking and four-letter words.\u00a0 Eagles fans, almost without exception, hated\u00a0 <\/em>the guy, and the fact that announcers kept praising him so much only intensified the hatred.\u00a0 Everyone knew that Harris was good for at least <\/em>one game-altering, 35-yard pass interference penalty every game.\u00a0 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<\/em> corner!”.<\/p>\n It was almost like there\u00a0was a\u00a0conspiracy going on, like everyone involved in the NFL got together and decided to pick\u00a0one really\u00a0terrible player and act like he was awesome just to see if everyone would go along with it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He’s been a starter since he went to Green Bay and was voted to his first Pro Bowl this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Obviously, I\u00a0haven’t\u00a0seen him play nearly as much since he left the Eagles and I only saw about two Packers games this year before yesterday’s game.\u00a0 I will admit that he does seem to have the tools to play the position well.\u00a0 He’s got good size, good speed, and he plays very aggressively, but it’s pretty obvious that he plays over-<\/em>aggresively.\u00a0 I thought maybe he had gotten better, maybe all those years everyone thought he was good based on potential that he had\u00a0finally realized.\u00a0 That was not the case.<\/p>\n Yesterday’s game was maybe the\u00a0best\u00a0ever illustration of the Al\u00a0Harris Mystery.\u00a0\u00a0With\u00a0the recent Pro Bowl selection to back them up, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman heaped praise on him.\u00a0 Harris was assigned to cover Plaxico Burress, and Aikman spent most of the game talking about the “amazing battle<\/em>” going on between the two players.\u00a0 The word ‘battle’ was used at least four times.\u00a0 I think ‘massacre’ might have been a better description.\u00a0\u00a0Harris was used and abused by Burress\u00a0all game, to the tune of 11\u00a0catches for 154 yards, only\u00a0stopping him\u00a0by (surprise!) committing two penalties.\u00a0 To Aikman’s\u00a0credit, he\u00a0did start suggesting late in the game that the Packers give Harris some\u00a0help on Burress, but there was no mention of the terrible performance Harris had given.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I don’t understand the Al Harris Mystery, but at least I don’t have to suffer through it anymore.\u00a0 I know all too well how Packers fans are feeling today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Al Harris spent the first five years of his career with the Eagles, most of that time as their nickel cornerback.\u00a0 Throughout all those years there was an odd\u00a0contradiction surrounding him.\u00a0 Television announcers constantly raved about how good he was.\u00a0 … Continue reading