It’s easy to fall through the cracks if the combine snubs you and the folks at Pro Football Weekly fail to include you in their annual draft guide. Could that have happened with Harmon?
Duron Harmon is going to be scratching and tugging at the third-round price tag hanging around his neck for a long time. It isn’t his fault that the Patriots drafted him well ahead of where his perceived value lied, but he’ll be the one forced to carry the burden.
I spent some time trying to learn as much as I could about the former Rutgers safety since the pick caught everyone off guard and caused a great deal of outrage among New England supporters. And I did my best to enter the situation without any preconceived notions of value even though many suggested that, at best, Harmon was only worth a late-round pick.
But you have to ask yourself how those opinions are formed and where the faux outrage is coming from. Is Harmon’s combine snub the reason why everyone was caught off guard when Bill Belichick selected him? That has been held up as evidence of Belichick reaching for a player and overruling his draft scouts, but should that really be considered the smoking gun here?
Wes Welker, Sebastian Vollmer and Kyle Arrington all had their invitations lost in the mail. Falcons defensive end Osi Umenyiora 2003 snub may be the biggest of all. He was still selected in the second round and recorded 75 sacks over nine seasons for the New York Giants.
ESPN’s Mel Kiper called the Umenyiora pick a reach following the 2003 draft. In 2009, he classified Vollmer the same way.
The comparisons between Harmon and those two guys aren’t entirely fair because Harmon was more of a blindside hit than a reach in the eyes of analysts, but there is a lot of follow the leader that goes on this time of year. It’s easy to fall through the cracks if the combine snubs you and the folks at Pro Football Weekly fail to include you in their annual draft guide.
Is that what happened to Harmon?
After tracking down some video, I attempted to tune out the noise. Obviously, I’m not a scout, but I immediately saw a player with decent instincts, who appears to play faster than his listed speed and moved well – some scouts might say he has “good hips.”
He closed on players quickly, brought a little edge to the field and occasionally blew up receivers and ball carries. Some of the angles he took left something to be desired, but he wasn’t consistently poor in this regard.
I saw potential. I saw mistakes. I saw a player who was good in some areas and raw in others.
I looked and found a cut-up of his performance against Arkansas last season, which may actually provide a cleaner image of who he is as a player.
Within the first three minutes of the video he makes a few solid plays to break up passes. Later, he almost gets burned when attempting to undercut a pass. He whiffs on a tackle. Tips a pass. Some of the angles he takes are good. Others are not. He misses another tackle that allows a touchdown.
But the main thing that stands out was that he was always around the ball, in position to make a play. It basically mirrored what I saw earlier.
Still, I’m in no position to draw conclusions. My scope is limited to a couple games and a handful of random plays, but I’m at least now beginning to understand what New England sees in Harmon, even if all I can see is “third round” when I look at him.
Do I think it was a reach? A little. But the Patriots didn't draft a player who should have been graded as a priority free agent, even if he does need work.
The hope is that Tavon Wilson – another player who was deemed a reach – will emerge as a starter alongside Devin McCourty, leaving Adrian Wilson, Steve Gregory and Nate Ebner to fight for the other roster spots. If all goes to plan, Harmon can help on special teams and steal some playing time as a reserve, where he will be asked to cover tight ends and defend against the run.
Maybe that will happen. Maybe it won’t. But as more people familiarize themselves with one of the draft’s most polarizing selections, it seems that opinions are shifting.
NFL Film’s Greg Cosell tweeted that he “really likes Harmon” and that he has “excellent play recognition + awareness.”
NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock had a similar epiphany.
“I had him on my board as a late-priority free agent,” he said. “I got on him late when I saw some cut-ups. I moved him up my board because I went, ‘Wow.’”
The problem for Harmon is that he’ll have to create enough “wows” to make people forget about his draft position. He possesses the potential to make it happen. It’s just a matter of molding it properly.