Oakland Raiders Draft News
As we can all remember, Al Davis fell in love with Harris and annointed him his next starting middle linebacker. Davis then dismissed Greg Biekert and plugged the rookie into the most important position on a defense. That's when the trouble started.
Harris was the player Romanowski was jumping up and down at after the Chiefs scored their 4th quarter touchdown to put the game away. Harris had blown a coverage. That would happen regardless where Harris was playing, but the lack of communication on that play permeated throughout the contest. Who's in charge of the defense? In charge of making all the calls in the huddle? In charge of audibles before the snap? Yeah, Harris is. That's a problem when you have a rookie in the middle linebacker spot. As intelligent as Harris is, there will continue to be rookie mistakes in the form of missed calls.
The other more glaring issue is that of Harris' size. At 235 pounds, Harris is simply not bulky enough to be a middle linebacker. Sure, it all looked good on paper. John Parrella and Sam Adams would gobble up blockers and Harris would be free to roam with his great athleticism. However, Adams, so far, hasn't had the type of year that was expected of him. Instead of flying around the field, too often we're finding Harris engulfed by linemen 100 pounds heavier than him on running plays right up the middle. Think of the runs by Marshall Faulk, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Priest Holmes. They were either smash mouth runs up the middle, or runs with cutbacks to the middle. In either case, Harris was too often tied up with huge blockers.
It's not his fault of course. Al Davis has to take the blame for this one. While Harris might eventually learn to shed blocks better, or have the two necessary tackles in front of him that can tie up the offensive linemen is yet to be seen. Perhaps down the road Harris does turn out to be a very good NFL inside linebacker. But it's not happening now. Harris would be making more plays on the outside. In a perfect world, the Raiders would acknowledge this, sign or draft a true run-stuffing middle linebacker, and have Harris take over Romanowski's starting outside spot. Probably won't happen though. And we'll be left to wonder how many sacks, quarterback hurries, and plays behind the line of scrimmage the Raiders are leaving on the table by underutilizing Harris' athleticism.
-- Alex Chavez
