Anthony Harris can fix the Philadelphia Eagles’ pick problems

If there’s one position the Philadelphia Eagles seemingly value more than any other team in the NFL, it’s safety.

Call it the competitive advantage of investing heavily in an undervalued position or just appreciating the importance of blanketing the back third of the field, but for whatever reason, Howie Roseman has consistently prioritized employing a pair of top tier safeties all the way back to the signing of Malcolm Jenkins in 2014.

So naturally, with Jalen Mills headed to Foxboro and Rudy Ford snatched up by

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the Jacksonville Jaguars, Howie Roseman would get antsy looking for a replacement.

But who could that player be? Surely Roseman wouldn’t put all of his eggs in the basket of Andrew Adams, a depth piece who hasn’t started a game since December of 2019, right?

No, after suffering through the weirdness of not fielding a competitive offer for JuJu Smith-Schuster, the Eagles finally punched the pay stub of former Minnesota Vikings free safety Anthony Harris on a one-year deal worth $5 million.

Did the Philadelphia Eagles just land the steal of free agency? *runs away*

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In 2019, there wasn’t a better free safety in the NFL than Anthony Harris.

A former UDFA out of Virginia, Harris became an NFL starting safety the hard way, first serving as a special teams ace before slowly working his way to the Vikings’ safety rotation alongside perennial Pro Bowlers like Harrison Smith and, um, not perennial Pro Bowlers like Andrew Sendejo and Marcus Epps.

But after turning in a promising 2018 campaign highlighted by a two-interception performance in a loss to the Chicago Bears, Harris was finally given a chance to enter the 2019 season as Minnesota’s unquestioned starting free safety and believe you me, after four long years of only semi-consistent action, that was not an opportunity the Chesterfield, Virginia native was going to let pass him by.

Tagged with a second-round restricted free agent tender on March 11th, Harris would go on to start all 16 games for the Vikings in 2019 and lead the league in interceptions with six, in addition to 11 passes defended and 60 combined tackles.

Heading into 2020’s free agency period, there wasn’t a hotter name in the safety market than Anthony Harris, and many assumed the then-28-year-old would be in line for a massive deal in the ballpark of five-years, $70 million range according to both Spotrac and Zone Coverage.

Unfortunately, that market was never able to materialize, as Harris played out the 2020 season on a one-year, $11.4 million exclusive rights franchise tag, as the Vikings deemed their 1.5-year wonder ballhawk too good to let hit the open market but too volatile to secure a long-term deal with such an incomplete body of work.

Back in Minnesota with money in his pocket and a whole lot to prove, Harris suffered through a perceived bleh season as a member of the sixth-worst defense in the NFL – more on that later- and saw his free agency stock drop significantly in a market severely limited by a lack of revenue and underwhelming cap growth.

But hey, it just takes one team to bet on Harris regaining his 2019 form, and for the low-low price of $5 million, Howie Roseman was willing to take that gamble.

Anthony Harris and Rodney McLeod can form a two-man defensive cavalry.

After spending the better part of a decade running a single-high safety look under Jim Schwartz and Billy Davis, new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon will likely import the split zone safety look he came up learning over the past three seasons with the Indianapolis Colts and in the years prior to that with the Minnesota Vikings – where he initially coached defensive backs including Harris from 2014-17.

While the Eagles technically could have run this look with Jalen Mills and/or K’Von Wallace lined up next to Rodney McLeod, both players are far more compostable operating near the line of scrimmage in the sort of hybrid slot cornerback/box safety role manned for years by Malcolm Jenkins than kicked 5-10 feet further back off the line of scrimmage.

Enter Harris, who thrived in that very system when paired up with Smith in Minnesota.

Whether tasked with manning the middle of the field in a single-high look, split two high with Harris on either the left or right side of the field, or even dropped into man coverage versus slot receivers, running backs, or tight ends, Harris remained one of the more consistent members of the Vikings’ secondary last season, even if he failed to put up flashy video game stats like the season prior.

Per PFF, since 2018, Harris has maintained the second-best coverage grade among all safeties in the NFL (93.0), which is a real testament to his abilities considering he only allowed four touchdowns in 2020 versus only one in the two years prior.

But wait, it gets better. Since 2018, Harris has only allowed 523 receiving yards combined on 76 targets over 45 total games, including an incredible nine yards allowed versus 178 man coverage snaps in 2020. While it would be foolish to line Harris up in the box and expect him to drive head-first between the tackles as a big-box run stuffer, he can pretty much fill any other role a team could ask out of a safety, and do so at a darn-near elite-level.

Remember when mocking Malik Hooker to the Eagles was all the rage? Harris has consistently outperformed Hooker since 2017 and is unquestionably a better partner for McLeod both in 2021 and moving forward.

Assuming Gannon tabs Harris as his free safety and opts to use McLeod in more of a “Harrison Smith”-style role a la the Vikings secondary he once helped coach in the mid-2010s, there’s little reason to believe the 29-year-old couldn’t recapture some of the magic he put on film in 2019, especially if the Eagles are able to secure a viable cornerback number two across from Darius Slay. There, his innate ability to read opposing plays as they develop and put himself in the best position to succeed would surely shine through, especially if the Eagles can generate more pressure from their front seven than the Vikings could in 2020, which left their incredible young collection of cornerbacks tasked with extended coverage assignments.

Fun fact: Harris and McLeod both went to college at the University of Virginia, and were actually teammates in 2011, making them the only all-Cavaliers safety tandem in the NFL right now. You know, the “defensive cavalry” is actually a pretty rad nickname; maybe that’ll catch on.

When the Philadelphia Eagles missed out on signing John Johnson III on the first day of free agency, it left many fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Some called free agency a wash, while others openly opined over whether the City of Brotherly Love was simply an unattractive free agency destination, which honestly might be true at the moment. But Howie Roseman, ever the predictable creature, couldn’t let the first wave of league-wide signing pass without dipping his toes into the proverbial pond, and in doing so, was able to land arguably the best free agent free safety on the market for less than the Cincinnati Bengals paid for second-tier cornerback Mike Hilton. While the Birds surely won’t be able to keep Anthony Harris long-term at a $5 million AAV if he rebounds to his 2019 form paired back up with Jonathan Gannon, that sure as heck would be a fun problem to have in spring of 2022.