Philadelphia Eagles: Anthony Harris has been sort of bad so far

The Philadelphia Eagles wanted to straddle a very specific line heading into the 2021 NFL season.

With very little money to spend on free agents, an aging roster without many developmental starters, and a slew of premium picks to hopefully make up for their record-setting dead money, Howie Roseman wanted to still field a good enough team to remain competitive in a notoriously weak NFC East and provide a good enough baseline to evaluate players like Jalen Hurts while simultaneously giving enough minutes to younger players like Jalen Reagor, DeVonta Smith, and Quez Watkins to sink or swim without a stop-gap starter blocking their path to the field.

In theory, could such a strategy have its merits? Sure. I don’t think you’ll find many fans who would rather see Avonte Maddox and/or Zech McPhearson on the outside over Steven Nelson, even if he’s struggled over the past few games, but there’s a difference between plugging in a veteran at a position of need where a team simply lacks viable depth and explicitly signing a veteran stop-gap when there’s enough veteran depth to keep things interesting in a camp battle.

Mind you, that all goes out the window if you somehow secure a long-term starter in the free agency bargain bin, as the Eagles did in 2017 with Patrick Robinson, but when it doesn’t work out, it’s the easiest way to waste valuable snaps on a bad player with no spot in a team’s future.

That, unfortunately, looks like how things are going with prized free agency addition Anthony Harris, as he’s been a rather underwhelming addition for the Philadelphia Eagles through the first month of the 2021 NFL season.

Let’s hope the return of McLeod helps Harris and the Philadelphia Eagles.

In Minnesota, Anthony Harris was a prototypical free safety.

Sure, the Vikings technically spent a good bit of time in two high safety sets – far more than the Philadelphia Eagles did under Jim Schwartz, that’s for sure – but of the two, Harrison Smith was the safety that did a little bit of everything for Minnesota on the field, whether that be dropping into coverage, playing the run in the box, or deploying as a man defender out of the slot.

Mind you, that isn’t a knock on Harris. He played that deep safety role very well for the better part of a half-decade and was paid very handsomely for his final season on a franchise tag, but when he was unable to match his 2019 prime on a far more lucrative cap number, the writing was on the wall that he might not be back for a seventh season in the home of Super Bowl 52.

Factor in the addition of ex-Cowboys free safety/not a member of the New Day Xavier Woods on a one-year, $1.75 million deal, and Harris’ NFL career in Minnesota was effectively over.

In hindsight, maybe the Eagles should have targeted Woods instead of Harris, as he’s almost four years younger, cost almost $4 million less, and has actually played better through the first month of the season.

Tasked with playing a more expansive defensive role with Rodney McLeod still unable to go through the first three games of the season, Harris has deployed all over the Eagles’ defense from single high to in the box and has routinely found himself out of position in a scheme he should theoretically have a leg up on learning versus some of his teammates. While Harris has held up better than expected versus the run, a role few expected him to fill when he was initially signed, the same can’t be said for his time in coverage.

Through the first four games of the season, Harris has been targeted 11 times in coverage. He’s allowed five catches for 76 yards and a touchdown while surrendering the second-highest passer rating to opposing quarterbacks of his career.

All in all, not great.

To make matters worse, Harris has routinely found himself making the wrong reads in zone coverage down the field and has inadvertently led to many a massive gain down the field at the hands of quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Dak Prescott.

Now granted, have the team’s younger reserves, K’Von Wallace, Marcus Epps, and Andre Chachere, performed that much better in limited action? Eh. Of the three, Epps has surprisingly been the most consistent, but for the most part, the Eagles’ safeties have largely underperformed versus their cornerback brethren, which felt like a near impossibility a few months back.

So, if Harris ranks 72nd among 82 qualifying safeties according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), why is he playing over Wallace – when healthy- Epps, and Chachere, all of whom rank the same or higher?

If the losses continue to pile up, that may no longer be the case.

No, because Anthony Harris signed with the Philadelphia Eagles on March 24th, Howie Roseman could release him at any point over the next month, and his signing would no longer count against the compensatory pick formula. If Harris no longer appears to have a spot in the team’s future, don’t be too surprised if he’s also no longer a member of the Eagles by midseason either.