Hey Gents, Our defense is playing phenomenal football. We are great against the run, great on situational downs, and are very opportunistic. The scary thing is, we are missing arguably our best defensive player. Any update on David Harris??? I'm assuming he will be out this week, but am hoping we have him back for the 49ers game. Let's get it done this weekend!!
There is NO WAY Harris is our best defensive player. He's a very good young linebacker who is a tackling machine but he's very average in pass coverage. Jenkins and Revis are clearly our two best defensive players.
Kris Jenkins, Darrelle Revis, Kerry Rhodes and Sean Ellis are all better than Harris. Arguably Calvin Pace as well. This is not a knock on Harris; it is a compliment to these other players.
Kerry Rhodes is still in that agrument as our best defensive player. I know he doesn't have the flashy numbers this year, but how many big plays has he given up? Not many at all. He closes so fast on receivers when the ball is in the air and is a sure tackler. Jenkins and Revis are our best defenders, but Rhodes is close behind.
People don't even throw to his side anymore. Thats why I'd like to see Rhodes roll to the non-revis side.
JCotch you are wrong in my opinion. Not a single one of the players you mentioned that was on the team last year was better than Harris last year. I use last year as a guide simply because imo Harris has been hurt since training camp, there was no way he is/was completely healthy this season, I am of the opinion that he played as long as possible in putting this surgery off. That being said: The play of Pace, Ellis, Thomas etc as far as sack production is down about 1/2 a sack a game since Harris is officially out. Pace has to be in coverage a shit load more. Fact of the matter is Harris makes everyone better, somewhat similar to Jenkins and that is taking into account he was not at full strength. He is to the middle of this defense what Jenkins is to the interior line. Of course this is all my opinion and we shall see when he gets back healthy. Edit: I just want to say the leader and main cog of this D is Jenkins. However, at full strength Harris is equal to Revis and Rhodes. They are all extremely important.
Harris got a lot of tackles last season because our run D was terrible. Not to take anything away from him, he's a good young player, but his numbers were definitely inflated because nobody ever had to throw on us. Now that we stuff the run the pass defense looks like the weak link.
The good thing with Harris in there is that Bowens comes in fresh to sack the QB and do all that, but without harris, bowens is now starting and can't do that as well.
The only thing David Harris does is stop the run. We seem to be doing a good job of that without him.
Wow could you be more wrong? He had 5 sacks in his first 8 starts. He also frees up Pace to go after the QB. Edit: He also made more big plays and tackles behind the LOS last year then say Vilma did in 3. Further edit: He had 4 sacks in 8 starts the other sack was the week prior to his first start. He had 5 in 9 games.
Harris is fantastic at stopping the run, a good blitzer, and is also our best cover LB. He's not great in coverage but still better than anyone we are starting now. He's most certainly better than Bowens/Spencer. He was also the teams leading tackler this year before he got injured.
We've been playing pretty good without him so unless he's 100% let him sit and start when he's ready.
