It’s easy to see that N’Keal Harry isn’t performing with the top receivers in his draft class.
A.J. Brown, D.K. Metcalf, Diontae Johnson, Darius Slay and Terry McLaurin are just some of the names on that list. Harry was the only receiver to be drafted in the first round under Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. Obviously the Patriots are doing what they can to make the draft pick worth it.
So far this season, he’s struggled to string together a solid performance to justify his draft spot. Harry’s best performance from a pass-catching perspective was in Week 2 when he had eight catches for 72 yards. Is it a lack of practice, or is Harry just not the receiver the Patriots thought he was?
Former Patriots tight end Christian Fauria had a brutally honest reasoning for it Tuesday on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni & Fauria.”
“N’Keal Harry may be the worst route-runner in the history of the world,” Fauria said. “He is terrible. Even when he’s open, he’s covered. Not only does he have terrible feet, and he worked on it, he’s not any better at it. He’s always late off the ball. His feet are always jacked up. It’s like he cruises into the route because he’s not exactly sure where he’s going to go. And then if you’ve heard of anything that I like to call ‘coverage awareness,’ he has no clue on how to find the voids in coverages. He runs into coverage.”
“… I would say he’s covered on almost every play that he runs. The cornerbacks don’t respect him.”
The season isn’t over and Harry could blossom into the player he was expected to be. As of now, Fauria’s assessment of Harry appears to be spot-on.
