Will Harris will be back for another season in the Detroit Lions secondary. But the fourth-year vet might not be playing where he has for most of his first three seasons in Detroit anymore.
Harris has been a safety for the bulk of his NFL career, for better and for worse. He’s graded out at Pro Football Focus as one of the worst regular safeties in the league each year and Harris is coming off his worst grades in 2021, his first season as a full-time starter.
The 26-year-old did show some spark when pressed into emergency duty at cornerback late in the year. His length, speed and explosiveness worked better in the more defined play role at corner. In fact, it might be Harris’ new home, according to Lions head coach Dan Campbell.
The second-year head coach offered up the potential position change for Harris in his meeting with the press on Thursday.
“We’re still talking right now, you just go out Day 1, do you put him at corner?”, Campbell said of Harris this week. “Do you put him at safety? And I’ll be honest with you, we haven’t just locked that down right now. We’re still kind of talking about it. And that’s not a bad thing. That’s not a bad thing.”
Campbell even made a joking new position reference for Harris,
“He’s a ‘cafety’. Yeah, he’s a hybrid. He really is. He’s a jack of all trades.”
Moving Harris to CB would make the biggest hole on the defense–safety–an even bigger one. Tracy Walker is back as one starter, but Harris currently projects as another one. Last year’s running mate, Dean Marlowe, is no longer on the team. The Lions do have late-season acquisition Brady Breeze and special teams specialist C.J. Moore back, but that’s the extent of the depth.
Yet the move just might salvage Harris’ underwhelming career. In evaluating him as a prospect coming out of Boston College back in the 2018 NFL draft cycle, I was among those who suggested Harris might be better-suited to play cornerback than safety at the next level. It’s worth a try for Harris and for the Lions, even if it creates an even bigger hole at safety.
