Denver Broncos: Chris Harris Jr. is a shutdown cornerback

Denver Broncos: Chris Harris Jr. has gone from undrafted to NFL superstar, but why isn’t he recognized as such? He’s a shut-down cornerback…

The debate of who the best cornerback in the NFL is seems to creep up on us every offseason, and Denver Broncos fans everywhere feel like they are taking crazy pills when people seem to always leave Chris Harris Jr. out of the conversation…

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What is wrong with people? Do they not watch football? Do they use the stat books or Pro Football Focus as a way of justifying the blatant lack of understanding that is happening?

Playing the end of last season with a pretty severe shoulder injury, Harris and the rest of the Broncos’ secondary played their best game of the season in the Super Bowl against the Carolina Panthers. They played so well, in fact, that most people forgot Harris was even injured in that game.

Of course, the reason why Broncos fans believe Harris is the best cornerback in the NFL is because they are all ‘homers’ and not because he’s actually backed it up on the field. Over the course of the last five seasons, there is no cornerback that has been consistently more dominant than Harris. And not only has he done it consistently over five seasons, but he’s gotten better and has done it from a number of positions.

Harris is an elite player as an outside cornerback, but how many people have forgotten that he got his start shutting players down from the nickel CB spot?

When the Broncos are in a pinch, Harris also plays safety. The guy simply does it all, but people still don’t want to give him credit. Like this piece from NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks, which gives a very detailed context of why Brooks believes the top five cornerbacks in the NFL are who they are.

Harris is not on the list.

“To me, a premier cover corner carrying the “shutdown” tag must be able to eliminate half of the field. He must take on the challenge of shadowing the opponent’s WR1 all over the field. Speaking to an AFC defensive coordinator, he told me that a shutdown corner should be able to win utilizing press, bail and “off” tactics because it allows the defensive play caller to mix in man and zone concepts to keep quarterbacks from coming to the line and sniffing out coverage based on the alignment of the CB1. Thus, footwork, fundamentals and football IQ must be considered when determining whether a cover corner is worthy of “shutdown” status.”

While I agree with some of what he’s saying there, a shutdown cornerback is simply this — a cornerback who shuts down whoever he faces. Brooks has Richard Sherman as the top cornerback on his list, but we all know that Sherman didn’t start doing this until this past season. Of course, Sherman deserves to be in the top five of any best cornerbacks list, but what good reason would he have for leaving Harris off of it?

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Some will point to the Steelers game from this past year, and I’ll give you that. I’ll take every single one of Harris’ other 62 career regular season starts against it and see which one holds up longer. In terms of ‘shutting down’ from multiple positions in the defense, no one in the NFL does it better than Harris. He’s elite on the perimeter, he’s elite inside at the nickel. There’s simply no other cornerback in the NFL who does that, save for Tyrann Mathieu whose role is still significantly different.

Coming off of an ACL injury at the end of the 2013 season, Harris bounced back to have the most dominant season of his career in 2014. He followed that up with another Pro Bowl campaign in 2015.

I just don’t get it. Maybe us Broncos fans should just stop whining about it, but it doesn’t make sense to me. A guy with the kind of production and consistency of Harris over the last five years should get more respect than he’s even gotten. He deserves to be a unanimous top five cornerback in the league right now, and I would contend he’s currently the best.

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