Denver Broncos: The only way not trading Chris Harris is a good move

There’s only one way the Denver Broncos’ decision not to trade cornerback Chris Harris Jr. is a good move.

The 2019 NFL trade deadline has passed, and the Denver Broncos are keeping star cornerback Chris Harris Jr.

Although the Broncos were not actively seeking a trade for Harris, they were willing to listen for the best offer. The asking price from the Broncos’ end was a second-round pick.

Denver stuck to that price throughout the entire process, and rightly so. The Broncos reportedly got an offer from the Detroit Lions for Harris, but not to their liking.

If the Broncos didn’t get any good offers for Harris, it makes sense that the team wouldn’t just sell him to the highest bidder. They were not actively looking to trade him, and while adding an additional second-round pick to the already impressive 2020 lineup of picks would have been nice, adding a mid-late third-round pick for Harris would have been bittersweet, at best.

Harris is still playing at an elite level, and although he’s 30, it’s not like we’re talking about Adam Vinatieri here. He’s still got a lot of good football left.

Harris has maintained his stance that he would prefer to stay in Denver, but he understood the whole process of the trade deadline and even said after the Colts game that he had a hard time focusing during the week with all of the rumors swirling.

Just the way Harris is talking there makes it sound like things were a lot more serious on the trade front than they ended up being, and the fact that he and Von Miller had an emotional embrace after the game made it feel like Harris was definitely on the way out.

The best option for the Broncos may have been to get great value for Harris, but it now sounds like no one really offered them great value for him.

The only way not trading Harris makes any sort of sense is if the Broncos can bring him back into the fold in 2020 and beyond, and that means opening up the checkbook and paying the man.

Harris is an elite shutdown corner. Those don’t grow on trees. He’s going to have a full year in Vic Fangio’s defense and he’s said he likes playing for Fangio and Ed Donatell.

If the Broncos aren’t going to trade Harris, they have to find a way to re-sign him. They can’t trade him in the offseason. The best they could hope for in terms of a return for Harris at this point is a third-round compensatory pick in 2021, and that’s never a guarantee based on Harris’ new contract, the players the Broncos would sign, and it assumes Harris has no injuries at his next stop.

There’s a lot that goes into the compensatory formula, and for the Broncos, it’s been unreliable at best.

Because the Broncos can no longer get anything valuable in return for Harris, their best and really only option is to pay up and re-sign him. They will have the money for it, and it makes more sense now than ever.

Will Harris want to play on a rebuilding Broncos team? I think he would be open to it if the price is right. We’ll see what the Broncos have up their sleeves, but they did free up a bunch of money with moving Joe Flacco’s salary around.

Could Chris Harris Jr. be a reason why?

That’s the only way to salvage this situation now.