The Free Agency period is set to begin on March 10th with a open negotiation period to begin 3 days earlier on March 7th. There are only a couple more days left of speculation and anticipation and now even more with players being available due to teams releasing them to free up some cap room, it will be an interesting first couple of days of free agency.
One name that has not been as high profile as some of the others is linebacker David Harris, New York Jets. He was drafted by the Jets in 2007 and has been with them since. With 8 seasons in the league, David Harris is now looking to change his colors from Green and White to anything else. He is set to hit the free agent market on March 10th.
With Rex Ryan coming over to the Buffalo Bills, there could be a reuniting between the linebacker and coach here in Buffalo. Although, a linebacker is not high on the Buffalo Bills list of things to secure this offseason, a depth linebacker might not be a bad option to take a look at. A.J. Hawk was released yesterday and will most likely be one of the higher costing free agents this year, so if the Buffalo Bills are not able to re-sign Jerry Hughes, and A.J. Hawk is out of reach, David Harris may be the one to look at to add a little more depth to the Buffalo Bills front 7.
As far as grades from last season, David Harris played in 1038 snaps. The most out of any other defensive player for the New York Jets. He defended 411 run plays and 627 passing plays. Out of those 627 passing plays defended, he rushed on 120 of them and was in coverage for 507 of them.
Overall, David Harris finished with a grade of -1.2. For his run defense he finished with a -3.1 grade. As far as defending against the pass he was graded as a -0.5 on a pass rush and a +1.8 on pass coverage.
Out of 60 linebackers, last season, David Harris ranked 29th overall. Not too bad, made it just in the top half of the group for inside line backers. As a comparison, Brandon Spikes finished 13th overall with a overall grade of +7.3.
With the Buffalo Bills most likely not resigning Brandon Spikes and the unsure future of Jerry Hughes, if both slip through the cracks, David Harris may be an option for the Buffalo Bills to bring in to add depth to the linebacking corps of Kiko Alonso, Nigel Bradham, and Preston Brown.
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