Funny how this story (and this thread!) has evolved over the past few days...
Here are my final thoughts on the JH saga, starting with the actual *football* stuff:
- I personally think JH still has some pop left in his pass rush.
- As many have noted here, his (lack of) height can help against taller OTs. People here are talking about Villanueva but he's really been kryptonite to Eric Fisher, so this may be relevant as early as the Divisional round.
- I also think JH can still set the edge. Lost a couple steps but still strong & smart.
- Even in his best years, JH was never anything more than a marginal defender in pass coverage. You might get away in dropping him into a zone - he'll at least be in the right place. Just don't let him get iso'd on a Kareem Hunt (or C. West for that matter), as that would be a big problem. He can't run with anyone down the field.
- Adrian Peterson this year is sort of the offensive equivalent to JH- when he's in everyone in the building pretty much knows what he's going to be doing. But there's still value there under specific conditions.
Bottom line - I would look at this in the same way you'd look at signing a Dwight Freeny or Chris Long late in their careers - they can still have a positive impact on the football field, but you have to be careful how (and how long) to deploy them.
Now to the soap opera stuff.
- If you haven't been paying attention the past 24 hours, essentially the entire Steelers locker room has come out to defend the FO decision to release JH. In the process, they've told a bunch of crazy stories that paint JH as a passive-aggressive malcontent who left stadiums or stayed in the locker room whenever inactive and snored his way through meetings, culminating in an effort to basically orchestrate his own release. Even the media is piling on. If you believe even half of it, it basically unravels the notion that Harrison served as any kind of mentor or leader.
- All of which begs the question - why keep him around this long to begin with?! (Pitt had no problem cutting Blount pretty much immediately, after he walked off the field early in a tantrum over not getting carries...) And this begs another question - if you put up with all of this for 16 *weeks*, what level of action was required on JH's part to be the proverbial 'straw that broke the camel's back?
My take - I think there was a legitimate idea in the preseason that JH would be kept as a 'closer', and as insurance against Pitt's young OLBs crapping the bed. But the opposite occurred, and behind the scenes JH was stewing...and eventually boiling over. Pitt's front office and coaching staff put up with it out of some sort of (IMO) misguided deference to what he's meant to the team over the years...for far too long, if even half the stories coming out now are to be believed.
But here's the potential upside for the Pats: If Harrison was basically a malcontent from early on in the season, maybe his lack of PT wasn't solely due to performance.
Maybe it's more complicated than a simple diminishment of skills + his inability to play ST...maybe his nearly total lack of PT is partly due to the team not wanting to reward bad behavior.
In which case, maybe there's more gas in the tank for JH than it might seem....And if that's the case, good on the Pats for exploiting a bad situation (and a poor *handling* of a situation) in Pittsburgh.
