I don't understand the negativity I've seen on this board towards Harris. The 2 main gripes that I've seen people have with the Harris selection are :
1. He didn't test super well at the combine
And
2. He will (barring injury) be limited to a pass rush specialist role this year, while a Lamp or Rueben Foster at 22 would have supposedly made a bigger impact year 1.
Allow me to address both of these issues.
1. NFL personnel people have a long and illustrious history of buffoonery in passing up great football players because according to some arbitrary metric or algorithm, said players didn't run in a straight line fast enough, didn't jump high enough, or didn't lift a relatively heavy metal rod off of their chests enough times. This has always allowed some lucky team to take advantage of a poor combine showing to steal an outstanding football player far lower in the draft than he should have gone.
Examples of this run from Anquan Boldin to Zach Thomas to Jerry Rice to Vontaze Burfict and the list goes on and on. If you put on the tape, Harris (much like Jerry Rice) plays a hell of a lot faster than he times, and is a passionate, firey beast on the field that loves the game and wants to be one of the greats. I frankly do not give a **** how fast a defensive end can run 40 yards in a straight line in his underwear. It has virtually no bearing on the position and it tells me absolutely nothing about Harris' repertoire of pass rush moves, his work ethic, his love for the game, his functional strength and intensity at his position, or his overall talent level. Harris just needs to improve his technique against the run and he'll be an elite DE in football for at least a decade.
2. So what? You don't draft a kid for what he will do as a rookie, you draft him for his long term outlook for his entire career. Any gm that spends a first rounder on a player over another better player at a position of higher value because mjjiumjjmjjhimimjcmjmicfljhe would (probably) plahzi7jnmighernjmcmmmiijmmhmuihumuy more as a rookie should be instantly ****in fired. Foster was a better prospect than Harris but he had huge red flags, and Harris plays a position of greater value... He obviously plays a position of much greater value than Lamp too. Basically if all of these guys pan out, you take the great end over the great mlb or G.