The pluses and minuses of keeping Anthony Harris on the franchise tag
Teams appear hesitant to sign players to long-term deals with uncertainty in the future
Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings have until Wednesday to sign franchise-tagged safety Anthony Harris to a long-term contract extension. Otherwise he will play on the tag, which will cost the Vikings $11.4 million on the cap in 2020.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, teams aren’t exactly jumping to sign tagged players to extensions this year.
If the Harris isn’t one of the “one or two” deals signed before Wednesday’s deadline, will the Vikings be making the right call by keeping him on only a one-year contract? Let’s have a look…
The case for signing Harris to a long-term deal
Over the last two seasons, Harris has emerged as one of the best safeties in the NFL, leading the league in interceptions in 2019 and ranking among PFF’s top graded at the position in both ‘18 and ‘19. When opposing teams throw in his direction during Harris’s career (including playoffs), they have just a 58.3 quarterback rating.
His growth has given the Vikings the best safety combo in the NFL — which turned out to be especially beneficial last season when the cornerbacks struggled. Harris and Harrison Smith’s chemistry helped keep the Vikings in the top 10 in QB rating against as a team despite cornerback Xavier Rhodes allowing more than 80% of passes in his direction to be completed.
Going forward if the Vikings see even solid growth from young corners like Jeff Gladney, Cam Dantzler, Mike Hughes and Holton Hill, they’ll be locked into an elite secondary so long as Smith doesn’t see a steep decline and Harris continues to ballhawk at a high level.
There is a sentiment that anyone can play alongside Smith and it’s true that Andrew Sendejo and Harris were both undrafted free agency but the difference between the two is pretty significant. Harris has PFF grades of 87.1 and 92.7 (out of 100) in the last two years and 10 total interceptions. Sendejo has 10 for his career, which began in 2012. He had one season graded over 80 in coverage.
In the short term, the Vikings could lower Harris’s cap hit for 2020 and open up space to either sign Dalvin Cook to a new deal and/or add a veteran free agent. In the long term, they shouldn’t expect to pay big money to cornerbacks for several years (aside from Hughes’s fifth-year option in 2022 but that’s yet to be determined).
Even with cap uncertainty the Vikings have always found ways to give out deals that lock in players for reasonable deals that have flexibility after two or three years. During that time span, the Vikings’ defense could quickly be revamped into a top unit in the NFL, especially if they don’t have to replace one of their top players.
Additionally, Smith was still elite last season but if his play dips and the Vikings decide to move on after 2020 (as his contract allows with zero dead cap space), they would still have one high-quality safety in his prime.
OverTheCap’s Jason Fitzgerald makes the point that signing him now will probably be cheaper than waiting until next offseason when he’s set to hit free agency.
“If the Vikings do plan on a long term with Harris then not extending him now makes little sense,” Fitzgerald wrote. “They made the same mistake with Anthony Barr a few years ago, ultimately having it cost more in the long run.”
If we all agree the best route toward being an elite defense is to shut down the opposition’s passing game, losing Harris after 2020 would mean having to fill big shoes.
The case for keeping Harris on the franchise tag
The cap uncertainty probably isn’t as serious as Schefter’s tweet made it seem — there will likely be ways for the NFL and NFLPA to work around taking a revenue hit this year due to COVID — but there is enough worry about a stagnant cap that it would give the Vikings reasonable pause on Harris.
While he’s been absolutely terrific, his success comes in a small sample size of less than 1,000 career cover snaps since becoming a starter and only a total of 33 targets over the last two seasons per PFF. Is that enough to decide on paying him $13 million as Justin Simmons of Denver was earlier this offseason?
Plus with Smith’s deal leaving him with a $10 million cap hit with no dead money if he’s cut before 2021, the All-Pro safety could want an extension to provide some guarantees for the future. If Smith is elite again this year and shows no signs of slowing down, it would be very hard to justify moving on from him. But if Smith gets a new deal and the Vikings sign Harris long term, that would leave them paying somewhere in the range of $25 million to their two safeties in 2021.
That might not be the most savvy use of their cap dollars when Kirk Cousins’s cap hit goes up to $31 million in 2021 and Danielle Hunter’s cap hit jumps from $9 million to over $17 million. The team will know much better next March where the cap is going to be.
Playing Harris on the franchise tag kicks the can down the road for the Vikings to find out what they have in their two late-round safeties Josh Metellus and Brian Cole. It also gives them an opportunity to assess what next year’s market will look like. This year there were a handful of quality players at the position, including Tre Boston, who signed for a three-year deal with the highest cap hit of just $7.6 million.
By no means is it easy to plug and play any old safety and have them lead the league in picks but playing Harris on the tag allows the Vikings more time to make a decision.
The bottom line
If Harris was the Vikings’ only star safety, this deal would probably be done by now. The presence of Smith combined with unclear nature of the league along with the question of whether Harris can continue to play at this level and the overall positional value make it tough for the Vikings to lock themselves into him. If they end up having to pay more next offseason, that probably means things went really well in 2020, which they’ll take.
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I would ride with the franchise tag this year. You can still reward him later and see if any of the young safeties develop into a viable option. However, I don't believe that you can devote $25 million to the safety position, which means that Harris or Smith gets cut loose. The only way they can both stay is to rework some contracts (I.e. Barr and Cousins).
I think they franchise tagged Harris mistakenly thinking they could trade him. That backfired, so now they are stuck with him on the tag. I don't see how it makes any sense to have 2 safeties eating up $25M of salary cap, particularly when you look at what the safety beside Smith is asked to do in our defense. I think Harris is good, but not as great as PFF seems to think. His run support is spotty, and he was primarily responsible for the horrible long TD run by the Chiefs that turned that cost us that game (well, Cousins' scared to death play was the main culprit).
I also don't see Harris and Smith as interchangeable. Smith could play Harris' role, the same is not true in reverse. I think Smith still has 2-4 more years, so I would let Harris play out the franchise tag and then let him walk in 2021. Smith could then be extended affordably because of his age, and we plug in another youngster that we drafted this year to take Harris' place while pocketing a 3rd round pick as compensation.
Given the tight salary cap because of Cousins' and Barr's contracts, it would be ridiculous to pay Harris and Smith top $ after this year.