At the safety position.. I had no idea that he put up those type of numbers. Was this a mistake by the Bears?

At the safety position.. I had no idea that he put up those type of numbers. Was this a mistake by the Bears?

 

Biggest mistake JA and Lovie made this year was trusting Archuleta enough to trade Chris Harris...Damn but would he ever look good in a Bears Uni right now.

Hindsight is 20/20. At the time the Bears had a healthy Mike Brown and Kevin Payne. Payne looked very good in the preseason. Further, we all felt the combo of Arch and Brown would be very strong.

 

At least we got a fifth round pick for him and didn't cut him out right.

 

Peace

You always hate to see this.

 

Guys that were junk on your team tearing it up elsewhere

 

Gage, Wade, Harris.

 

 

I hope the next one isn't Rex, because it really makes your team look foolish.

Agreed. While everyone wants to say it was Arch that sent Harris packing, it was really more Payne and McGowan. At the time, per all the reports, the staff felt Payne was looking great, and had actually passed Harris on the depth chart.

 

As I recall, we were going to have to keep either Harris or McGowan (Payne had passed both). McGowan was considered a much better special teams player, and had shown a lot of positives on defense. Harris, as I recall, was not considered a great special teams player. Also, Harris had more trade value, and thus was easier to move.

You always hate to see this.

 

Guys that were junk on your team tearing it up elsewhere

 

Gage, Wade, Harris.

I hope the next one isn't Rex, because it really makes your team look foolish.

 

I'll give you Wade and Gage as junk...but Harris did quite a decent job. He wasn't great, but not as bad as the 2 WR's. Which could also be due to the Bears' overall historic ineptness at offense.

It looks terrible now but at the time it didnt seem like a bad move due to what appeared to be depth at the safety position. As far as Gage and Wade go, neither one of them has done anything good enough to make me think it was a mistake getting rid of them. They are both on teams that some could argue have worse receiving corps then us. Put either of them on a team with any decent talent around at the position and they wouldnt see the field.

Just for reference, he has recorded 90 tackles and has 8 forced fumbles

At the safety position.. I had no idea that he put up those type of numbers. Was this a mistake by the Bears?

I think everyone on down would admit the move was a mistake. Harris was a stellar selection by Angelo. The guy was like a 6th round pick who ended up starting his rookie season and doing a pretty admirable job. He had a down season last year and a lot of people made him one of the scapegoats (forgetting how young he was) and he ended up going somewhere else and playing fantastically.

 

Its too bad because right now I'd love to have one safety of Harris caliber in our secondary. Still, when the move was made you were talking about him being the 3rd or 4th best safety on the squad and the Bears figured they could get an extra pick (to recoup for the Walker move).

Harris looked good as a rookie but made a few mistakes in his 2nd year that, if my memory serves me correct, led many on Bearstalk to applaud his departure. Now we lament on how JA made a mistake. In our system would Harris have performed as well as he has in 2007? I think we all felt we were deep at the safety position. We did not want to let him go without compensation. We got a 5th round selection for him.

 

Was it a mistake? Yes, possibly, but if we had the advantage of viewing the future before making moves it would sure make it a lot easier, LOL.

I have no problem with the trade because I felt at the time, and still do, that Payne is a better player than Harris. McGowan had shown some decent instincts inside the box as well and played better on special teams than Harris. We need that out of our 5th safety. Sometimes the dice don't roll your way even though the odds are in your favor. Now making the assumption that Arch would be better, I'm guilty of that as well.

I certainly drank the Arch Kool-Aid before the season. I thought that if he was brought back to the Cover 2 with Lovie, that he would excel. Boy was I wrong.

 

The Harris deal was probably a little premature, but with Payne, it was hard not to go with the younger guy.