Damon Harrison brings questions to NFL’s free agent market

Defensive lineman Damon Harrison brings injury questions and a tough reputation to the NFL’s free agent market.

As we continue our series looking at various players who have been made free agents by recent releases, we come to an interesting prospect in defensive lineman Damon Harrison.

Harrison, often called by his nickname of “Snacks,” is one of the league’s best run defenders and has been a notable lineman for nearly a decade in the NFL, yet he remains on the outside looking in when it comes to gaining any Pro Bowl acclaim. He was named a first-team All-Pro in 2016 as a member of the New York Giants, but other honors have eluded him.

Now as he nears the end of his career, Harrison has been set free by the Detroit Lions after playing through injuries last year. There are some interesting questions on the table for both Harrison and any team interested in him. How much is left in Snacks’ tank? What’s most important to him as a player: winning or money?

Harrison played for Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo for two years in 2016 (the All-Pro year) and 2017, so the familiarity is there. Would the Chiefs be interested? Are they already set with Derrick Nnadi and others?

We won’t sort through those questions for now. Instead, we wanted to focus on Harrison’s side, so we turned to Jeremy Reisman of Pride of Detroit to tell us more about his release and what the market might resemble for such a vet.

Can you give us some insight into Harrison’s performance for the Lions last season and how he compared to expectations?

Harrison’s performance in 2019 can only be described as extremely disappointing. After the Lions traded for Harrison in the middle of the 2018 season, he completely transformed their run defense from one of the worst in the league to one of the best. Expectation was that he’d continue that trajectory, and with an even better supporting cast in 2019, there was no reason to see a dropoff.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we got. Harrison battled through injury after injury in 2019, and just didn’t seem like himself week after week. As a result, the Lions’ run defense took a big step back in 2019, and Harrison played a big part in that, by his own admission.

Harrison has a great reputation in the league as a run defender, but often those can outlive the actual production. What sort of production would you expect from him going forward?

Outside of last year, Harrison’s reputation as an elite run defender is well earned. He is a guy who is incredibly hard to move from a spot and can take on multiple linemen. The drastic turnaround of the Lions run defense was no joke and Harrison was really the only reason for it. But you have to question how much is left in him. At the end of the season, he himself wasn’t sure if his body was still up for the challenge, and even though it appears he’s since changed his mind, expectations should proceed with caution. Father time is undefeated and Harrison is 31.

Do you think winning is important for him or is it more about top dollar on the market?

That’s always a tough question to answer. Obviously money is somewhat important to him, seeing as he got the Lions to give him a one-year extension prior to the 2019 season, but Harrison is also an extremely competitive guy. I know for a fact he feels he’s underappreciated as a player—seeing as he’s never made a Pro Bowl—and some exposure on a successful team would help that. He also called his release from Detroit “mutual,” suggesting that he may have wanted to go play for a contender (since the Lions already paid him handsomely).

Do you have any guesses on a projected market deal for him this spring?

A pure run-stuffer isn’t valued nearly as high as top-tier defensive tackle pass rushers like Aaron Donald, but they can still pull in somewhere around the $11-13 million per year range. Given his age and his struggle last year, I don’t think he reaches the top end of that range, but I do think he could hit the lower end. Obviously with the retirement talk, no team will be willing to give him more than two years and even that may be stretching it.