Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports
Elway Addresses Whether Broncos Will Try to Re-Sign Chris Harris, Jr.
In many ways, Sunday felt like the end of an era in the Mile High City. Many of the remaining contributors from the Denver Broncos' Super Bowl 50 championship are hitting unrestricted free agency.
One of those players is four-time Pro Bowl cornerback Chris Harris, Jr. The Broncos' top cornerback is headed for the open waters of free agency but it didn't happen without the front office trying to get a deal done in-season to keep him around.
According to Denver 7's Troy Renck who appeared Monday morning on the Schlereth and Evans show on Denver radio's 104.3 the FAN, the Broncos offered Harris a three-year, $36 million extension ahead of the NFL trade deadline earlier this season. He turned it down, although it would have paid him an APY of $12M.
Harris held out during the offseason training program last spring, wanting a raise so that he could make more than Kareem Jackson in 2019. The Broncos showed good faith by caving and giving Harris a more-than $3M raise to his 2019 salary, without adding any additional years to the term of his deal — an almost unheard of thing around the NFL.
Harris would go onto earn $12.05M in 2019 and post easily his worst year as a pro, though he was far from bad. Harris had little help around him at cornerback, after the Broncos suffered injuries to Bryce Callahan and De'Vante Bausby and Isaac Yiadom didn't take the leap forward the team expected.
On Monday, GM John Elway addressed the Harris issue when asked specifically about the veracity of the report that Denver had offered him $12M/year.
“Again, we’re going to go back and evaluate it," Elway said alongside Vic Fangio. "We’ll have to see what options we have and what’s available. We have to go back and look at the money that we have available. We will go through and make a plan before we get to that. We will budget it out and see what our plan is and put that plan together."
Considering the dearth of talent the Broncos have at cornerback right now, surely Elway doesn't want to risk turning it into a gaping roster hole by allowing the homegrown Harris to depart?
"I can’t answer that question right now," Elway said. "We’ll do that with all our players. We’re going to look at our budget, see how the pie fits, see how everybody fits in the pie and do the best job of using our money in the best ways that we can but also find the players that we hope can get us back to the playoffs and compete for a World Championship.”
Playing in Fangio's more complex zone coverage schemes, Harris had to learn a new system. But he got through that learning curve relatively quickly. He's a very smart player.
Zone coverage puts a lot more pressure on the defensive backs, as it requires a player to not only know and understand his responsibility on a given play, but also the guys around him. As a result, Harris was exploited often in 2019 and it usually came at the most inopportune time for the Broncos.
Still, the Broncos offered to keep him around at a salary level that would have kept him in the top-15 for cornerback pay. However, Harris appears to be dead-set on testing the market and maximizing what is likely to be his last opportunity to earn a big NFL contract.
The highest-paid cornerback in the league currently is Miami's Xavien Howard, bringing home a cool $15.05M per year. Harris wants to explore getting a contract like that. Meanwhile, the Broncos likely feel that the $12M/year they offered Harris earlier this season is fair, especially considering it's coming on the heels of a down year with the player being on the wrong side of 30.
After the Broncos' season finale, Harris took to Twitter with what felt like a goodbye to the fans.
Only time will tell. But it feels like Harris has played his last snap in the Orange and Blue. And if that's true, he'll eventually return to Denver because he's bound for the Ring of Fame at some point after he hangs up his cleats.
UPDATE: We learned on Monday from 9NEWS' Mike Klis that the terms of the Broncos' offer to Harris were two years, $27M. The three years, $36M factored in 2019.
We also learned via Bronco insider Benjamin Allbright that one of the reasons Harris didn't take the deal was because he felt like the team was using the trade deadline as a means to leverage him into accepting another team-friendly accord. The implication being, accept or else we'll trade you. Harris called Elway's bluff and bet on himself.
It remains to be seen whether Harris' bet will pay dividends on the open market, as he did have a down year in Fangio's scheme.
Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadNJensen and @MileHighHuddle.
