Countdown to Jaguars Football: No. 36 and the Importance of Ronnie Harrison in 2020
In fewer than 100 days, the Jacksonville Jaguars will return ... at least as things stand today.
While there is still some uncertainty surrounding the start of the NFL season, the league office has made it clear that they are planning to kick the season off on Sept. 10 and then have every other team play on Sept. 13.
By going off that timeline, we are now just 36 days from watching the Jaguars take the field against the Indianapolis Colts for the first regular season game of 2020.
While a number of players have worn No. 36 for the Jaguars, it is hard to find many players who had a tangible impact on the team. For that reason, this edition will focus on the team's current No. 36: third-year safety Ronnie Harrison.
In a year in which the Jaguars are set to feature several young players in the secondary, Harrison's contributions at strong safety will be key for the Jaguars' defense in 2020. Luckily for the Jaguars, he has at least flashes the ability to be a difference-maker in the back-end of the defense, something they lost last year when they traded away Jalen Ramsey.
Drafted in the third round (No. 93 overall) of the 2018 NFL Draft, Harrison was originally brought into Jacksonville to serve as the long-term replacement for veteran strong safety Barry Church. One of Alabama's top defenders during his collegiate career, many projected Harrison to go late second-round or early third-round, and him falling to Jacksonville served as a surprise then.
“We didn’t think he would be here necessarily this late, but there is always a reason for things,” Jaguars general manager Dave Caldwell said when asked about the Harrison pick on the weekend of the 2018 draft.
“Certain teams have different needs and certain teams like different players. Obviously, every board is not like ours or else it would be really easy to draft. We have guys where we target them, and when we said this is where we would like to get our first and second-round pick from and it so happened that we got our first, second and third-round picks from that range.”
Harrison was thrown into the fire quicker than maybe anyone could have expected as a rookie, however. Church lost the starting job to Harrison in the middle of the season after it became clear he simply didn't have anything left in the tank, and the veteran would be released before the season was over.
Overall, Harrison would start eight games as a rookie and record one interception, three tackles for loss and three pass deflections. His rookie year would create a wide-open path for him to be entrenched as the starter at safety in 2019, however.
In 2019, Harrison flashed the talent that made Jacksonville comfortable enough to replace Church with him just a year prior. While labeled by most as a strong safety coming out of college due to his physical nature and hitting ability, Harrison displayed solid range and instincts in coverage in 2019, especially improving as a downfield defender.
In 14 starts in 2019, Harrison recorded 71 tackles, two tackles for loss, two sacks, two interceptions, nine pass deflections and one fumble recovery. According to Pro Football Reference, he also allowed only a 55.3% completion rate in coverage -- and improvement from his 77.8% rate as a rookie.
“Ronnie’s [Harrison] still a young player. I look at Ronnie as he continues to get better each week," head coach Doug Marrone said last October.
"I think he has all the ability to make plays for us, which I think he’s starting to show us. He’s a physical player ... He’s good, he has the ability to take away the ball, he has the ability to defend, too, which is important in man coverage. So, I think Ronnie’s just going to get better and better. He’s an intense player on the field, he plays at a high level of emotion, which I like. He’s in-tune to what’s going on, he practices during the week, he’s available. I think he’s someone that just needs to keep continuing on the path he’s going and he can be, he is a good player for us now, but he has the ability, if he keeps working hard, to be an excellent player in this league.”
The Jaguars will need Harrison to continue on that path toward the potential Marrone sees in him in 2020. The Jaguars' starting secondary likely looks like a mixture of Harrison and Jarrod Wilson at safety and Tre Herndon, CJ Henderson and D.J. Hayden at cornerback. This is a group that is high on potential but has few players who are established impact players. Harrison has the chance to be that impact player, and him developing into that kind of player would be a massive boon for Jacksonville.
With the Jaguars losing players such as Ramsey, A.J. Bouye and Calais Campbell in the last year, both the defensive line and secondary are set to look dramatically different. With the defensive line being a candidate for statistical regression in terms of pass rush, a competent secondary is of the utmost importance. Harrison, in part, holds the key toward Jacksonville's secondary answering the challenge.
Herndon and Henderson are two young, talented cornerbacks who will likely be challenged often in 2020. They need strong play behind them to not only support their own play, but to ensure youthful mistakes don't doom the rest of the defense.
For his first two seasons, Harrison was an exciting player who saw a lot of action for the Jaguars but was known as one of the youngest members of the secondary. In 2020, the story has completely changed. Henderson will have to prove his mettle as a veteran leader in the secondary, making him a crucial player for Jacksonville this fall.
