It seems every week the Raiders are fielding a different group of defensive backs. The starters in the season opener were Gareon Conley, Daryl Worley, Lamarcus Joyner, Karl Joseph, and Johnathan Abram. Now there is just one of them still on the field – Worley.
The first to go was Abram, who suffered a season-ending injury in the first game and was replaced by Erik Harris.
That group was steady for a bit, but starting a few weeks ago, a changeover began. First, it was the trading of Conley to the Texans for a third-round pick. Then it was the losses of Karl Joseph to a season-ending ankle injury and Joyner to a hamstring injury that had him miss last week against the Bengals and looking unlikely to go this week either.
With the loss of Joseph, the team signed free agent DJ Swearinger, and he was on the field 8 days later, playing 60% of the snaps. This week he will start. His quick acclimation to the Raiders’ defensive scheme is credited to Harris’s instruction.
“I think Erik Harris does an excellent job of making guys around him better,” said defensive coordinator Paul Guenther. “He’s like a coach out there, he can see the formations, understands what may be coming, alerting guys, maybe DJ being new, playing all the snaps that he did, if he wasn’t sure about something, Erik can correct him. I think Erik does an excellent job back there for us, and that goes understated.”
Before last season, Harris was seen as just a journeyman special teams maven. By late in the season, he had earned his way into the starting lineup. Then the team drafted Johnathan Abram at 27 overall, and by the end of OTA’s, Abram was already working with the first team. Harris was a big reason why Abram was able to come along as quickly as he did to start as a rookie.
But even from the sideline, Harris was showing the ability to read the offense and call out plays. Making for one of my favorite moments from offseason practices.
Erik Harris from the sideline calls out the coverage at the snap. Derek Carr yells back at Harris with a laugh after the play “Stop helping that man”. Harris responds “Hey, film study.”
— Levi Damien (@LeviDamien) May 28, 2019
If you watch closely, you can see moments like this from Harris in which he is lining up teammates. That was especially necessary last week with Swearinger learning the defense on the fly.
“No, there weren’t any issues at all,” Swearinger said of his first game. “Me and E [Erik Harris], the corners and linebackers, we all did a great job communicating, and that is going to continue to get better. We are looking forward to moving forward to the Jets.”
Swearinger made the tackle in his first play of the game and went on to lead the team in tackles (7). He will start Sunday in New York, and he and Harris figure to stay on the field for every snap.
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