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The New Orleans Saints went into their game with the San Francisco 49ers with an aggressive mindset, and few players embodied that approach stronger than rookie returns specialist Deonte Harris. Harris returned quietly from a hamstring injury in the Saints’ Thanksgiving game against the Atlanta Falcons, picking up just 30 yards on two kick returns and a punt return, but his numbers versus the 49ers could not have been more different.
The rookie fielded five kickoffs to gain 155 yards, a season-high. He returned a pair of punts to pick up 37 yards, his third-best mark on the year so far and his highest since Week 7’s game with the Chicago Bears, in which he gained 46 punt return yards (and lost a 67-yard touchdown return to a phantom holding penalty). Combine all of his touches against San Francisco — including a 13-yard pickup on a screen pass and an 8-yard gain on an end-around handoff — and he gave the Saints 205 all-purpose yards on the day.
Saints coach Sean Payton credited Harris with his consistent production on kick returns, noting that the rookie was taking advantage of poor kicking by San Francisco rather than following a “green light” directive to try and make a play on every kickoffs, no matter the odds. It’s a sign of Harris’s intelligence that he saw an opportunity to help his team, and took it.
Where does this stand in recent Saints history? Harris has an argument to make as the best special teams returner in the Sean Payton era, because his 269 punt return yards this year trails just two other single-season performances going back to Payton’s hiring in 2006. Only Reggie Bush’s 2008 season (270 punt return yards) and Darren Sproles’ 2011 campaign (294) are above Harris’s output, and he still has three games to play. He needs 26 combined yards in those games to set the high-water mark for Payton’s tenure.
His next game comes on ‘Monday Night Football’ against the Indianapolis Colts, who will be without all-time great kicker Adam Vinatieri after his recent knee surgery. Vinatieri has not been handling kickoff duties for the Colts, with third-year punter Rigoberto Sanchez standing in. Harris will have opportunities to build on his impressive rookie season in front of a national audience.
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