The Jets Cut David Harris and I Actually Feel Bad for Jets Fans
Coach Bowles: LB David Harris has been released. pic.twitter.com/M8MSUH0e7S
— New York Jets (@nyjets) June 6, 2017
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Once in a while things happen that remind me that Jets fans like my man KFC are God’s children just like the rest of us and deserving of our sympathy and understanding. When the pointing and laughing and ridicule don’t seem so fun any more and it’s time to feel for them. This is just such a moment.
This is the Jets doing the most Jets thing since they spent $39 million guaranteed on Darrelle Revis. In fact, it’s the complete opposite of that move. But it goes so far in the other direction that it circles the globe of ineptitude and steps in the exact same pile of dogshit.
David Harris is the anti-Revis Island. A guy I’ve liked since I had a draftcrush on him coming out of Michigan in 2007. The Jets stole him in the second round and he’s done nothing but produce. He plays every down. Has missed one game since 2008, and that was last year when he was playing through a hamstring injury. And he still led the team with 95 tackles. He’s made all the calls in some complex schemes like Eric Mangini’s shifting fronts and Rex Ryan’s multiple-angle blitz packages. And he’s been a glue guy, a quiet leader who doesn’t self-promote or chase endorsement money, even in the middle of some chaotic locker rooms.
So what do you do when you’re Gang Green, a guy like this is making a reasonable $6.5 million and you’ve got metric shit tons of cap space? You spent months trying to get him to take a pay cut. And if you can’t work it out, you cut him. Like you did with Nick Mangold, except you wait until June, when most potential landing spots have either already filled the position or are out of cap money to pay him. Then you send Todd Bowles out to explain why his defensive leader is gone so he can answer “That’s a good question.” In other words, you cock it up and completely hose one of the hardest working, most productive players you’ve had in a generation. You do Jets things.
KFC? Jets Nation? I’m sorry. I’ll have fun at your expense some other time. But for now, nobody deserves to suffer like this.