Last Chance for Joey Harrington

When the University of Oregon sends you a letter-of-intent when you’re just a few weeks old, you know there are big expectations. When your college record is 25-3 and you lead your team to wins in the Holiday Bowl and Fiesta Bowl, the expectations are even bigger. When you are 4th in the Heisman voting and picked 3rd in the NFL draft, you had better be a perennial Pro-Bowler and probably bring a Super Bowl ring home as well. The expectations are going to be that big. For the past few years, Joey Harrington has been labeled a bust. Harrington is considered a bust because he failed to lead a horrible Lions franchise to the playoffs and has not been close to making a Pro Bowl. Things went so poorly in Detroit that the fans actually booed him when a United Way commercial, featuring him, was shown at a home game.

Then, in May of 2006, he was finally traded (or released from his sentence some would say) to the Miami Dolphins ending his career in Detroit with a 18-37 record. The change of scenery was good for Harrington as he was 5-6 and finally looked like a decent NFL quarterback. Due to his high salary cap number, and Trent Green’s pending arrival, Harrington was released by the Dolphins. One month later, Harrington signed a 2-year $6 million deal with the Atlanta Falcons as the back-up to Michael Vick. Now, with Vick’s NFL career possibly finished, Harrington finds himself at the top of the depth chart. Many football fans are already tossing in the towel on the Falcons season, but let’s take a closer look at Harrington’s career.

With the arrival of Calvin Johnson, Detroit looks like a team that might be able to sneak their way into the playoffs. But let’s remember how awful the Lions have been over the past six years. The Detroit defense was ranked 24th overall during the time that Harrington was there and the team’s top running backs each year averaged being ranked 25th during that time. In 2004 Harrington led Detroit to a 6-10 record where, if you ignore 3 blowout losses to Philadelphia, Green Bay, and Indianapolis, they were outscored by an average of 5 points per game.  So what changed for Harrington? The addition of rookies Roy Williams (54 rec for 817 yards and 8 tds) and Kevin Jones (1133 yards, 4.7 yds/carry and 5 tds ) finally gave Harrington some decent weapons on offense. The previous year, his top running back was Shawn Bryson (606 yards, 3.8 yds/carry and 3 tds) and top receiver was Az-zahir Hakim (49 rec, 449 yards, 4 tds). Not only that, but the Detroit defense was ranked 18th, compared to 31st and 25th the previous two seasons. In his first season with actual talent around him, Harrington had a 56% completion percentage to go along with 3047 yards, 19tds and only 12ints.

If that is too many statistics for you, let me sum it up real quickly: Detroit was a horribly pathetic organization, so when Harrington finally had talent around him he played well. When you consider that Detroit was running a West Coast offense that Harrington was ill-suited for, his numbers aren’t as bad as some would have you think. His passing yards, based on a 16 game season, have improved in every year that he has played. In fact, last year he was 12th overall based on a full 16 game schedule. When he had a good defense for the first time in his life, he led his team to a 5-6 record.

Bobby Petrino was brought to Atlanta because he is known as a quarterback’s coach. The thought was that he could design an offense that would allow Michael Vick to to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative. (Anyone else know that song?) I don’t doubt for one moment that Bobby Petrino is a great coach. That being the case, if he is the coach the Falcons thought they were getting, he should be able to work wonders with a talented player like Joey Harrington. I’m not saying that the Falcons will make the playoffs this year, but they weren’t going to with Michael Vick either. But for the first time in his NFL career, Joey Harrington is in a good situation. While the Falcons aren’t a great team, they are a huge improvement from the talent-free teams he had in Detroit.

With Michael Vick’s image forever tarnished, the Falcons fans want someone that won’t let them down and that will give them something to cheer for. I can’t think of a better player to give that to them than Harrington. As long as the fans and the Falcons organization are patient, this could be a blessing in disguise. This is Joey Harrington’s last chance to show that he belongs in the NFL. He is no longer expected to lead a team to the Super Bowl, he just needs to keep them competitive. He’s already been, unfairly, labeled a bust so as the saying goes “when you hit rock bottom you can’t go anywhere but up.”

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