Broncos by the numbers: Shelby Harris, and how he’s the NFL’s best by one key measure

Sometimes, you don’t have to draft a player in order to develop him into a standout.

Some are undrafted rookies. Others detour to the CFL or, in recent years, the AAF or the XFL. And plenty kick around the fringes of the NFL, on offseason rosters and practice squads, with actual regular-season work limited to brief cameos.

Shelby Harris was one of those players when he signed a reserve-future contract with the Broncos in 2017.

In his first three seasons with the Oakland Raiders, New York Jets and the Dallas Cowboys, he played in eight games. With the Jets, he didn’t make it past the cut to 53 players at the roster deadline. In Dallas, he spent 20 days on their practice squad before being release.

Four years later, Harris is one of the most disruptive interior defensive linemen in the game. What’s more, he has been everything that their defensive-line coach, Bill Kollar, wants in his linemen.

Kollar has been regarded by many as perhaps the best teacher of defensive-line play since the 1990s. He is intense, but there is method to his madness: He wants to ensure that his linemen are disruptive in the pass rush even when they can’t get to the quarterback.

In a rare behind-the-curtain moment, Kollar was shown by the Broncos’ website sharing this methodology with players at the 2018 Senior Bowl. He showed a clip of then-Bronco Adam Gotsis batting down a pass at the line of scrimmage. Then, he let those aspiring NFL defensive linemen know how he regards pass deflections a the line of scrimmage.

“We count those like sacks,” Kollar said.

“We want to knock the ball down if you can’t get a sack. You’ve got to pressure the passer. You’ve got to get those hands up.”

Few do that better than Harris. Since joining the Broncos, Harris has 23 pass breakups, the second-most among all defensive linemen in that span behind Carlos Dunlap. Sixteen of those pass deflections have come in the last two years, the most among defensive linemen.

But by Kollar’s calculus of counting pass breakups like sacks, Harris’ overall body of work becomes even more impressive.

Consider this: According to the data compiled by Pro FootbalL Focus, Harris had a sack or a pass deflection on 3.4 percent of his pass-rush snaps last season — or once every 29.7 pass-rush snaps. That placed him first among 136 interior defensive linemen with at least 100 pass-rush snaps.

It wasn’t a fluke, because he led the NFL in the same statistic in 2019, too. Harris’ rate of having a pass deflection or a sack once every 24.7 pass-rush snaps led the 128 interior defensive linemen with at least 100 pass-rush snaps. (The league-wide average for interior defensive linemen in 2019 was one sack or bass deflection every 81.4 snaps.)

Consider that for a moment. And then consider that if you measure defensive linemen by that metric, Aaron Donald has ranked seventh and sixth, respectively, in those two years.

No one is going to sit here and say that Harris should — or will — get a contract like Donald.

But at a per-year average of $3.1725 million in the last two seasons, the consistency of Harris’ disruption well outstrips his contract. He’s been a bargain the last two years.

With a sack or a pass breakup once every 26.7 pass-rush snaps the last two years, Harris is the league’s best at this combined measure — and his growth came under the Broncos’ watch.

He wasn’t drafted by the Broncos, but they developed him brilliantly. Now, it’s time for the team to reward him.