Playing cornerback on the world’s greatest stage requires a certain mentality, a certain swagger, a certain ego. You have to believe you’re the best every play, you have to believe you’re going to win your matchup on every down but, the reality is, you can’t win every time. Cornerback is probably the toughest and most humbling position on the football field.
So, while he must have confidence, a great cornerback also must have humility.
For the Broncos Chris Harris, Jr. he’s won that matchup enough times to be in every conversation about the best corner in the league, enough to have, until Sunday, not given up a touchdown pass in over two years. But, in Pittsburgh, he lost his matchup against one of the best wide receivers in the league, Antonio Brown.
Harris didn’t whine, he didn’t start anything with Brown, he just continued to line up and give his best on every play as his coaches continued to trust him to go one-on-one, and on Monday, he showed his humility.
“Shoot, we just played straight man-to-man. One-on-one, that’s what we do,” he began. “I just lost. It’s just the way it is. It happens to the best of them. I’ve just got to regroup and come back next week even better.
“You always want to play better,” added the pro-bowler. “Really he had a lot of short catches. I just had to make the tackles. I didn’t make the tackles. I’m usually a guy that never misses tackles, so I just wasn’t myself yesterday. I’ve got to play a lot better, especially when the team needs me the most.”
Head coach Gary Kubiak praised Harris for his response to the game.
That’s why he’s a great player. That’s why he’s a Pro Bowl player,” Kubiak said. “I think there’s even more to come down the road for him. I think he played one of the top players in football, if not the top player. I know who I’d be voting for right now for MVP. Watching that kid play—I mean, he’s something else, does it all day, plays extremely hard the entire game. That was a tough matchup. Chris expects a lot out of himself. He’s very hard on himself, and he’ll learn from that, grow from that and continue to be an even better player than he’s been. He’s been exceptional.”
“That was a tough matchup. Chris expects a lot out of himself,” continued Kubiak. “He’s very hard on himself, and he’ll learn from that, grow from that and continue to be an even better player than he’s been. He’s been exceptional.”
Harris accepted the challenge and he lost, but you’ll never catch him pointing fingers anywhere but in the mirror.
“I mean [Defensive Coordinator] Coach Wade [Phillips] trusts us. He trusts me to go out there and play man-to-man the whole game,” he explained. “That’s what I’ve got to do. Whatever it is, that’s what we’ve been doing the whole season. We can’t just change—what week is it? We can’t just change at the end. It happens. When you play straight man-to-man like that against a top receiver in the league, he won the day.”
Brown won the day, but the great thing about the NFL is Harris will have a chance to redeem himself this Monday when he takes on another Pro-Bowler in A.J. Green.
