JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Prior to the 2018 NFL Draft the Jaguars front office said that their plan was to draft the best player available. That explains the pick of Ronnie Harrison in the third round. Safety wasn’t a “need” for the Jaguars but they found value in selecting the former Alabama defensive back.
Position: Safety
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2017 Stats (At Alabama): 74 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss and 3 interceptions
2018 Projection: The Jaguars feel good about Barry Church and Tashaun Gipson as their starting safeties. Adding Harrison upgrades the depth behind them. At 6-foot-2 and 207 pounds, Harrison has a reputation of being a big-hitter at safety.
Jacksonville likes to interchange their safeties and the plan for Harrison is to learn both strong and free safety. If Church or Gipson were to miss time with injury, Harrison would likely step into one of their roles. So far the team has been impressed with Harrison’s knowledge in the classroom. At Alabama their defense runs a lot of similar schemes that are used in the NFL.
Jaguars defensive coordinator Todd Wash on Harrison’s size and blitzing ability:
“He is actually, I think, a little bit better than we thought we were going to get. We knew he was an in-the-box safety, around the football and a physical player. But now we are seeing him in the middle of the field back in our two-shell coverages that we run. You see his athleticism really show through. He adds obviously great quality depth to some very good players we have back there with [Tashaun] Gipson and [Barry] Church and Cody [Davis] and obviously ‘J-Dub’, [Jarrod Wilson]. It is going to be a heck of a battle back there at those two positions.”