Duron Harmon Proves He Can Make Big Plays For Patriots Defense

FOXBOROUGH — Entering the 2014 season, the New England Patriots’ greatest strength appeared to be their secondary. The only question mark in the group was at strong safety, where the team had a hazy competition between incumbent starter Duron Harmon and veteran Patrick Chung, making his return to New England after a year away with the Philadelphia Eagles.

It appeared Harmon would win the job, but Chung snared it away from Harmon with a strong performance in training camp and the preseason.

Harmon has still had opportunities, but they’ve been few and far between compared to Chung. Those limitations did not stop him from making a game-changing play in the first quarter of Sunday’s win, with a 60-yard interception return off an errant pass by Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill.

“I just wanted to make sure I was over the top of the under coverage,” Harmon said. “It was a high throw, and I just made sure I caught it and then everybody did a great job of blocking for me, leading me up on the sideline.”

Even while Chung and Harmon competed for the starting job, the Patriots still showed that they valued Harmon’s skills. During the preseason, Chung found most of his snaps to be on first and second down, primarily due to his toughness and tackling ability in run defense. Harmon, on the other hand, was used mostly as a deep safety in passing situations, where he has continued to play in the regular season.

Entering Sunday’s game, Harmon had played 199 defensive snaps (21.9 percent of the defensive total) according to stats website ProFootballFocus.com. A whopping 161 of his plays have been in pass coverage, compared to only 37 in run defense, and another play as a pass-rusher. Meanwhile, Chung had played 703 defensive snaps (77.5 percent) headed into Sunday, with 276 against the run, 412 against the pass, and 15 as a pass-rusher.

Harmon has proven his skills as a cover safety more than a few times in his career. He has logged three interceptions, with two of them against Dolphins’ quarterback Ryan Tannehill and one (his favorite career play) against Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. The 60-yard return on Sunday was the Patriots’ longest return since Week 7 of the 2013 season by Logan Ryan against the New York Jets.

One area where Harmon must improve his skills is in run defense, where he has admitted he must work on his tackling technique and angles.

Another area he needs to improve: his celebrations.

“He’s been waiting all year to get his hands on one,” said safety Devin McCourty. “It was good [to see him make the play]. I told him he’s got to work on his celebration. It looked like he expects to make plays like that.”

Harmon knows he can learn more than a few things from McCourty — celebration techniques among them.

“I mean, at the end of the game, he said, ‘Your celebration game is weak.’ So I’m going to try to take a few tips from him,” Harmon said. “We’ll probably watch that and then he’ll give me a few pointers. He makes a lot of plays, so he has a lot of celebrations.”

With a little luck, and a little more playing time, Harmon will have more opportunities to work on his celebrations.

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