Duron Harmon on the tight-knit Patriots secondary, and his final ‘Game of Thrones’ thoughts

“As a safety, you have to be able to think,” says Duron Harmon. The 28-year-old Patriots defensive back speaks from a wealth of experience. With Bill Belichick as his head coach, Harmon knows the job of his position is far from simple.

“You have to get the defense lined up, have to know the [defensive] checks on top of playing that chess game with the quarterback so you can make it as hard on him as possible,” Harmon explains.

It helps that Harmon gets to play football chess against Tom Brady every day in practice, sharpening his skills against one of the best to ever play football. But Harmon has proven his worth in his own right on countless occasions, earning the nickname “The Closer” due to his knack for sealing Patriots wins with game-ending interceptions.

Now in his seventh season in the NFL, Harmon is the only member of the Patriots’ 2013 draft class to have stayed with the team for his entire career. This would’ve surprised critics who maligned New England’s selection of Harmon in the third round. Most draft experts listed the Rutgers safety as a late-round pick who would possibly go undrafted.

Yet Belichick saw something in Harmon, who made six career interceptions during his collegiate career, earning all-Big East first team honors as a junior in 2011. The Patriots’ decision to pick him comparatively early caught television crews off-guard. As Harmon has previously explained, the draft coverage had no highlights of him prepared to show when his name was called.

What the Patriots might have seen in Harmon is a thoughtfulness that’s not only made him a clever safety on the field but also a valuable member of the community off it.

“I just feel like it’s not a topic that gets enough shine on it.”

One cause Harmon has become personally invested in is supporting those affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). His nephew is autistic, and Harmon notes that he’s learned a lot simply from that connection.

“I just see the daily challenges that my nephew is faced with to continue to learn at a level that some people might take for granted,” says Harmon.

“You see him fight and continue to get better socially, academically, and it’s just something I just want to continue to bring light to because I just feel like it’s not a topic that gets enough shine on it.”

Because of that, Harmon is organizing a karaoke-themed charity event in Boston on Sept. 30 to raise money for several non-profit charitable organizations, including Autism Speaks.

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Another one of Harmon’s community efforts away from the football field also involves helping children. He’s a member of the Players Coalition, a group of past and present NFL players trying to address social justice issues. In May, he joined fellow Patriots defensive backs Devin and Jason McCourty to voice support for the Education PROMISE Act at the Massachusetts State House.

As Harmon points out, the support is based on tours of local public schools, some of which don’t receive anywhere close to the funding that’s required. It’s a disparity that’s striking in a state that’s been named as having the best schools in the nation.

“We’re just trying to voice what we saw and go in front of legislators so that they can see it’s time for every kid to have an equal chance for an education,” Harmon notes. “They always talk about how Massachusetts has the greatest public schools and school systems, but I mean it can’t just be for certain towns.”

“It was a great show, great run, but I was just a little disappointed in the ending.”

While Harmon admits that he’s currently spending most of his time either on the football field or studying game film, there are moments when he’s free to watch television shows of his choice.

One cultural juggernaut that he was a prominent participant in was the recently ended “Game of Thrones” series on HBO. Harmon posted weekly recaps, even dressing up as fictional character Jon Snow.

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He concurs with the wider opinion that the show ended poorly, but he keeps it in perspective.

“I felt like it was just rushed,” Harmon admits. “They should’ve done the normal 10 episode [season], an hour each, and don’t rush it. But I felt like it was a great run for the show. I enjoyed it. It’s so much easier to be a critic of a TV show rather than actually being the one writing it and directing it and acting it. It was a great show, great run, but I was just a little disappointed in the ending.”

His introduction to the show was typical of the camaraderie he has with members of the Patriots’ secondary.

“I think it was like my second or third year in the league in training camp, I remember we had some down time and I would go into the training room and Dev [McCourty] had his iPad out,” Harmon recalls. “He was like, ‘Oh honestly, bro, this might be one of the best shows that I’ve ever watched in my life.'”

Initially skeptical, Harmon eventually tried it out while recovering from surgery the following spring. The episodes flowed rapidly once he got hooked.

“I caught up to the point where the show actually was, so I watched all the seasons to that point in basically three weeks,” says Harmon. “It was just word of mouth. That’s what we kind of do with shows. If a show’s pretty good, there’s a lot of locker room talk and we just throw out different shows. We would have debates in the morning after the show airs. That’s just one of the things we like to do on the team.”

“There are little competitions, whatever we do.”

The cohesion in the Patriots’ secondary is something that isn’t always apparent to viewers on television. Much of the time, the work that New England’s cornerbacks and safeties do occurs off-screen. But the results speak for themselves. The Patriots’ pass defense was elite in Super Bowl LIII, helping to hold the prolific Rams offense to just three points.

While the team’s athleticism and pure on-field ability counts for part of the success, the other part is the familiarity teammates have with one another.

“If you just look at the secondary, the safeties, we’ve all been together for a while,” Harmon notes. He’s now played with fellow safeties Patrick Chung and Devin McCourty for the past six seasons.

“We’re just always together,” says Harmon.

“I think the other thing is everybody’s always trying to improve their game,” Harmon continues. “There are little competitions, whatever we do. Whether it’s like cornhole, trashketball, trying to see who was the best in one-on-ones today, who got the most interceptions. We’re just always competitive, and then you get off the field, it’s kind of the same thing. We play video games, and everybody wants to win.”

The group’s cohesiveness blends well with Belichick’s defensive philosophy.

“We can be one defense one week, and then another defense the next. We just have to be able to adapt week by week and by game plan.”

The once-unheralded draft pick now has three Super Bowl rings to his name. It’s a perfect testament to his success in the NFL.

“Safety,” Harmon says simply, “it’s not a flashy position. But as long as we win, that’s all that matters.”