I've been covering the Detroit Lions for a while now and one thing that I've noticed is that some Lions fans love to find a player and hate him until he's gone.  

A lot of the time that hate can blind you. It can make you only see the negative and completely miss the positive. It blinds you becasue if there's one thing that everyone hates to be, it's wrong. 

I'm sorry, but you are wrong. Will Harris just isn't the bad player you think he is or want him to be. Here's why:

Harris is going into his fifth year with the Lions. This isn't a mistake. It's not some sort of situation like Office Space where there's a glitch in the payroll and Harris just keeps getting paid. It's because both Lions coaching staffs love him. Patricia loved him and now Dan Campbell loves him. Why? Because he's reliable. 

"I love will Harris. I do." Dan Campbell said. "And because he is, a pro. He's a pro. He's a vet. You don't have to worry about Will. Will's gonna be where he's supposed to be, when he's supposed to be there. He's a four core guy for us. He's played safety, he can play nickel, he can play outside corner and he's just steady and reliable. He's dependable man. He's always going to be there for you. And that's, that's one of the biggest reasons you know that, that helps. Guys like him help you sleep good at night."

Harris is not a superstar. More often than not, he's not going to be a starter. But when he's out there, he's going to work hard. The guy never complains and he does what is asked of him. He also rarely gets hurt. Harris has missed two games in his entire career. He's also inexpensive. 

As far as stats and grades go. Harris isn't the best, but he's far from the worst. Harris graded out at 63.7 last year per Pro Football Focus. He was the Lions highest graded corner in 2022. In a secondary that was arguably the worst in the league, the guy so many think is the worst was actually the one bright spot. Kerby Joseph was the only player in the secondary to grade higher. He had a 64. 

But wait, what about the guys in the Lions secondary now? Surely they'll tower of Harris. Here's how they all graded out last year.

• Cameron Sutton: 71.6
• C.J. Gardner-Johnson: 63.9
• Emmanuel Moseley: 70.9
• Jerry Jacobs: 55.8
• Tracy Walker: 74.3
• Will Harris: 63.7

I mean come on people. He's right in line with where you want him to be. "But he's horrible in coverage." Last year he had a coverage grade of 66.9. That's not Sauce Gardner levels or anything like that, but it's in no way bad. PFF graded a total of 150 cornerbacks in coverage last year. Harris's grade puts him at 47th in the league. There's 103 cornerbacks that are worse than Will Harris in coverage.  

Look, as a guy that took a semester of psychology in community college, I think what's happening here is that a lot of people are experiencing the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. This is the phenomenon where people get the false impression that something is happening way more than it actually does. Because of this, your mind is actually looking for it and when it happens, you almost get a confirmation bias affect. You tell yourself, "see I was right all along." 

But, you're not. Will Harris is a reliable cornerback off the bench. Does he get beat sometimes? Yes he does. Is he a liability? Not at all. The Lions are making the right choice by keeping him around. 

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