Pompei: Bears Should Consider Bringing Harris Back
(WSCR) The decline of Tommie Harris in Chicago was fast and obvious.
Harris went from a dominant force up front to an expendable pieces of the Bears roster. The Bears ultimately cut ties with the former No. 14 overall draft pick after the 2010 season. Harris spent 2011 with the Chargers, and now one Bears expert thinks the team should consider bringing Harris back in a back-up role.
"Normally, I wouldn't be a big advocate of that," Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune told The Mully and Hanley Show. "I think when you do turn the page on a player, there's usually a reason for doing it and you're usually best off not revisiting that. ... Tommie Harris is a little unique. The Bears are in a situation now where they really need a fourth defensive tackle. When Tommie Harris was last in Chicago, he was the No. 1 defensive tackle on the team. He wasn't a very good defensive tackle any more because injuries had changed him as a player and kind of robbed him of some of the things that he had done best earlier in his career. I think right now, he can be a very good No. 4 tackle"
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Pompei said as long as expectations are tempered, Harris could help the Bears.
"He was a pretty good substitute player last year for the Chargers, even though he was playing a position that was a little bit foreign to him. He did a decent job, got some pressure on the quarterback. I talked to a number of scouts who evaluated him and they said, 'Yeah, he's not bad.' If you limit the number of snaps that he takes and you limit the expectations for what he can bring you, you don't look at him like, 'Oh, he was the 14th pick of the draft. He should have 10 sacks.' That's not going to happen."
