The Patriots have agreed to sign former Jets linebacker David Harris, as ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter tweets. It will be a two-year, $5MM deal for the veteran with $1.25MM guaranteed, Albert Breer of The MMQB tweets. He can also earn up to $1.75MM in incentives. 
Harris, 33, was cut loose by the Jets this offseason as a part of their rebuilding effort. Until now, he spent his entire career with Gang Green dating back to 2007, meaning that he only got to be a part of two playoff runs. Now, Harris is joining a bonafide contender and could have a real chance at capturing a Super Bowl ring before his career is through.
The Patriots now have an even stronger linebacker group than before. Harris joins fellow veterans Shea McClellin, Dont’a Hightower, Rob Ninkovich, Elandon Roberts, and Kyle Van Noy, not to mention third round pick Derek Rivers. Depending on how many linebackers the Patriots plan on taking into the season, the signing could put Rutgers product Jonathan Freeny on the bubble.
As Schefter notes (on Twitter), this is just the latest instance of the Patriots swooping in on an AFC East standout. Between this offseason and the last one, the Pats have added Harris, cornerback Stephon Gilmore, running back Mike Gillislee, and wide receiver Chris Hogan.
In his tenth season with the Jets, Harris appeared in 15 games and played on 86.8% of the club’s defensive snaps. In that time, Harris managed 94 tackles, two passes defensed, and a half-sack, while grading out as the league’s No. 35 linebacker, per Pro Football Focus.
Harris started 147 contests during his whole Jets tenure, placing him sixth all-time in franchise history.
Great move by the Pat’s.
Who will he replace? They don’t bring a guy like this in on a two year deal for depth. Does he replace Ninkovich or McClellin? Or does he move inside and replace Roberts. Either way I love this deal. He is probably going to help mentor Derrick Rivers who will replace him after his deal is up. The LB core was the Pats weakest link in my opinion, and it still is after this signing but it has significantly improved with this signing
Why would Harris, a MLB, mentor Rivers, an edge rusher, who would then switch positions to “replace” him?
Seriously the Jets GM is a joke. Clearly many of the players they released interested other teams. If they hadn’t been sitting on their asses April and May they could’ve gotten some actual assets for them.
Clearly you know nothing about football making that statement!
LOL
Actually I know football very well. There’s many teams that would’ve been willing to give some form of late draft compensation for good NFL starters. The fact that the market for guys like Decker and even Jeremy Maclin was robust and allowed them to get deals quickly shows that had the Jets acted early like other teams in there dealing they could’ve got something. Instead they have tons of cap space and lots of crappy players filling up the roster. Instead they were in a rush to lockdown guys like Josh McCown early since that makes sense
Football teams don’t make trades the way hockey and baseball teams do. Very rarely do you see teams give up serious assets to acquire guys. Look at Eric Decker; lots of teams were interested in the guy, but no one wanted to trade for him.
Belichick certainly seems to prefer trades to the draft/free agency these days.
When you make a media clipping that says we are gonna cut this guy if we can’t trade him why would anyone give up anything. Plus the draft has passed. I’m saying they should’ve been active when free agency started instead of gradually releasing players.
Harris was slated to make $6.500,000.00 in salary this season as per Spotrac. It is doubtful that any team would have been willing to pay him that much for the 2017 season. In fact, the Patriots are probably going to be paying him less than that for two [2] seasons [2017 & 2018].
Derek rivers was a third round pick*
Sorry. Did not see this before making my redundant comment.
I think you will find that although Derek Rivers was the first player New England selected in the 2017 NFL Draft, he [Rivers] was actually a third round pick, number 83 overall. He is also a Defensive End, although he may take snaps at Outside Linebacker in one or more of the seemingly infinite defensive alignments Patriots DC Matt Patricia uses over the course of a season. Rob Ninkovich also takes a lot of snaps at Defensive End, so the number of Linebackers on the Patriots roster is not as cut-and-dried as it might be on other team’s rosters.
You could see this from a mile away if your a pats fan I said it the day he was cut