Instant Reaction: Damien Harris Signs With The Buffalo Bills

Photo: Andrew Nelles, USA Today Sports

Contract Terms

According to Adam Schefter, the Buffalo Bills have agreed to sign running back Damien Harris to a one-year contract.

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Fantasy Impact

Two years ago, Damien Harris led all running backs with a whopping 15 rushing touchdowns. He was graded as PFF’s best running back that season. Hopes were high going into last year, but Harris posted his worst season since playing just two games as a rookie. An injury-ridden 2022 campaign kept Harris from building off the success he found the previous year. Instead, second-year back Rhamondre Stevenson grasped the opportunity and ran away with the starting job in New England. Harris played just 11 games last year, being limited by injury in four. He only eclipsed a 50-percent snap share once in a Week 18 contest against the Buffalo Bills.

When healthy, Harris is a punishing and electric back. In his breakout 2021 season, he had 14 rushes of 15 or more yards, the fifth-most in the league. His 61 evaded tackles marked the 16th-most among running backs. He was a remarkable fantasy points compiler. Harris was a top-six running back in 20 percent of his 2021 starts. He was top-24 or better in 53 percent. He was top-36 or better in 80 percent. You could etch Harris’s name in stone for an RB3 finish or better. The only duds he had were against the Saints and Buccaneers, two of the best run defenses in the league. And on top of the consistent fantasy output, Harris gained notoriety as one of the league’s best blockers.

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However, the “when healthy” caveat is necessary. Harris missed 14 games as a rookie. He missed six games in Year 2. Even in his 15-touchdown 2021 campaign, he missed a pair of games. Nagging injuries have been the unfortunate theme of Harris’ career and were apparent again last year. But he hopes to put that behind him with a fresh start on a new team.

The Buffalo Bills are one of the most explosive offenses in the league. Their 6,361 offensive yards last season were the fourth-most in the NFL, behind only the Chiefs, Eagles, and Lions. They were top-ten in rushing yards despite being 20th in rushing attempts. Harris’ thunderous style of play is an excellent complement to James Cook’s lightning. Harris will step right into the role vacated by Devin Singletary that produced back-to-back RB2 seasons in fantasy. Through four seasons, Singletary has seen a minimum of 150 attempts in Buffalo, a number Harris has been bestowed just once. Singletary is a relatively slow 5-foot-7, 203-pound back forced into a power role. Harris is 5-foot-10 and 216 pounds with plenty of strength, high-end burst, and surprising long speed. He is tailor-made for the role that Buffalo will opt to use him in.

The downside to this role is the apparent lack of high-value touches. Cook projects to take on the majority of the pass-catching work. And Josh Allen’s 11 rushing attempts from inside the five-yard line last year were the 11th-most among all NFL players, running backs included. With over $250M tied up in Allen, the front office may be looking to ease his bruising carries at the goal line, and the addition of Harris certainly indicates that. But projecting a change in offensive philosophy from what we’ve seen through Allen’s career is a dangerous game.

Possible Outcomes

The best-case scenario is that Harris takes on the coveted role of a goal-line back on an explosive offense. He’d earn the occasional passing-down snap as a phenomenal blocker, one of Cooks’ weaknesses. That scenario would provide him with plenty of high-value touches and RB1 upside.

The likely scenario is that Harris is used as a between-the-20s bruiser, gets little work on passing downs, and cedes his goal-line work to Allen. Similar to what we’ve seen from Singletary, that provides steady RB2 output but a limited ceiling.

And the worst-case scenario is that Harris’ injury history follows him to Buffalo, where we get a handful of games in a limited role, burning your fantasy lineup.

Assuming no more notable additions to this backfield, Harris will likely land firmly in the running back dead zone. As the league skews towards committee approaches, that section of the draft is becoming more lucrative to savvy fantasy managers. Last year, Josh Jacobs, Miles Sanders, and Tony Pollard all fell into that dreaded bucket and produced top-10 fantasy seasons. The similarity between those three players was that they all played on explosive offenses. Harris finds himself in a similar situation, where he could surprise fantasy managers in 2023.

Overall, this signing is one of the best landing spots for Harris. His playstyle as a bruising back fits the exact need Buffalo has. He is more talented than the player whose void he is filling. Assuming full health, he will likely provide better value than the top-24 numbers we’ve grown to expect from Singletary. However, the presence of Cook and Allen could make his production tough to depend on.

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