“I’ve been gone two years and I look around the locker room and I know more coaches than I do players,” Harper said Thursday. “It’s weird.”
So, too, Harper has changed.
No longer is he the spry, second-round draft pick of 2006. Or the quarterback-seeking safety of 2011 who led the Saints with 7.5 sacks, the best single-season total posted by a Saints defensive back since the NFL officially began recording sacks in 1982. Or the 951-snap playing starter – 86.5 percent of the defensive snaps – who helped the Carolina Panthers finish 15-1 in the 2015 regular season and advance to the Super Bowl.