49ers sign wr Chris Harper

I like that Harper came from a college offense that stressed blocking. Also, he should be agile enough to block in open space on opposing DBs. This was my only concern about Vance. Whether he was agile enough to block DBs in open space while lead blocking. I wonder if the coaching staff sees Harper as an upgrade or downgrade from Marquis Gray.

Originally posted by thl408:
I like that Harper came from a college offense that stressed blocking. Also, he should be agile enough to block in open space on opposing DBs. This was my only concern about Vance. Whether he was agile enough to block DBs in open space while lead blocking. I wonder if the coaching staff sees Harper as an upgrade or downgrade from Marquis Gray.

Well Harper was drafted in the 4th(and expected to go around that area) and Gray was undrafted, as expected. The only way Gray was an upgrade was that he would be a legitimate Emergency QB if we lost all QBs to injury in a game.

Otherwise Harper is faster, strictly played WR for 3 years but was recruited to Oregon as a QB -- so on paper Harper is exponentially better than Gray with the only downside being that he needs to play catchup with the playbook. Which may not be an issue because according to the almighty wonderlic score he was the highest scoring WR from the draft class. But I don't put a lot of stock into that test, just food for thought though.

Originally posted by cciowa:

Originally posted by Imfasterthanur:
Although AJ was more interested in disappearing during games than actually dropping passes.

he never put himself into a position where he could drop a pass as he never saw the playing field,,, of course when he tried, he just fell down alot

At least he was a solid tackler. 2 tackles in the preseason

Originally posted by sfout:

Originally posted by thl408:

I like that Harper came from a college offense that stressed blocking. Also, he should be agile enough to block in open space on opposing DBs. This was my only concern about Vance. Whether he was agile enough to block DBs in open space while lead blocking. I wonder if the coaching staff sees Harper as an upgrade or downgrade from Marquis Gray.

Well Harper was drafted in the 4th(and expected to go around that area) and Gray was undrafted, as expected. The only way Gray was an upgrade was that he would be a legitimate Emergency QB if we lost all QBs to injury in a game.

Otherwise Harper is faster, strictly played WR for 3 years but was recruited to Oregon as a QB -- so on paper Harper is exponentially better than Gray with the only downside being that he needs to play catchup with the playbook. Which may not be an issue because according to the almighty wonderlic score he was the highest scoring WR from the draft class. But I don't put a lot of stock into that test, just food for thought though.

Harbaugh said we had Patton rated just ahead of Harper so we valued him in the 4th. He was gone was why we didn't initially take him. Now obviously we didn't consider Gray draftable because we didn't. Even with the throwaways in the 7th. This tells me we valued Harper much higher than Gray out of the draft

Good call Pillbusta.

There have been a number of articles that say this guy can be a good player.

I like this take.
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcwest/post/_/id/108129/thoughts-on-the-49er-way

Originally posted by SnakePlissken:
LOL this really shows you how worthless Pete Carroll is as a coach, they run a system similar to ours (not to detail, but it's also an option-WCO hybrid), yet they couldn't try this themselves, when their TEs are mediocre?

Seriously, these little details, this stuff is why we're gonna go to a dozen SBs under Harbaugh, while Pete might not even have a job in two years. Harbaugh knows what to do with players in his system on EVERY SIDE OF THE BALL, while Pete Carroll doesn't even know what to do with his own defense in a playoff game.

I'm not sure you can knock Pete Carroll lack of innovation. From the 6'3" & 6'4" corners that most people said were "too big" to play corner in the NFL, to 325 lb DE that people said was "too big to play DE in a 4-3," to converting a 7th round DT to a starting guard, to converting a college RB to LB, a legally deaf FB, to the QB that is too short. If anything Carroll has shown he's willing to think outside the box more than just about any other coach in the league.

The reality is Harper just became a number casualty in Seattle. While SF is pretty weak at WR until they get healthy, this move made sense for them, and could add him to the active roster. Moving Harper to TE in Seattle didn't make sense, as they already had to let an actual TE go that had looked very good in Sean McGrath (the Chiefs signed him away), and they're actually only carrying 2 on their roster to begin with.

It's too bad that Harper didn't show better in the preseason, cause I think he can be a pretty exciting player. He came in to camp with the rap on him being that he was fairly slow, and couldn't get a lot of separation, but was exteremely aggressive with making plays on balls in the air, and had good hands and great strength. Sort of like Joe Jurevicious.

While in Seattle, he validated his lack of separation, but showed next to nothing making plays on the ball, and showed pretty bad hands. Coupled with the fact that Kearse and Stephen Williams played out of their minds, there just wasn't room for him in Seattle. And he didn't show anything that indicated he is a player you have to make a spot for on the roster.

^^^ good post and thanks for that insight. Funny how we risked Gray and lost him and the Hawks risked Harper and lost him (to us). Either way, he'll probably be inactive most of, if not all, 2013. Does anyone know if he could be a player on ST?

And this does beg to question, does that mean we drop Celek soon? After Harper is further along in the playbook?

Just watched all the plays Harper was involved with in preseason. He actually has a similar running style to Delanie which is pretty funny. He also had similar hands lol. Overall Im pretty excited about the mismatches he can create in the future years.

Originally posted by natrone06:
Just watched all the plays Harper was involved with in preseason. He actually has a similar running style to Delanie which is pretty funny. He also had similar hands lol. Overall Im pretty excited about the mismatches he can create in the future years.

so he can only catch half the balls thrown to him and then fumble away a third of the ones he does catch

Originally posted by hondakillerzx:

Originally posted by natrone06:
Just watched all the plays Harper was involved with in preseason. He actually has a similar running style to Delanie which is pretty funny. He also had similar hands lol. Overall Im pretty excited about the mismatches he can create in the future years.

so he can only catch half the balls thrown to him and then fumble away a third of the ones he does catch

yeah but he's fast and he can block!

Originally posted by hondakillerzx:

so he can only catch half the balls thrown to him and then fumble away a third of the ones he does catch

Yeah we get it. In the zone if you are not a superstar you must be a scrub. Not every player is going to be flawless. That doesn't mean they don't add value to the roster. Despite walkers hands, he was the offenses biggest mismatch last year and defenses never knew what to do with him. And that's exactly why the titans signed him to a 4 year 18million dollar contract.

If harper becomes near the player delanie was, the 49ers will have done very well for themselves.

Originally posted by natrone06:
Yeah we get it. In the zone if you are not a superstar you must be a scrub. Not every player is going to be flawless. That doesn't mean they don't add value to the roster. Despite walkers hands, he was the offenses biggest mismatch last year and defenses never knew what to do with him. And that's exactly why the titans signed him to a 4 year 18million dollar contract.

If harper becomes near the player delanie was, the 49ers will have done very well for themselves.

Watched the SuperBowl yesterday on NFLN, forgot how big of an impact Walker had. The block on Reed for the TD and then the ensuing kickoff he body slammed the return man. Plus Delanie Walker on this team is the 3rd TE behind McDonald. He is LaMichael James at TE and won't see the playing field unless someone is injured, but has intangibles at the position to be something special in sub packages.

Originally posted by natrone06:

Originally posted by hondakillerzx:

so he can only catch half the balls thrown to him and then fumble away a third of the ones he does catch

Yeah we get it. In the zone if you are not a superstar you must be a scrub. Not every player is going to be flawless. That doesn't mean they don't add value to the roster. Despite walkers hands, he was the offenses biggest mismatch last year and defenses never knew what to do with him. And that's exactly why the titans signed him to a 4 year 18million dollar contract.



If harper becomes near the player delanie was, the 49ers will have done very well for themselves.

Without spending the draft pick too

I think just the value is worth it. we just "drafted" a 4th round pick lol.

Will miss Cam.. but if harper helps us beat SEA, then its worth it

Matt Maiocco ‏@MaioccoCSN

Seahawks did not offer Chris Harper spot on their 53-man roster. Instead, offered more than $6,000 weekly minimum for P-squad to retain him.