Most people remember Raymont Harris for his career with the Chicago Bears from 1994 to 1997, but most don’t remember the latter half of his career.
Most people don’t even remember that Harris played for the Packers for one season in 1998.
I wanted to dig a little deeper into the signing and what happened to Raymont Harris in the 1998 season.
Background
The situation is nearly similar to the one the Packers had this year.
The team went into the 1997 off-season with some uncertainty at Running Back.
Dorsey Levens, who was the teams top running back and rusher the season before, was looking for a new contract.
Levens rushed for 1,435 yards in 1997, 39 short of the team record for rushing yards at the time.
He decided to holdout for most of training camp and pre-season, a move that would prove costly in the future.
Meanwhile, the Bears signed another former Packers running back Edgar Bennett.
Bennett was coming off a torn achilles injury and missed all of the 1997 season.
The signing of Harris
With Bennett signing with the Bears, it made Harris expendable.
Furthermore, with the Packers looking for a possible replacement for Levens, they signed Harris to a one year, $1.3 million contract.
Harris had just come off his best season of his career, rushing for 1,033 yards and 10 touchdowns.
But unlike the Jacobs signing, the Packers didn’t want to risk signing Harris to a big contract.
The reason behind that was Harris’s past injuries.
While Harris had his best season in 1997, he only played in 13 games before breaking his leg.
But with the signing of Harris, the Packers thought they had someone who could carry the load for them, if Levens held out.
Harris’s disaster 1998 season
Remember when I told you about Levens holding out would prove costly for the Packers?
Well here is the part where I tell you why.
Levens ended his hold out when the Packers gave him a monster five-year, $25 million contract.
After signing the contact, Levens played in only 7 quarters before fracturing his fibula.
He went on to miss 9 games but was never the same again.
Meanwhile, Raymont Harris took over for Levens but the Packers running game wasn’t the same.
Quite frankly, Harris wasn’t the same running back he was in 1997, before his leg injury.
Still limping around on his surgically repaired leg, Harris only played in 8 games for the Packers.
In those 8 games he only rushed for 228 yards on 79 carries and found the endzone once.
Harris missed the 1999 season before signing with the Broncos and Patriots in 2000 before retiring in 2001.
Conclusion
As I said in the beginning of this article, this is eerily similar to what happened this year at Running Back for the Packers.
Even though the outcome isn’t determined yet for the 2024 Packers, the 1998 Packers learned a hard lesson.
Sometimes, big time free agent Running Back don’t pan out.
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Hau Khuong has been a Packers fan since 1996. He currently works as a video editor in Green Bay and writes for PackersTalk.com and you can follow him on twitter at @HauKhuongSports.
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