A neck injury ended Damien Harris’ NFL career. Now, he has started down a new path.
Damien Harris’ plans for his post-football life have long been clear. Once his NFL career ended, the former Madison Southern High School star has always planned to transition into the broadcast media.
The former Alabama Crimson Tide running back never planned to be making that career shift, however, at age 27.
This fall, Harris is working for the streaming video sports channel CBS Sports HQ as an analyst on the weekly “College Football Pregame,” a show that streams live on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon (EDT).
“This was absolutely my plan,” Harris says of breaking into broadcasting. “I knew from the early days I would have a chance to do this. Now, my football career ending due to injury, that wasn’t what I was preparing for, not at all.”
Football coaches like to say that one play can change a game. As Harris can attest, one play can change your life.
Last Oct. 15, on “Sunday Night Football,” Harris was carrying the football for the Buffalo Bills when he struck his head on the shoulder of New York Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke.
For several scary moments in what would become a 14-9 Buffalo win, Harris lay motionless on the turf.
Ultimately, the former New England Patriots running back was placed onto an immobilizing board and carted from the field to an ambulance.
While this was happening, Harris says a “tsunami” of thoughts ran through him. “All I could think was, ‘I just got married. My wife is pregnant,’” he says.
Harris said he did not initially realize that the neck sprain and concussion he suffered that night had placed his professional football playing career was in jeopardy.
First in Buffalo, then in Atlanta, Harris underwent treatment and rehabilitation with the goal of returning to play in 2024. However, once he started training to get back into “football shape,” he did not get the results to which he was accustomed.
“That was hard, very hard,” Harris said. “There were a lot of tears. There was a lot of time I spent wondering why.”
In that instant, the need for Damien Harris to find a career other than toting the football became pressing.
Recruiting backlash
In the four seasons (2011 through 2014) Harris carried the ball for Madison Southern, the 5-foot-11, 200-pound running back wrote his name all over the Kentucky high school football record book.
Even though Harris missed four games in his senior season due to a knee injury, he ended his career 11th in state history in career rushing yards (6,748). Harris stands second in Kentucky high school history in career points (738), career touchdowns (122) and career rushing TDs (113).
Pursued by a who’s who of old-line football powers — Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and USC, just to name seven — Harris ultimately wound up choosing between becoming a cog in Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide dynasty or the face of Mark Stoops’ rebuilding effort at Kentucky.
When Harris chose Bama, some of his fellow Kentuckians did not handle the news with great maturity.
After he did not pick UK, Harris says someone whose Twitter profile identified himself as a pastor tweeted at the running back, “I hope you break your leg and it is a career-ending injury.”
To this day, Harris says he keeps a screen shot of that tweet as a motivational source.
A 17-year-old at the time, Harris says it was not easy to keep the backlash to his recruiting decision from affecting his psyche. “But I realized I had to build up my mental fortitude quick,” he says.
Among those in Kentucky who did not take their disappointment over Harris choosing to leave the state to play college football out on a teenager was Stoops.
“We maintained a pretty good relationship,” Harris says of the Kentucky coach. “A few times, I’ve been back around town and I’ve seen him. We talk. It’s been great.”
Saban and Belichick
In the four seasons Harris played for Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa, the Crimson Tide lost a grand total of four games. Harris has national championship rings from the 2015 and 2017 seasons.
Over the 56 games (2015 through 2018) that Harris wore Alabama crimson, he ran for 2,779 yards and 21 touchdowns and caught 52 passes for 407 yards and two TDs.
A third-round selection (No. 87 overall) in the 2019 NFL draft by the New England Patriots, Harris enjoyed a five year (2019 through 2023) pro career, the first four with the Pats and last season with the Bills.
In 44 NFL games, Harris made 34 starts and ran for 2,188 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also caught 42 passes for 297 yards.
Having played collegiately for Alabama and professionally for New England, Harris has first-hand insight into what it was like to play for two of the iconic coaches in football history — Saban and ex-Patriots head man Bill Belichick.
“Nick Saban is a firecracker waiting to explode,” Harris says. “With Nick Saban, if I mess up, I am going to get a tongue lashing and then he is going to slap me on the (butt) and tell me to get back out there and play the next play.”
Belichick, Harris says, employs a more caustic motivational approach.
“Bill is more of a silent killer,” Harris says. “He’s more like, ‘You know, that just really sucked. That just wasn’t good at all. I thought you were a much better player than that. If I thought you were going to do that, I wouldn’t have even drafted you.’ ... Some days, Bill just shakes you to your core.”
Becoming a broadcaster for CBS
Wishing to return to the South, Harris, his wife, Nyasha, and their six-month-old son, Dame II, have settled in Georgia.
From the time he was starring at Madison Southern, Harris says he treated every interview he did on television as an investment in his future.
Harris believes he got on the radar of CBS Sports HQ “when I jumped on to do a segment after Nick Saban retired” in January.
In August, it was announced that Harris was going to be the sideline reporter on the Crimson Tide Sports Network’s radio broadcasts of Alabama football games in 2024.
“Literally, the day that I was agreeing to it, CBS called up and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a spot that just opened up and you were the first person we thought of. Do you want to take it?’” Harris recalls. “I was like, ‘Of course.’”
As an analyst for CBS Sports HQ’s “College Football Pregame,” Harris appears with other ex-players, including Cardale Jones (Ohio State), Danny Kanell (Florida State) and Beanie Wells (Ohio State), to offer opinions and insights into each Saturday’s contests.
Though his football playing career ended earlier than he wishes, Harris says he is just getting started on his life’s phase two.
“If football is done, that doesn’t mean my life is done,” he says. “It doesn’t mean that I am done, either.”
This story was originally published October 4, 2024 at 6:59 AM.
