Desmond Harrison was presented with the daunting task of filling Joe Thomas’s considerable shoes. Harrison got the surprise start at left tackle for the Cleveland Browns in Week 1. That’s quite a leap of faith in the undrafted rookie from West Georgia.

Harrison has had a generally negative set of reviews from most of the national media. Because some of the comments and statistics posted in the case against him struck us oddly, Lance Zierlein, Connor Rogers and myself sat down and watched the All-22 film of the Browns/Steelers game to focus on Harrison’s performance.

Zierlein is the man who writes all the draft notes and evaluations for NFL.com, including Harrison’s this past winter. He’s also the son of longtime NFL OL coach Larry Zierlein, who had a tour of duty with the Browns. Rogers is a lead NFL analyst for Bleacher Report and The Draft Network as well as the co-host of the Stick to Football Podcast.

Lance hosted and drove the conversation. Rather than going through the blow-by-blow, here’s the summary of what we saw in our viewing and open discussion.

Stats

I pegged Harrison on the hook for one clear sack, a play where his inside foot got caught on LG Joel Bitonio and he tripped and fell. There was another sack where his blocking mark was the second man in and finished off Tyrod Taylor, but the initial pressure and contact with the QB was not his responsibility.

He was indeed guilty of his two false starts. He was not flagged for holding, nor did we really see any egregious holds that went uncalled on his part.

We counted three pass plays where Harrison was clearly defeated for a QB hurry, not counting the one full sack. Two other instances that could appear to be a loss on Harrison’s part were judged by us to be more the fault of Taylor, and another was rookie RB Nick Chubb going to the wrong side of the formation to pick up his protection.

But the stats aren’t nearly as important as the process behind them. We all evaluated Harrison as if we were grading him as a prospect, looking at physical and mental traits and abilities.

Strengths

Footwork

We all loved how quick Harrison moves his feet and how comfortable he is in moving them. He’s a natural athlete with the footwork of a good basketball player, instinctively on his toes and quick to shift his weight in coordination with his body.

Stickiness as a blocker

He’s very advanced for a rookie, even ones highly drafted, at staying engaged with the defender once he establishes contact. His smooth feet and balance help here. So does his patience and not committing too early to his block.

Recovery

When he does get beat, Harrison already displays exceptional athletic ability and wherewithal to stay in the play. There was one rep late in the game where Stephon Tuitt initially won with a powerful inside shoulder dip, getting into Harrison’s chest and starting to drive through him. Harrison reset his anchor and kept two hands on and steered him to where Taylor had an escape route (which he did not use).

Assignment identification

This was huge. You’d never know this was a player who wasn’t named a starter at his position until very late in the week and had not practiced at all with the first team throughout the preseason. Pittsburgh uses a lot of rush gimmicks, things like T-E twists, overloads and loops. Harrison missed exactly one pickup. One. And it didn’t impact the play negatively. By way of comparison, right tackle Chris Hubbard — a former Steeler who practiced against the defense every day — had at least three.

Weaknesses

Slow to fire

Zierlein’s biggest criticism was Harrison’s tendency to be slow out of his stance. It’s something we saw an example of on nearly every drive. He’s often a half-beat behind his linemates in firing off. We all agreed that a lack of practice reps and poor continuity in inclement weather likely played a role here and it should get better quickly.

His hands are also slow to fire. Don’t mistake that for slow hands; they’re plenty quick. Harrison just isn’t as aggressive in punching with him as he needs to be.

Conditioning

It was plainly obvious he got tired as the game progressed, more so compared to his teammates. Remember, Harrison missed almost all of training camp with a toe injury and hadn’t run a full practice with the first-team offense until the middle of last week. Zierlein noted the difference in competition from college to pros here, as well as the jump in training techniques from a D-II school to the NFL. This is an issue which should resolve itself.

Physical strength

Harrison has added about 15 pounds from his college playing weight. Most of it is very good weight, but he still needs to add more core and lower-body strength. All of the instances where we saw Harrison bending at the waist came when he was attempting to get more anchor strength.

One-dimensional opponent

Nearly all of Harrison’s reps came against Bud Dupree. None of us were impressed with Dupree’s very limited repertoire or basic technique. Dupree tries to win over the outside shoulder almost exclusively, and he doesn’t use his hands or shoulders well at all to try and disengage. The first time Dupree even tried to go inside on Harrison he beat the rookie, catching him off-guard. He almost never went back to it. Better pass rushers will offer a much greater technical challenge.

Overall we all liked the potential, and the actual product wasn’t bad at all, certainly not given the circumstances of Harrison’s debut. We found zero reason to panic or remove him from the starting lineup despite some obvious areas for targeted improvement.