Harper has the unique privilege this year of having played with two inductees. After eight seasons with the Saints, he joined the Panthers and linebacker Luke Kuechly, another member of the Class of 2026, from 2014-15 before returning to New Orleans for his final season.
Harper saw Brees’ competitive edge as an opponent with the Panthers, and as a practice teammate with the Saints, especially on Competition Thursdays.
“I learned a lot from Drew just asking questions,” he said. “I learned a lot just from going against the best offense in the NFL for many, many years in New Orleans. To me, that was the best advantage we had, was using each other. Our aggressive-style defensive playcalling from (defensive coordinator) Gregg (Williams) and what we were doing defensively, we knew if it worked on Drew on Thursdays, we were gonna kick somebody’s butt on Sunday. So, we tried all of our new plays throughout the week versus our own offense.
“We wouldn’t practice what other teams were going to do, because we didn’t care. We had a better offense than what we’re facing, so let’s use it versus them and we’ll take time out — eight to 10 minutes of practice — to try and use some of these things and implement them and see how it works out. And Drew wouldn’t know. So, if Drew didn’t know and he couldn’t figure it out, we knew we had something really good.”
Good enough to for lots of wins, and good enough for Harper to enjoy one more victory formation.