EL SEGUNDO — Wide receiver Tre’ Harris broke from the line of scrimmage at the snap of the ball. He sprinted several yards from his spot on the right side of the Chargers’ formation, cut toward the middle of the field, turned his head quickly enough to pick up the flight of the ball and snare Justin Herbert’s pass.
To an untrained observer, it looked like a flawlessly executed play during an 11-on-11 drill Sunday. Harris’ route was precise and Herbert’s throw was on target. There seemed to be an easy connection between Harris, a second-year player, and Herbert, a seven-year veteran.
“Oh, I feel a lot more comfortable,” Harris said of his second training camp.
Rookie training camps can be disorienting for even the most polished, well-trained and high-performing draft picks. So, it’s no wonder Harris has felt more relaxed, more at home in his second one. He has a new offensive coordinator in Mike McDaniel, but even that’s been a smooth transition.
So far in training camp, Harris has found his comfort zone, and it’s not just while catching a well-thrown pass after running into the soft underbelly of the defense during a no-tackling scrimmage against his fellow Chargers. There have been some big differences between Season 1 and Season 2.
“I gained a few pounds of muscle,” Harris said of adding an extra seven to eight pounds. “That was kind of something me and my receivers coach (Sanjay Lal) talked about. I told him this offseason that I wanted to put on a little extra weight to be able to be more explosive and also stay fast and be stronger.”
Harris, 24, caught 30 passes for 324 yards and one touchdown in 17 games, including 10 starts, in his rookie season, after the Chargers drafted him in the second round from the University of Mississippi. It was a fine start to his career, but Harris said he wasn’t entirely pleased by the results.
“Last year, I wasn’t happy with how I performed the last half of the season, to be honest,” Harris said. “I felt like I was digressing, to be honest with you. So, I felt like going into this season, I had to stay on top of my food, my nutrition, stay on top of the weight room. Going through the offseason, I wanted to establish what I wanted to establish, and now I have a really good plan going into the season.”
So, Harris said he went into camp weighing 215 pounds.
The next adjustment was to learn all that McDaniel can teach about a higher-tempo offense than the Chargers played during Greg Roman’s two-season tenure as their offensive coordinator. Conviction over perfection has been one of McDaniel’s constant themes since his hiring in January.
Sounds clever, but what does it mean?
“Last year, I was super busy trying to be perfect in all my plays,” Harris said. “He, literally, came in and it was just, like, ‘You know what? Yeah, being perfect is cool and all, but if you have conviction going into a play, each and every play, full speed and you’ve got the defense on their heels the entire game, it doesn’t really matter how perfect you are. You’re going to make plays out of it.’
“And that’s something I’m trying to live by.”
There’s also another not-so-subtle tweak that McDaniel has made to the offense. It means Harris and the other Chargers receivers must be prepared to turn and look for Herbert’s passes faster than they did in the past. Herbert has been tasked with delivering his throws in 2.4 seconds or less.
“Just speeding up every single route, just being fast on the ball, that’s one thing we’ve emphasized this year, especially with the timing that we have in this offense with all the quick passes we’re going to have,” Harris said. “Justin, he’s just as accurate as ever, so you’ve got to get your head around and your hands up.”
Or else Harris and his fellow receivers risk getting conked in the helmet by one of Herbert’s accurate spirals.
EXTRA POINTS
Left tackle Rashawn Slater was absent from practice for the second consecutive day because of unspecified reasons. … Safety Derwin James Jr., cornerback Tarheeb Still and outside linebacker Bud Dupree also did not practice. … With Slater sidelined, Trey Pipkins III played left tackle with Branson Taylor at left guard in the unit blocking for Herbert for a second day in a row. … Cameron Dicker kicked field goals of 39, 53, 37 and 45 yards during a full-speed drill near the end of practice, but he also pulled a 42-yard try wide left.