It's starting to look like Harris' year

No doubt Bears DT already playing like one of league's best

Credit it to great athletic ability, the perfect system fit or instant karma. Whatever the reason, Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris has emerged as a legitimate candidate for the Defensive Player of the Year award -- just as he said he would during training camp.

Harris, San Diego's Shawne Merriman, Baltimore's Ray Lewis and Carolina's Julius Peppers probably are the front-runners for the award based on the first quarter of the season.

Harris made the Pro Bowl last season based on landslide voting from players and coaches, but limited support among fans. The public wasn't on board because he didn't have the most overwhelming statistics with just three sacks. Harris said he received the honor because the team was successful. It was an acknowledgment of the Bears' scheme and his crucial role in it, more than a personal award, in his opinion.

But with a quarter of the season over and Harris tied with three other players with five sacks, his goal of supplanting Brian Urlacher as the Defensive Player of the Year seems legitimate.

''This is my year to show everybody what I can do,'' Harris said. ''My maturity level has caught up with the business. I grew up a lot [in the offseason].''

Some guys lift weights all offseason, others break down tape and study schemes. But the secret to Harris' newfound maturity came in large part during a trip to Liberia in late May. Harris was part of a group of former Oklahoma University athletes and friends led by former Sooners great Dewey Selmon, who runs a Norman, Okla.-based charity called the Shine Foundation. Harris spent two weeks in the village of Gbamga, helping to build a school for an orphanage. He hauled cement blocks and worked as a laborer for two weeks on the project and called the experience among the greatest life lessons he has learned.

''It's too bad that you have to see someone else doing bad to know how fortunate you have it,'' Harris said. ''But it was a great experience. I think people should go to more Third World countries to appreciate how much we have. It made me appreciate things.''

Harris said the overwhelming memory of his time in Africa was the smiling faces and goodwill among people in a country that was devastated by civil war for more than 20 years.

''They're great people with a lot of potential,'' Harris said. ''I think it will be a great place within the next decade. They really enjoy life.''

Bears defensive coordinator Ron Rivera said Harris returned to the Bears with the maturity that comes with world travel and the experience of helping the disadvantaged, especially after a visit to the Third World. Rivera said such experiences have a profound effect on personal growth, and while it doesn't make a player faster or stronger, it directs focus in a different way.

Rivera said as long as two months ago that Harris' goal of being the Defensive Player of the Year was legitimate. He based that belief at the time on knowing the player and his ability, not on a study of what it would actually take. The award is 35 years old with linebackers being honored 13 times, the most of any position. Eight defensive ends and seven defensive tackles have won the award. Just seven members of the secondary (four cornerbacks, three safeties) have been named the Defensive Player of the Year.

Three of the last four honorees have been linebackers (Derrick Brooks, Ray Lewis and Urlacher), with safety Ed Reed winning the award in '04. Historically, the easiest way to win the award is by rushing the passer and getting sacks. Lawrence Taylor won the award three times as a linebacker, but it was his pass-rushing skills that made him so dangerous. Ditto Bryce Paup, who won the honor with Buffalo in 1995.

The NFL did not begin keeping official track of sacks until 1982, but it's believed that of the seven defensive tackles honored, only Joe Greene in 1974 didn't reach double digits in sacks. Greene was the only two-time winner at the position, being honored in 1972 and again in '74 when he was the central figure in Pittsburgh's Steel Curtain defense that won four Super Bowls.

Harris says personal goals come when team goals are achieved, and he's just one part of the Bears' package. Harris plays what's called the three-technique tackle position for the Bears. That means he lines up on the outside shoulder of a guard and shoots the gap to put pressure on the quarterback. That position in a cover-2 defense like the one the Bears are known for was defined by former Tampa Bay defensive tackle Warren Sapp, whom Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre compared Harris to earlier this year.

That might not be going far enough. Harris seems to be on the verge of exceeding Sapp's dominance because he's probafaster than Sapp ever was. There have been plenty of occasions this season -- certainly a number on Sunday night -- when Harris was off the ball and in the backfield before offensive linemen could get out off their stance to block him.

''Tommie is the best three-technique in the league,'' fellow defensive tackle Tank Johnson said. ''He's the best tackle in the league, period. I am going to be successful because he causes so many problems. Anytime you have a guy like Tommie on the line, it makes everyone's life easier, and he makes us operate at a high level.''

Coaches reviewing film of Sunday's game credited Harris with a season-high five tackles to go with two sacks and two quarterback hits. That gives him 12 tackles and four quarterback hits to go with his five sacks and one fumble recovery.

And although Harris keyed the Bears' victory over Minnesota by forcing a fumble with 3½ minutes left in the game, he wasn't officially credited with making that play. The Elias Stats Bureau ruled it an aborted play due to a fumble on the handoff from Brad Johnson to Chester Taylor; never mind that Harris was in the backfield to disrupt the play or that Taylor claimed responsibility for fumbling afterward.

Mike Mulligan and Sun-Times reporter Brian Hanley host a daily show from 10 a.m.-noon on WSCR-AM (670).

If Tommie Harris wants to win the Defensive Player of the Year award, all he has to do is keep getting sacks. The NFL did not keep official track of the statistic until 1982, but the last four award winners excelled in that area. Here's a look at the defensive tackles who have won the Defensive Player of the Year award, along with their number of sacks:

1971	Alan Page	Minnesota	10
1972	Joe Greene	Pittsburgh	11
1974	Joe Greene	Pittsburgh	9
1989	Keith Millard	Minnesota	18
1992	Cortez Kennedy	Seattle	14
1997	Dana Stubblefield	San Francisco	15
1999	Warren Sapp	Tampa Bay	12.5