MIAMI -- It was kind of nice to see a crowd of reporters assembled around New Orleans strong safety Roman Harper on media day. Harper’s one of the most underrated players on this team and he’s also a very good quote.

This gave the national media a good chance to hear Harper, who’s been overshadowed by other members of the secondary this season. That’s kind of sad because Harper actually had a very good year.

He took a lot of blame in past years, but most of that came because he was trying to help out cornerbacks that weren’t very good. Once the Saints put Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter out there as the starting corners at the beginning of the season and added veteran free safety Darren Sharper in free agency, it seemed like Harper suddenly wasn’t a problem anymore. He became a strength because he was allowed to do what he does best, which is to be an aggressive tackler, who doesn’t get hung out in deep coverage very often.

With Gregg Williams bringing in a new defensive scheme, Harper suddenly became a perfect fit.

“We have always understood that it is not about yards given up or anything like that, it’s all about points scored and limiting (mistakes) when in the red zone and always trying to force turnovers,’’ Harper said. “That’s what we always talk about, 'Why can’t we get a turnover every possession or why can’t we get the ball out?' We have got to do something and try to make something happen. It’s not always that our offense scores, maybe we can score. So we are always trying to affect the ball, trying to tackle the ball and trying to over-populate the ball with guys trying to tackle and get the ball out. We are always trying to talk about it, and the more you talk about it, it becomes more of an issue and you want to make it happen.”