On the football field, as in nearly every arena in life, the punishment doesn’t always fit the crime.
James Harrison of the Pittsburgh Steelers has become the poster child for the NFL’s crackdown on dangerous tackling. And he has paid the price in fines. His teammate Troy Polamalu has defended him, but Harrison’s reputation as a dirty player is growing. (As a Steelers fan, I do not subscribe to this view.)
So what do you do if you’re playing the Steelers and want to take your own shot at a player you think is dirty, but don’t want to incur any significant punishment yourself?
According to Harrison, the Baltimore Ravens had a good idea on Monday night. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Harrison and several Steelers players are upset over a false-start penalty against Ravens guard Chris Chester on an extra point Sunday night that, they say, wasn’t as harmless as it might appear.
Harrison said he thinks Chester was deliberately trying to hit him or perhaps even injure him because Chester fired out on the play – something offensive linemen are not taught to do on extra points or field goals.
“Of course it was deliberate,” Harrison said today in the Steelers locker room. “There’s no way that happens on an extra point because [offensive linemen] don’t shoot out. It’s obvious it was blatant. It was on purpose.”
Asked if it was a cheap shot, Harrison said, “Yeah it’s cheap, but when it comes down to it, it’s only a 5-yard penalty, they move back to the 7 and re-kick. It’s not going to hurt them.”
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Harrison isn’t dirty? Ha!
The headplant of Vince Young and the flurry of punches he threw at Francisco in the Superbowl immediately come to mind.
As does the term “cognitive dissonance”
Harrison has been screwed by some of the fines, but he does definitely deserve his dirty reputation. It is the same as Rasheed Wallace, when he was still playing.
If you rightfully earn a certain rep, then you will often be “guilty until proven innocent” on ambiguous plays.
The whining for Harrison is pretty amazing here.
@John Squire-
Having played football myself, and having had a concussion that left me in difficulty eating or sleeping due to nausea for about 6 months, I respectfully disagree with your comments. Football players want to play, and they like the intensity, I know I did, but lines need to be drawn on what is just legalized brutality vs. after-effects of the game.
bryan misses the point. Chester wasn’t trying to injure Harrison, he was trying to bait him into retaliation and maybe get him thrown out of the game. Trade a chump for a champ.Before this “evolutionary” season, players like Harrison were idolized and became the stuff of legend. NFL.com actually featured a photo for sale of Harrison hitting the Browns’ Massaquoi. The NFL advertises its thrilling, violent, awe-inspiring product and then slams a guy for doing what he was taught at all levels of his career and has become one of the best in the game. Harrison should be applauded for the relative level of cool he has maintained through all this confusion and financial punishment. Yes, I’m a Steeler fan.
@Dan Malloy
You got it, brother. Where would Dick Butkus, Lawrence Taylor, Joe Greene, and Ronnie Lott (all generally considered in the top 50 players in history), among others, be in history had today’s new rules been in place then? Vilified? Or simply forgotten, because they’d merely played patty-cake with the men blocking them.
Maybe fewer players from that era would suffer from long-term brain issues, but the mythology of great football players would be different. In the future, will we look back in honor at – yech – wide receivers, because they never tried to hit anybody?
@Mike What Harrison did to Fitzpatrick was for years and years a standard play, drawing no foul. It was accepted up until even last year and is MILES less vicious than what QB’s dealt with even 20 years ago. Watch the NFL Network’s America’s Game series to see some clips of what play was like several years ago. Or watch any old Super Bowl, for that matter.
Maybe this kind of play/these rules is better? I won’t necessarily argue, but that just means we have to accept a whole new level of contact and type of game. And it’s disappointing.
Fatigue loses football games. The faster you can wear out your opponent while preserving your own energy, the better chance you stand of making a late game surge. Players should be tackling hard. If it’s hard enough to really tire out players faster, good. If it crosses a line and causes serious threat to someone’s safety and cognitive ability, bad. Harrison has been involved in some questionable but not blatant plays. I see no proof that he has intentionally tried to cause lasting harm to a player. Josh Cribbs runs like lightening and to let up or go easy in trying to tackle him before he cuts and changes direction is basically giving him more yards. Massaquoi definitely lowered his head into Harrison, Harrison hit him too hard and he paid a grossly exaggerated fine. Vince Young got dropped hard in a scuffle of players. As for Brees, sure, throw the flag. Fitzpatrick’s tackle a fine?! No way, that’s garbage. See how all these incidents pile up on one player till everything little thing he does becomes wildly exaggerated. This “thug” that everyone is taking their own verbal cheap shots at is a father, a husband and was a blue collar worker before getting another chance at playing football. So if you want to criticize how he plays football, go ahead. But calling him names in print that you wouldn’t dare repeat in person is cowardly. Maybe the naysayers should strap on some pads, drop back in the pocket and show him how to play.
Matthew,
He may be a good person, maybe even a great person, but calling the Vince Young headplant a “scuffle of players” is a stretch too far. Several Steelers were trying to pull Young down. Only Harrison chose to pick him up and slam him on his head. This is not a new rule.
One needn’t be a Steeler hater to think Harrison deserves his rep (not to say some of his punishments weren’t wrong), but compare Harrison to Mike Tomlin and Troy Polamalu are two of the classiest guys in football. Do they lose their respective edges by being clean and playing by the rules?
And Harrison’s public mopery and childish whining about quitting was one of the more pathetic stunts I saw in the NFL this year. He must have been talking to TO about that one.
I would say any of this to Harrison’s face.
I don’t like the way elite QBs are overprotected, but I am not going to be a chicken little and say the sky is falling.
The NFL is overreacting right now, but I am pretty sure they will find a pretty decent middle ground in a few seasons.
We don’t want the NFL to leave a trail of zombies and cripples among its former ranks…that helped end the relavance of boxing.