Steelers linebacker James Harrison doesn’t think he broke the rules when he delivered a helmet-to-helmet hit against Browns receiver Mohamed Massaquoi. And he continued to make his case on Tuesday’s Dan Patrick Show.
“I would definitely be shocked if I was suspended for that,” Harrison said, hours before he was fined $75,000. “If you take a look at that hit you will see I am lowering my angle to try and hit him in his waist. At the last minute he lowers down and comes into contact with my head. I can’t stop that. What do they want me to do, dive in the dirt? Last minute we catch helmet to helmet and I can’t control that.”
Harrison raised a good point regarding the difference between hitting a guy high and hitting a guy low. Though hits to the knees and legs of runners and receivers are considered clean under the rules, players who are hit in the knees get upset by such assaults on their livelihood, and they consider the move dirty.
Either way, Harrison apparently won’t get the message about head safety based on a fine. And for good reason. Though the $75,000 penalty nearly matches two game checks under his 2010 base salary of $750,000, Massaquoi’s agent, Brian Ayrault, told Tony Grossi of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that the fine represents only a small portion of Harrison’s total pay since getting his long-term contract extension in April 2009.
“They fined him $75,000 and he’s earned over $20 million the past couple years,” Ayrault told Grossi. “What kind of deterrent is that? That’s less than one percent.” (Ayrault raises a good point that we’ve mentioned in the past; fines should be based not on game checks but on cap number, which takes into account bonus amounts spread over time.)
“I think the only way you deter this type of behavior is to suspend him,” Ayrault said. “You have to make the team play without one of their best players. Cleveland might be without Mohamed this week and Harrison plays on for the Steelers. How is that fair to the Browns?
“The Browns are going to be minus a starter. The Steelers should be minus a starter.”
Ayrault is right. Still, Harrison says he won’t be doing things differently, an observation he provided even before finding out he wouldn’t be fined.
“To really be honest, I don’t think it’s going to change the way I play the game,” Harrison said. “There’s a lot of hoopla going around that I’m a dirty player. I’m not trying to injure anyone. It’s a physical game, it’s a violent game. You’re going to get hurt.”
But even without an intent to injure, playing in a way that is intended to inflict pain inevitably will result in injury. Or, possibly, playing in a way aimed at merely teaching a lesson.
“He was running his mouth and getting in the way of the train, and the train wasn’t coming off the track,” Harrison said in August after flattening Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton, who made the mistake of trying to tackle Harrison after he returned a turnover that ultimately was turned over by replay review.
“He was popping off down there the first time they were about to score,” Harrison said. “So you run your mouth, expect to get something. Everything’s between the lines, so he got what he had coming.”
Sorry, but a guy like that won’t learn his lesson from a fine or a single-game suspension.
We’re not sure even a multi-game suspension would change him.