When Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison were introduced as the newest members of NBC's NFL commentating team, I figured that NBC was trying a "good cop/bad cop" routine.Dungy could appear on Football Night in America to offer his analysis from his perspective as the consummate nice guy, while Harrison could play the heel, ripping everyone and everything.
In one of Harrison's first interviews since getting the NBC job, he strongly indicated that the bad cop will, indeed, be his role.
Harrison said this to Peter King of SI.com:
"This is football in the National Football League. I hit a guy with my forearm in his throat or his chest area, and they're trying to fine me. It's football! It's not my fault if the guy curls up like a little girl because he doesn't want to get hit. Are you kidding me? And then I get hit with a $120,000 fine because I hit Jerry Rice. Do you think I'm going to let Jerry Rice catch a slant route in the end zone? I don't care what it costs me, I'm going to try to knock his head off.Harrison may have a decent point when he says the NFL goes too far in protecting offensive players. We've all seen players get flagged for unnecessary roughness on what was really a good, clean hard tackle.
"Football now is turning into a soft, pansy sport. This is not volleyball! This is not tennis! This is some of the biggest, fastest, strongest men in the world. I think it's absolutely ridiculous. I went out on my own terms. It won't bother me anymore ... They need to put some more defensive players in that NFL front office. [NFL director of football operations and finemeister] Gene Washington is an offensive guy. Do you think he wants to turn on the TV and see his fellow receivers get their head knocked off? He never liked me in the first place. But that's fine. They need to put defensive players in the office so we won't have such a biased opinion from one guy."
But Harrison is wrong to portray himself as a victim in all this. The reason Harrison got fined so often is that he really was a dirty player. When Harrison left the field for the TV studio, the NFL got a little less dirty. That doesn't mean it's a pansy league; it means the league now has one fewer cheap shot artist.
Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Rodney Harrison and players like him rely on cheap shots to compensate for a lack of REAL talent.
It is players like Rodney Harrison, that take cheap shots, who try to injur there opponents, that have caused the NFL to make the rules more restrictive.
SO SHUT UP RODNEY!
Pansies.
If you get hit hard enough, you won't really want to catch the football anymore. Sounds like solid D to me. Theres a reason why chicks don't play.
There's just something about watching a receiver get destroyed trying to catch a pass over the middle. If you think about it, it's the quarterback's fault for throwing the ball into a spot where the receiver is going to get knocked into next week. Fine the quarterbacks!
lack of real teallent??!! you gotta be kiddin me cant handle a a hard it dont suit up ppl like u make this sport the way it is..it football dont wanna cross ova go play flag thats how every kid should play full 60 mins balls to the wall make everyone pay for crossin ur way
Call him a dirty player all you want, that is simply your opinion, which means pretty much nothing. The truth is that most defensive players would agree with Harrison. Since they are the ones playing the game, maybe their opnions are more important than say, a writer?
southpole80, not only are you wrong, but yo need some education as well. It's "talent", not "teallent" , "people", not "ppl" , "over", not "ova"... get my point, retard? The hardest hitter in the history of the NFL was Butkus and he wasn't a dirty player. Rodney Harrison is a punk.
Armando Martinez states that Dick Butkus was the hardest hitter in the game, and he may very well be right, but in todays game Butkus would have been labeled a "dirty player" and his fines would have been so high he would have been playing just to pay them off....the NFL has gone way too soft....Harrison is totally spot on and is just as clean a player as Butkus ever was!
The dolphins this year had several players walk off because they couldn't hang in practice they didn't even wait to be cut. These men aren't getting payed to play flag football. Man up or get off the football field and look into baseball!
The NFL is the no fun league and slowly becoming no fullcontact league