LB targets Goodell, Green Bay

By MIKE VACCARO
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/
February 2, 2011

PITTSBURGH - JANUARY 28: James Harrison talks to fans during the Super Bowl XLV Pep Rally on January 28, 2011 at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

ARLINGTON, Texas — James Harrison is not to be trifled with.

Kurt Warner found that out the hard way in Super Bowl XLIII two years ago. Eighteen seconds remained in the first half, and the Cardinals were 2 yards from taking a 14-10 lead into the locker room when Warner tried to fire a pass to Anquan Boldin; Harrison stepped in front, and 18 seconds later was collapsing in the end zone with a 100-yard interception return, the longest — and maybe most spectacular — play in Super Bowl history.

Mohamed Massaquoi of the Browns found that out the hard way earlier this season, the same way scores of offensive players across the NFL have discovered the same difficult truth. Massaquoi was crossing the middle of the field at Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field, reaching for a pass from Colt McCoy on a bright, sunny day when suddenly his world went dark; Harrison had flattened him, the most replayed hit of the entire season.

Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, certainly found that out yesterday, as if he didn’t already know. It was Goodell, of course, who decided to make an example of Harrison in the aftermath of that Massaquoi hit, who slapped the Steelers’ linebacker with a $75,000 fine, who docked Harrison $100,000 this season for various crushing, crunching blows. And who inspired this gem of a monologue from Harrison yesterday that must be read, if possible, with tongue both firmly planted in cheek and razzing out of the mouth:

“I don’t want to hurt nobody,” Harrison said. “I don’t want to step on nobody’s foot or hurt their toe. I don’t want to have no dirt or none of this rubber on this field fly into their eye and make their eye hurt. I just want to tackle them softly on the ground and if you all can, we’ll lay a pillow down where I’m going to tackle them, so they don’t hit the ground too hard ... “

And then, the punchline, literally and figuratively:

“. . . Mr. Goodell.”

Yes, James Harrison was in an ornery mood yesterday, arriving at the latest Super Bowl with the same flair with which he left his last one. Santonio Holmes may have won the MVP when the Steelers beat the Cardinals thanks to his game-winning grab, but that catch would be little more than a footnote without Harrison’s half-ending heroics.

He arrived at his media session 10 minutes late, didn’t like his chair, demanded and received a new one, slapped a Gatorade bottle off the podium and when a helpful assistant put another bottle up there he slapped that one off, too, pointing to a yellow Steelers baseball cap in front of him and saying, “That’s the only thing I want up here.”

And then he cleared his throat.

“It’s a physical game. It’s a violent game. You can’t control everything,” he said, when the questions started almost universally spinning in the same direction, about whether he’s a dirty player, whether it’s a dirty game, whether he’d changed his approach since Goodell’s midseason edict that hard hits of “defenseless” offensive players would no longer be tolerated.

“It’s getting to a point where you’re going to have to put flags on us to at least protect the quarterbacks, because that’s what it comes down to, protecting them,” he said. “You tell me how many people will watch the game with flags on us. See how popular the game is then.”

Later, he talked about how Goodell was looking for a “poster boy” for his new standards of violence “and he found me.” Someone asked Harrison if he’d seen the helmet-to-helmet hit Chicago’s Julius Peppers laid on Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the NFC Championship Game, and he said he had.

“Did he get a penalty?” he asked. “Yes,” he was told. “And a fine.”

“How much?” he asked. Ten thousand dollars, he was told.

“How much?” he said again, then smiled. “I guess he isn’t me.”

He was asked if all the attention had made him resentful.

“They took $100,000 out of my pocket,” he said. “You think I’m not bitter?”

Good luck to the Packers dealing with a trifled-with Harrison.

Good luck to them, indeed.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com

Related:

Ron Cook: Harrison's sarcasm crosses line -

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11033/1122316-66.stm