fordfixer
01-30-2009, 01:11 AM
Baddest Steeler has soft side
BY JOHN DUDLEY
john.dudley@timesnews.com
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art ... 1/SPORTS19 (http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090129/SPORTS0509/301299883/-1/SPORTS19)
Published: January 29. 2009 12:01AM
The scariest man in the Steelers' locker room is addicted to Cartoon Network.
James Harrison is one of those guys who was blessed with a perma-scowl, which is great if you happen to teach seventh-graders or play football.
He could frighten an iron worker by asking the time of day.
He is basically unblockable, which is why opponents increasingly have resorted to corralling the Steelers' right outside linebacker by hooking one arm around his neck and pulling him to the ground, calf roping-style.
Once in a while, Harrison even draws a holding call.
(Turns out referees don't scare quite as easily as iron workers.)
Harrison arrived in Pittsburgh in 2002 as an undrafted rookie free agent from Kent State, where there must be something that puts football players in a bad mood.
That's where Jack Lambert went to college.
And if you met Harrison and Lambert in a dark alley, you would surrender on sight your socks, your wedding ring and anything else they forgot to ask for. Then you'd thank them for not planting you in the sidewalk.
If only quarterbacks were so lucky.
Harrison had 16 sacks this season, and most of them looked like they hurt worse than dental implants.
This is the guy who until becoming a starter last year was best known for pile-driving a Browns fan who had the bad judgment to wander onto the field in Cleveland on Christmas Eve 2005 drunk and begging for trouble.
If Larry Fitzgerald is the player the Steelers can't afford to let run loose in their secondary Sunday, then Harrison is the player the Cardinals can't afford to let run loose in their backfield.
Either one can wreck a game plan quicker than a midweek call from Al Davis.
Yet Harrison has a softer side. Well, if not softer, at least funnier.
Among Harrison's revelations at Tuesday's Super Bowl Media Day was that he might be the only pro football player alive who doesn't go home and overdose on highlights of himself on SportsCenter.
"I really don't watch sports," Harrison said. "I go home and I watch cartoons 24/7. I couldn't tell you what's on ESPN or NFL Network or whatever it may be. Like this (Media Day) right here? I won't see this. I don't have a favorite cartoon but I have a group of cartoons that I like to watch like Adult Swim, Family Guy, American Dad and stuff like that. Or I can go old-school with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and a little bit of Pink Panther."
So, the most fearsome Steelers defender since Lambert gets pumped up by watching a duck dodge potshots from Elmer Fudd?
Maybe that's fitting, since Harrison didn't take a direct route to NFL stardom.
The Steelers released him three times, and the Baltimore Ravens banished him to NFL Europe, then cut him when he returned home.
By 2004, Harrison was ready to leave football.
"I almost quit to become a bus driver," Harrison said. "If I didn't get in (to the NFL), then I was going to get a regular job like everyone else."
But he found a home on special teams with the Steelers, and when Joey Porter became too loud and too expensive to keep around, he inherited Porter's pass rushing role.
Harrison finished the 2007 season with 8½ sacks and was voted a Pro Bowl starter and team MVP.
Turns out that was only a glimpse of what he would become this year.
His team-record 16 sacks ranked fourth in the league and earned him the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year award.
Once second-year left outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley emerged as a pass-rushing force from the opposite side, teams were left to decide whether to continue to use two blind-side blockers on Harrison and let Woodley tear them apart, or try to find a way to block them both.
Hemlock or arsenic?
That's the dilemma confronting the Cardinals and their done-all, seen-all veteran quarterback, Kurt Warner, this weekend.
"They're going to throw things at us that we've never seen before," Warner said.
And some of them are bound to hurt.
JOHN DUDLEY can be reached at 870-1677 or john.dudley@timesnews.com.
BY JOHN DUDLEY
john.dudley@timesnews.com
http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art ... 1/SPORTS19 (http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090129/SPORTS0509/301299883/-1/SPORTS19)
Published: January 29. 2009 12:01AM
The scariest man in the Steelers' locker room is addicted to Cartoon Network.
James Harrison is one of those guys who was blessed with a perma-scowl, which is great if you happen to teach seventh-graders or play football.
He could frighten an iron worker by asking the time of day.
He is basically unblockable, which is why opponents increasingly have resorted to corralling the Steelers' right outside linebacker by hooking one arm around his neck and pulling him to the ground, calf roping-style.
Once in a while, Harrison even draws a holding call.
(Turns out referees don't scare quite as easily as iron workers.)
Harrison arrived in Pittsburgh in 2002 as an undrafted rookie free agent from Kent State, where there must be something that puts football players in a bad mood.
That's where Jack Lambert went to college.
And if you met Harrison and Lambert in a dark alley, you would surrender on sight your socks, your wedding ring and anything else they forgot to ask for. Then you'd thank them for not planting you in the sidewalk.
If only quarterbacks were so lucky.
Harrison had 16 sacks this season, and most of them looked like they hurt worse than dental implants.
This is the guy who until becoming a starter last year was best known for pile-driving a Browns fan who had the bad judgment to wander onto the field in Cleveland on Christmas Eve 2005 drunk and begging for trouble.
If Larry Fitzgerald is the player the Steelers can't afford to let run loose in their secondary Sunday, then Harrison is the player the Cardinals can't afford to let run loose in their backfield.
Either one can wreck a game plan quicker than a midweek call from Al Davis.
Yet Harrison has a softer side. Well, if not softer, at least funnier.
Among Harrison's revelations at Tuesday's Super Bowl Media Day was that he might be the only pro football player alive who doesn't go home and overdose on highlights of himself on SportsCenter.
"I really don't watch sports," Harrison said. "I go home and I watch cartoons 24/7. I couldn't tell you what's on ESPN or NFL Network or whatever it may be. Like this (Media Day) right here? I won't see this. I don't have a favorite cartoon but I have a group of cartoons that I like to watch like Adult Swim, Family Guy, American Dad and stuff like that. Or I can go old-school with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and a little bit of Pink Panther."
So, the most fearsome Steelers defender since Lambert gets pumped up by watching a duck dodge potshots from Elmer Fudd?
Maybe that's fitting, since Harrison didn't take a direct route to NFL stardom.
The Steelers released him three times, and the Baltimore Ravens banished him to NFL Europe, then cut him when he returned home.
By 2004, Harrison was ready to leave football.
"I almost quit to become a bus driver," Harrison said. "If I didn't get in (to the NFL), then I was going to get a regular job like everyone else."
But he found a home on special teams with the Steelers, and when Joey Porter became too loud and too expensive to keep around, he inherited Porter's pass rushing role.
Harrison finished the 2007 season with 8½ sacks and was voted a Pro Bowl starter and team MVP.
Turns out that was only a glimpse of what he would become this year.
His team-record 16 sacks ranked fourth in the league and earned him the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year award.
Once second-year left outside linebacker LaMarr Woodley emerged as a pass-rushing force from the opposite side, teams were left to decide whether to continue to use two blind-side blockers on Harrison and let Woodley tear them apart, or try to find a way to block them both.
Hemlock or arsenic?
That's the dilemma confronting the Cardinals and their done-all, seen-all veteran quarterback, Kurt Warner, this weekend.
"They're going to throw things at us that we've never seen before," Warner said.
And some of them are bound to hurt.
JOHN DUDLEY can be reached at 870-1677 or john.dudley@timesnews.com.