Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

[hawaiiansteel]

Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

MONDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2010 13:31 WRITTEN BY ED BOUCHETTE


Not many seemed to find it troubling that James Harrison acknowledged pulling up rather than tackling Miami's Ronnie Brown on a play over the middle Sunday. Larry Foote went ahead and made the tackle.

In fact, those I've heard talk about it say it was the smart thing to do by Harrison.



That's a clean hit: James Harrison knocks Dolphins running back Ricky Williams in the fourth quarter.
Photo by Peter Diana / Post-Gazette

So, here you have a linebacker not wanting to tackle a running back because he admittedly feared the NFL crackdown on big hits? Harrison, mind you, wasn't planning on making an illegal hit on Brown. He planned to aim low. He said he was lucky he did not try to make the tackle because Brown then ducked low and it might have been a helmet to helmet collision.

So what?

Harrison made precisely the same kind of tackle against Joshua Cribbs in Heinz Field the previous week and the NFL quickly announced that it was a legal hit, even though their helmets collided. Cribbs did not complain, either; in fact, he urged his old Kent State teammate to keep playing as he always has.

But Harrison has apparently decided discretion is the better way, even if his plans are perfectly legal by the NFL books and their hanging judges.

This is what the NFL crackdown has come to: Players now fear making perfectly legal hits. It is what Art Rooney feared when he spoke to me last Thursday.

The next question for the Steelers: Is a gun-shy James Harrison as good as the one before last Tuesday, when he was fined $75,000 for a hit against Cleveland? Not if he's going to pull off making the kinds of hits he made on Cribbs, nor the kind he should have made on Ronnie Brown in Miami.

Safety Troy Polamalu also seemed to pull back on at least one tackle. It occurred in the second quarter after Chad Henne, from his own 20, completed a 17-yard pass to Brian Hartline. Polamalu had a perfect shot at Hartline and did not take it. Go back and look if you have a DVR of the game.

Has the NFL successfully helped neutralize two Pro Bowl Steelers defenders with its crackdown? It's just one week, but there is video evidence – and an admittance from one – that Harrison and Polamalu shied away from tackles because of it.

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[brothervad]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

I didn't post anything because I thought I was biased, but wanted to get other people's views on the games yesterday.

I said to my wife..."It may be me as I am super ticked with the NFL, but the defense in these games seems relatively tame."

I just felt there was something missing from the D side of the ball yesterday.

Was it me just being super ticked at the rules enforcement...or did defenses seem less aggressive to some you as well?

brothervad

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

Junker: Violence makes NFL what it is

By Guy Junker
FOR THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Monday, October 25, 2010

What do you suppose James Harrison would do if he retired? In case you wondered, he majored in general studies at Kent State. Not that retiring was ever a real possibility, the threat did give him a day off of practice last week. And football fans have to be on his side. You don't watch the game to see quarterbacks slide for a first down or running backs tip toe out of bounds. You watch it for the violence that would be illegal on the street. What makes football great is the poetry of motion that can be as nimble as ballet, juxtaposed with the ferocity of a freight train hitting a stalled car at a crossing. Neither of Harrison's two hits in the Cleveland game a week ago were flagged on the field and both he and his coach vouched for their legality after the game. The NFL took quite a beating from those two hits and plenty more in a nightmarish public relations weekend around the league. So fines were handed out and Harrison's just happened to be the most expensive at 75 grand. I'd be unhappy if I were in his position too. Plays like that helped make him the NFL's Defensive Player Of The Year and a Super Bowl hero.

Still, the league has to worry about concussions and other brain trauma that seems to be more and more associated with those who played the pro game. But it is easy to see how it is also caught between a rock and hard place when it comes to policing the games most violent behavior. What makes it dangerous is what makes it popular and it's a delicate balance. They are fining players for hits while selling photos and DVD's of those hits at the same time. If the game continues to evolve with changes being made based on limiting the possibility of injury, it will lose some of it's attractiveness.

Thanks in part to the Steelers of the 70's, the pro game has become increasingly difficult through the years to play, especially defensively as almost all rule changes are designed to encourage scoring and protect players. But asking players in mid leap to not hit a receiver until he has a chance to protect himself, or to avoid hitting a quarterback too high or too low, are decisions made by people who have never played the game. It operates at warp speed and thinking about those possibilities in the midst of reacting instinctively as players have been taught and drilled for years is asking the impossible. And while it won't become flag football as every lazy analyst predicts at times like this, it will be a different game. It already is. Watch raw footage from an NFL game in he early seventies and compare it to now. It's almost two different sports.

I've heard several old timers suggest that removing the face masks from the helmets would at least keep players from leading with them and using the helmet as a weapon. Good idea but it's not going to happen. Perhaps they could eliminate shields and keep the masks to one vertical and 1 horizontal bar. It would add some protection but not so much that a player wouldn't think twice about going head first. Still it's a strange notion that to better protect players, you need to remove some protection. A better idea yet, would be to make it mandatory that all players wear mouth pieces Talk to any dentist about the amount of concussions that could be eliminated if the jaws were kept from snapping together. Harrison wears one. Everyone should.

That wouldn't solve all the problems. Nothing will. Its a rough game played by enormous people who are very fast. Injuries will continue to happen. Use the equipment available to help, and use common sense in suspending and fining players. Harrison's hits last week were not fineable offenses. Brandon Meriweather's was. It shouldn't matter if there were five reviewable plays or none in a given week.

We used to play a game as kids called "kill the man with the ball". That probably wouldn't go over so well today. I recall one broken arm and a few stitches but we all lived through it and we sure had fun playing it. Thank goodness James Harrison didn't grow up in our neighborhood though.

Guy Junker can be reached at [email="guy@gopgh.com"]guy@gopgh.com[/email]

[url="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/steelers/print_705989.html"]http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 05989.html[/url]

[chiken]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

they took the intimidation factor out of the game. In a couple weeks receivers will no longer hear "footsteps". now you wont have to be regarded as a tough guy to catch balls over the middle.. Heck Randy Moss will even start running across the middle.

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

Harrison's new image:

[stlrz d]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

I didn't post anything because I thought I was biased, but wanted to get other people's views on the games yesterday.

I said to my wife..."It may be me as I am super ticked with the NFL, but the defense in these games seems relatively tame."

I just felt there was something missing from the D side of the ball yesterday.

Was it me just being super ticked at the rules enforcement...or did defenses seem less aggressive to some you as well?

brothervad

There was a play in the Ravens game where a DB passed up a shot and the Bills WR scored.

[Starlifter]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

i watched that play and then listened to douchebag announcers talk about the success of the the policy. all i know is, harrison had a clean shot to knock the ball lose and potentially cause a turnover - and he didn't take it. thanks roger.....

[brothervad]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

MNF tonight I missed the whole thing, but I heard the tail end...scoring up this week. Wonder if there is a link?

I guess Roger got what he wanted...piece of crap.

brothervad

[hawaiiansteel]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

MNF tonight I missed the whole thing, but I heard the tail end...scoring up this week. Wonder if there is a link?

I guess Roger got what he wanted...piece of crap.

brothervad

yeah, I saw that too. games this weekend averaged 52 + points in scoring, the 2nd highest average in the last 20 years.

that is more than a coincidence...

[brothervad]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

So I did the analysis week by week here is the Average scoring both by team and by game:

per team per game
week 1 18.59 37.18
week 2 20.68 41.36
week 3 21.69 43.38
week 4 20.64 41.28
week 5 22.79 45.58
week 6 21.5 43
week 7 26.32 52.64


then I decided to look at the differential by the average scoring of week 1-6 and week 7

per team per game
Avg week 1 - 6 20.982 41.963
Week 7 differential 5.338 10.677


And then I took week 1 out because it can be considered an outlier since teams are still kinda trying to get out the kinks

per team per game
Avg week 2 - 6 21.46 42.92
Week 7 differential 4.86 9.72


So as you can see scoring is up by almost a TD per team from weeks 1-6 and about 10 points per game.

You can say it's not enough of a sample size and probably are right but looking at week 1 through 6 you get about 3 TD's per team, whereas week 7 you are almost at 4.

that is a pretty significant increase.

Welcome to the new NFL.

brothervad

[fordfixer]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

The NFL’s Harrison-Sized Headache

By Matt Welsh, Columnist on October 26, 2010
[url="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/10/26/the-nfl%E2%80%99s-harrison-sized-headache/"]http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/10/26 ... -headache/[/url]

James Harrison, the hard-hitting Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker nicknamed ‘Silverback’ by teammates, is a bona fide brute. But that doesn’t make him wrong. After sidelining two Cleveland Browns players with vicious — but unpenalized — hits during last Sunday’s ‘NFL Concussion Awareness Day,’ Harrison was fined $75,000. Harrison was also criticized for saying, “I try to hurt people” and, “A hit like that geeks you up,” and he supposedly considered retirement when the NFL announced a revamped initiative to stamp out illegal hits by suspending or ejecting offending players.

The league has plenty of nice guys and class acts, but for every Peyton Manning, there are 10 men like Ray Lewis and Harrison. Lewis was indicted for murder charges in 2000 — though they were later dropped — and Harrison almost committed that offense when he nearly decapitated Cleveland wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi last Sunday. Rick Reilly portrayed hard hitters like Harrison as sadistic Neanderthals. But it comes with the territory.

The NFL trails only professional fighting and rugby on my sports savagery scale, and although the league is often dubbed the ‘No Fun League,’ the ‘No Fear League’ is far more appropriate. Many NFL commentators will start sentences, “To be successful in this league—” and then finish with some borderline moronic statement like “—you’ve got to put points on the board.” Allow me to add another obvious observation — to be successful in this league, you must be fearless, aggressive and sometimes a little suicidal.

Case in point: Today, precious few tailbacks regularly run out of bounds to preserve their bodies, as Hall of Fame Steelers running back Franco Harris did during the 1970s, and instead lower their heads and shoulders into onrushing defenders for an extra yard. Behind closed doors, numerous players undoubtedly echoed the thuggish sentiments of Miami linebacker Channing Crowder, who vowed to keep hitting with his helmet until the NFL takes it away. There’s a reason that an NFL player’s average life expectancy is rumored to be about 55 years — almost 22 fewer than the average American.

NFL old-timers and purists will tell you that tackling is a lost art, that modern players would rather mash their own Madden ‘hit stick’ than make a solid form tackle. This observation has some truth to it, but it forgets that since pro football’s inception, offenses have become incredibly skilled and sophisticated relative to their defensive counterparts. A few 2010 teams, like Rex Ryan’s New York Jets, still preach defense-first football, but Rex’s Jets are a far cry from his father Buddy’s 1985 Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears squad. Led by linebacker Mike Singletary, the 1985 Bears defense — probably the most dominant defensive unit ever — allowed just 11 points per game and posted four shutouts before plastering the New England Patriots 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.

Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan deserve plenty of props for the 1985 Bears’ success, but while watching highlights of that season, I am stunned by just how bad the opposing offenses were. In today’s NFL, dominant defensive performances are nigh impossible to sustain for entire games, let alone entire seasons. Where the Bears’ deadly 46 defense used to be proactive, the advent of smart, skilled, high-octane offenses like those of recent Patriots and Colts teams have forced defenses into a more reactionary role. Harrison’s hit on Massaquoi glaringly stands out because it is one of the rare occasions when a defense gets the better of an opposing offense. The offense-centric reality of the contemporary NFL means that defense — and by extension, tackling — becomes more difficult than ever.

Deliberate head shots, like Patriots defensive back Brandon Meriweather’s hit on Baltimore’s Todd Heap, have no place in the NFL for the sportsmanship and health-related reasons outlined by the league. That said, Harrison’s helmet-to-helmet knockouts of Massaquoi and teammate Josh Cribbs were not intentional but rather the unfortunate, split-second result of defenses trying to regain their old edge against superior offenses. This effort has involved a psychological as well as physical element. Players who face the Ravens and Steelers — two of the most feared defensive units of the last decade — don’t need to get their clocks cleaned to know that Lewis and Harrison look to level opponents every chance they get. Cribbs defended Harrison and urged him to keep playing the same way, adding, “I would do the same.” The intimidation factor has an impact on games. But with the NFL cracking down on the physical and psychological edge that the remaining few, elite defenses depend on, that imbalance is tilted further to the offensive end of the spectrum.

In 2007, the New England Patriots set an NFL record by scoring 589 regular season points. In 2009, the Arizona Cardinals were one win away from a berth in Super Bowl XLIV despite surrendering a combined 90 points in two playoff games. In 2010, Denver’s Kyle Orton is a top-five NFL quarterback. Kyle Orton! Furthermore, dominant, hard-hitting defenses endure just as much pain as they dish out courtesy of collateral damage, as seen by the constant injuries afflicting Baltimore’s Ed Reed and Pittsburgh’s Troy Polamalu. Defensive players already face an obstacle course of officiating restrictions, and with suspensions and ejections now added to the mix, it will only encourage more teams to scrap the age-old mantra of “defense wins championships,” go for broke offensively and reap the rewards.

Gregg Easterbrook highlighted the need for the NFL to clarify and enforce rules that protect players and set a good example for younger football players. Bill Simmons noted the hypocrisy of a league that cracks down on concussive hits “to protect players” while pushing for an 18-game season. My brother, an avid Steelers fan, took another route and called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “the Nicholas Cage of the league” — a guy in the center of a very good production who does his absolute best to ruin it. I concur with all of them but don’t want to share my byline, so here’s my own take — I love an offensive shootout as much as the next guy, but there’s a reason that Arena Football is as popular as a canker sore. What good is the NFL’s precious parity if it doesn’t apply to both sides of the ball? If the league cannot distinguish between intentional, suspension-worthy head-hunting and the unintentional by-product of good defense, the latter will cease to exist altogether.

[feltdizz]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

I didn't see it... I know they showed the clip of Harrison pulling up on one play but in all honesty I think he has been a little helmet happy (leading with the crown) on the end of a few plays.

I watched a lot of football and I didn't see that much of a difference. I don't like the timing of the rule change but as we see... players will still come up injured because it's football.

You can still impose your will and hit hard as hell...

As far as the points going up... The Raiders scored 50+ on the Broncos. That isn't due to the rules being changed they just beat the hell out of them. IF you take that game out (FWP rule ) I think it's in line with previous weeks.

[Crash]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

Peyton Manning can teabag a female in college to the point the school paid her off to leave. Manning then defames her in a book and costs her a job, and then later pays her off to drop a civil suit, and he's a "class act".

GFY.

[feltdizz]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

Peyton Manning can teabag a female in college to the point the school paid her off to leave. Manning then defames her in a book and costs her a job, and then later pays her off to drop a civil suit, and he's a "class act".

GFY.

does that have to do with the NFL or this article?

What's next? Pointing out how Hines Ward skipped summer school in the 10th grade as proof he isn't a "class act?"

[Crash]

Re: Ed: Will Harrison Remain Gun-Shy?

does that have to do with the NFL or this article?

An article above posted says that Manning is a class act.

Pay attention to the thread.