Agent: Steelers' Harrison to report despite talks

[Jigawatts]

Re: Agent: Steelers' Harrison to report despite talks

harrrison would be an idiot to not show up. what's he gonna do? holdout for 2 years and then think he's going to get his 1 big payday. the organization holds the cards in this deal

With organizations like the Redskins handing out 100 million dollar contracts to players like
Albert "The Head Stomper" Haynesworth I'd have to say that Harrison holds the cards.

And I wouldn't want Harrison holding the cards. He would give you a paper cut like you
wouldn't believe.

Players never hold the cards against the Rooneys because of the way they run the business. They take a long term view where no single cog in the machine is so critical the machine stops working if it is gone. They prepare for the cogs to be gone. The Steelers don't believe in rebuilding they believe in reloading. That is how they structure their draft strategies and their free agent activities.

Remember the gloom and doom predictions when Porter left? Harrison turned out to be better. If Harrsion leaves Woodley and someone else will step it up and do just fine. Why do you think Davis was drafted last year? He was draft for two years in the future not last season.

You're absolutely correct about the way the Rooneys do business and I'm glad that's
how things are handled in Pittsburgh. But, in the whole scheme of things, Harrison
does hold the cards. He can walk and get paid elsewhere. But we will reload.

He has to realize, however, that if he doesn't sign a big extension now, that he would be stuck playing for a back-up salary again in 2009 at the age of 31. Then, if he still doesn't sign an extension at that point, he could be franchised for the 2010 season at the age of 32. Would he risk playing 2 years, hoping not to get seriously injured, in the hopes of a free agent payday prior to the start of the 2011 season, when he will be 33 years old? We are trying to do right by him by paying the man now since he has been so underpaid the past 2 seasons (we don't have to, but it is the right thing to do, and the Rooneys typically are willing to shell out the dollars to their core players, in spite of popular opinion otherwise). But we do hold the cards and can keep him until he is old enough that no one will sign him to that huge deal he is after. I think Harrison and his agent will come to the conclusion that they might as well get this done now.

While that's what I'd like to see happen, I always think of the worse possible scenario.
He could still hold out. He could become an unmanageable head case to the point where
they'd have no choice but to release him after his final year, and some goofball Jerry Jones
or Al Davis owner would still sign him for huge money at the age of 32 or 33.