Once a Steeler, now a Patriot, James Harrison is hitting back.
Once a Steeler, now a Patriot, James Harrison is hitting back.
Harrison was ripped by his former Pittsburgh teammates after the Steelers cut him and he signed with New England this week. On Friday, Harrison fired back.
“If anybody thought that I signed a two year deal with a team in the NFL at age 39 to sit on the bench an collect a check and a participation trophy, they’re mistaken,” he wrote on Instagram. “I didn’t sign up to sit on the bench and be a cheerleader. I was clear about that when I signed, and I was told I would be on the field when I signed.”
Harrison only played in five games this season. Teammates said earlier in the week that he snored in meetings and left the stadium before the end of the Bengals game. Harrison has played all but one of his seasons in the NFL as a Steeler. This is his 15th season out of Kent State.
James Harrison snored during meetings, ex-Steelers teammates say
Harrison added that he got no repetitions during training camp and only got “lip service.” He also noted that he asked to be released multiple times, and that he visited Ryan Shazier, a linebacker who suffered a serious spinal injury in early December, in the hospital, despite a teammate saying he did not.
“Maybe I don’t handle my frustration the best that I could’ve,” he said. “At the end of the day, they made a business decision and so did I.”
Earlier in the week, teammates took issue with Harrison crossing enemy lines to the Patriots, who are competing with the Steelers for AFC supremacy.
“If he did that, that’d be real fugazi, lame, L-12, pull-up-on-’em type… you can’t just take the whole playbook,” Steelers linebacker Bud Dupree said, according to the Post-Gazette. “Now you’re going too far. But he may have did that. You never know. He may be at that point where he’s so mad, he probably just said, ‘All right, I don’t really know the playbook this year, but I’m (gonna) take the whole playbook to Bill (Belichick) and let him do what he does.’”
