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I think right now Harrison needs to let things chill for a minute and process the whole thing right now. I think the fact that he's in the spotlight for the two helmet hits has got to him. As we all know, football is a physical contact sport. And ppl can get hurt playing the game. The last thing anyone on the gridiron wants to do is intentionally hurt a player with malicious intent. The retirement thing is a rash decision to make in light of what happened on Sunday. Harrison just got caught up the bad circumstances of his tackles on Cribbs and Muss(sp). He has to process the ordeal and do what he can to put it in the rearview and move forward.

His retirement didn't last long, and I knew that it wouldn't. The hit on Massaquoi really wasn't even full helmet to helmet contact.



I think it was the way that Harrison used his arms prior to the contact, which made it look worse than it was. As you can see in the photo, Harrison clearly tried to move his head to the side to avoid helmet to helmet contact.

It is unfortunate that Massaquoi was injured on the play, but Harrison didn't do anything out of the ordinary on the play, you see hits like that in this division every weekend. Ray Lewis and Suggs did it to Mendenhall in his rookie season and that was to the shoulder. I agree that something needs to be done to lessen the impact of a helmet to helmet hit, but this is a contact sport and hits like these are going to occasionally happen. You can't blame the defensive player for doing his job.

I remember when Jack Lambert said something like QB's are sissy's they should all wear dresses. It was way back in the day when the rule changes 1st started to enter into the NFL. As a young fan back in those days, I recall how much that 1st rule change in how a QB can be hit changed the style of the game. If they keep changing the rules to benefit the offense, they might as well shed the pads and helmet and make it the NFFL National Flag Footbal League.

Yahoo! Sports - Cleveland's Josh Cribbs is defending Steelers linebacker James Harrison, who was fined in part because of a hit laid on the wide receiver last Sunday.

Cribbs said Harrison's job is to simply "knock people out."

The two players were teammates at Kent State

Read more: http://football.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ ... z13BkToTEQ

Yahoo! Sports - Browns center Alex Mack has chimed in on the play of Steelers linebacker James Harrison.

Harrison inflicted two hits on Cleveland players that were highlighted this past weekend. He was fined and briefly claimed that he considered retirement because of new league rules on physical play.

"If you watch the game film, (Harrison) was doing that to everyone on every play," Mack said.

"People would be on the ground and he would try to spear them. There's a play on film where Peyton Hillis is tackled and he comes up and spears him. It's like you're being cheap, you're being dirty."

Read more: http://football.realgm.com/src_wiretap_ ... z13BklRPXE

Even though I don't have the advantage of being able to watch the game film like Cribbs and Mack have, it is pretty obvious that these two players see things differently and they play on the same team. The point is people see things in different ways.

Dick LeBeau one of the most respected defensive minds in NFL history said that it wasn't a dirty hit and the steelers wouldn't change the way that they play defense because they didn't do anything wrong. I will side with the mastermind of the current steel curtain defense over this Mack guy seven days a week and twice on Sunday.

Apparently Harrison and Cribbs had a sit down talk a couple of days back to discuss what happen. Considering these guys were former teammates from back in their college days, I think these guys are back on good terms again. Cribbs said something to the effect that hits like the one he took can happen sometimes considering this is contact sport. He knows that Harrison didn't mean any vicious intent behind his tackle.

Another update: 12 more players have been fined for their actions involving tackles this week as well.