Unwanted Men
He might be among the most ferocious hitters in the NFL, but Rodney Harrison is really a pushover.
That was obvious in March when he arrived at New England Patriot headquarters, listened to the soft sell of Coach Bill Belichick and never left, signing with the team later that day.
“When he told me what he thought of me, it made it easy,” said Harrison, who twice made the Pro Bowl as a safety for the San Diego Chargers but was released after last season. “I canceled all of my other visits. It was one-stop shopping. I went from 75-degree weather to 20-degree weather -- with shorts on.”
That’s right, shorts. Harrison had been visiting with the Oakland Raiders a day earlier when he got the call from the Patriots. He wrapped up his interview in the balmy Bay Area, hopped on a red-eye flight and high-tailed it to a team he never dreamed would want him, a team that Sunday earned the right to play in its second Super Bowl in three seasons.
Harrison, 31, knew the Patriots were flush with good safeties, considering Lawyer Milloy and Tebucky Jones were on the roster. And he also knew a lot of teams thought of him as a fading star, a one-time standout in the twilight of his career. He certainly believed the Chargers felt that way, even though he was one of the AFC West’s most feared defensive players when he wasn’t sidelined because of shoulder and ankle problems.
“If you’re at a place for nine years and all of a sudden they release you because you had, I guess, a disappointing year, I guess it just shows you that they don’t believe in you,” said Harrison, who had two interceptions and 88 tackles in 2002. “I was really out to show people that, hey, I can still play. It’s just that I was hurt last year. It was just so gratifying for me to show the world that I can still play.”
A month after they signed Harrison, the Patriots traded Jones to New Orleans. Then, five days before the season opener against Buffalo, New England released Milloy, who the Patriots reasoned was overpaid, and let him slip away to the Bills. Why? In part because they felt so good about Harrison.
It was plain to see why on the Indianapolis Colts’ opening drive Sunday. They were moving into position to forge a 7-7 tie and had third and three at the Patriot five. That’s when Harrison intercepted a pass for tight end Marcus Pollard -- the first of Peyton Manning’s four interceptions -- and took a knee in the back of the end zone.
“It was big, especially when we were confused in coverage,” said cornerback Ty Law, who had the other three interceptions. “[Harrison] just reacted and made a good play. I don’t even think he was supposed to be there.”
Harrison has a knack for surprising people with his instincts, as Patriot receiver Troy Brown can attest. He and Harrison had a most unpleasant meeting in the first week of training camp, one that was criticized at the time but just might have set the season-long tone for the New England defense.
Brown, last season’s offensive captain, was leveled by Harrison while running across the middle, a rude introduction for teammates expected to take it relatively easy on each other. When he gathered his wits, the normally low-key Brown climbed to his feet, fired the ball at his new teammate and had to be restrained from going after him, although Harrison is considerably bigger.
“I love contact,” Brown said, recounting the incident Sunday. “I don’t mind him hitting me in practice, that’s great. I just got poked in the eye and it hurt. I just threw the ball at him, and everybody made a big deal about it.”
Consider it a lesson learned, or at least relearned. The two had played against each other when Brown was at Marshall and Harrison was at Western Illinois.
“He’s very, very aggressive,” Brown said. “So I didn’t take offense to that. I just got poked in the eye, man, that’s the bottom line.”
As destructive as he can be on the field, Harrison is docile off it. He speaks softly and can’t seem to stop smiling as he talks about where he is now, headed to his second Super Bowl, and not just as a bit player in this one.
“I’m going to be starting, I know that,” he said after describing his role as a special-teams player in the 1994 season, when the Chargers lost to the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl. “To go out there and have the opportunity to play in front of the world and win a world championship, this is the ultimate team game and the ultimate goal.”
It’s New England’s defense that has fueled the team’s 14-game winning streak, and a lot of people around the league think Harrison played well enough to earn a third trip to the Pro Bowl, even though he didn’t get enough votes for that. The Patriot defense led the league this season by giving up only 14.9 points a game, intercepting 29 passes and holding opposing quarterbacks to an average passer rating of 56.2.
According to the Patriots and the NFL, Harrison had 126 tackles -- a statistic that is not kept officially -- in the regular season, most among defensive backs in the league. He also had three interceptions and was a force for a defense that gave up only one pass play of more than 50 yards and no run of more than 23 yards.
“From the moment Rodney came in here, he kind of set a certain standard for the defense,” linebacker Roman Phifer said. “He was kind of the spark that brought everyone’s play up. We give him a lot of credit.”
And for Harrison, that means more than words can describe. Especially for an old softie.
