Linebacker James Harrison has only gotten on the field in three of the Steelers’ games so far this season. And he’s not happy about being left “in the garage.”
James Harrison says he wouldn’t have signed with the Steelers if he knew he was just going to be ‘an insurance policy’
Harrison doesn’t expect to be with the Steelers next season.
Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
Jeanna Kelley has been covering the Falcons for The Falcoholic since 2011 and the NFL for SB Nation since 2015.
Harrison signed a two-year, $3.5 million contract extension before the 2017 season. But he told NBC’s Michele Tafoya that he wouldn’t be in Pittsburgh this season if he had known he’d be sitting on the sideline.
Tafoya said on the Sunday Night Football broadcast of Ravens vs. Steelers that the team sees Harrison as “no more than an insurance policy” at this point. He doesn’t like it.
“Would you sit out of your profession for three-quarters of the season and then think you can step in there and do better than the person that’s been doing it?”
The emergence of rookie outside linebacker T.J. Watt — yes, J.J. Watt’s younger brother — has been part of the reason Harrison has been bumped to a backup role. Watt has 38 tackles, five sacks, and a pick on the season.
Head coach Mike Tomlin explained via the team’s website that the outside linebacker role has changed in the NFL, and the Steelers had to change with it.
“And it’s evolved within the last decade, since I’ve been here. Outside linebacker was a rush-man’s position in the early part of my tenure. Guys like LaMarr Woodley and James Harrison were defensive-end-like. They rushed the vast majority of the time. With the evolution of spread football, read-option football, RPOs as the college guys call it – run-pass options – and all the empty backfield stuff, it has become a hybrid position, where they’re asked to do a lot of things: rush, drop in zone, play man-to-man. I just think it’s part of the evolution of football, and I think (outside linebackers) are the most significant components to the adjustments that defenses have made.”
Harrison, 39, signed with the Steelers as an undrafted free agent out of Kent State University following the 2002 draft. He showed no signs of aging last season, when he racked up 53 tackles, five sacks, and a pick in 15 games with the Steelers. Some of that can be credited to his extreme workout regimen.
But the backup life isn’t for Harrison. He told Tafoya he expects this to be his last season in Pittsburgh.
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