Darren Sharper: “James Harrison Is A Wild Character”

Last week James Harrison made some comments that crossed the line about both Commissioner Roger Goodell, former NFL players, and his current teammates. Right after he made those comments it was really just a matter of time before Harrison backtracked from those comments or started making excuses about the writer taking his words out of context. The following day after the excerpts were released Harrison offered an apology and said exactly what many expected him to say. I wasn’t in the room during the interview and the only one who truly knows what he meant is James Harrison, but I don’t think the writer took his words out of context. Harrison is a loose cannon. He plays with aggression on the field and it seems like his no-fear attitude might’ve just got the best of him off of it as well. As soon as a new deal finally gets done Harrison should be looking at some kind of punishment because after his comments that is exactly what he deserves.

Darren Sharper joined Fox Sports Radio with the Loose Cannons to talk about James Harrison’s comments to Men’s Journal, on Harrison saying his words were misconstrued, why he thinks Harrison is so full of vitriol and anger, and when he thinks the lockout will end.

On James Harrison’s comments:

“Yeah Mr. James Harrison is a wild character. He’s definitely a wild guy. He’s outspoken and we see that. I think a lot of his venom comes from the fact that he’s been fined a lot by the league and he and Roger Goodell have a personal vendetta going on right now. I think at this point, with the lockout, I think James looked at it as his liberty and knew that he had the perfect time to say what he wanted to say and not have to face any repercussions because they can’t do anything because there is no CBA agreement. He can’t get fined and it might be something at the end of the road where they can go back and fine him at a later date, but right now he’s in the clear to say whatever he wants to. His comments about his players, I don’t agree with that. He said later on that they got misconstrued by the writer, but regardless of that I don’t agree with criticizing your teammates, especially two guys that have played well for you and have gotten you to the Super Bowl.”

On James Harrison saying his words were misconstrued:

“I don’t know how you can completely twist those types of words. Semantics are semantics and you can kinda describe things differently. If you say something about a player and it’s anything negative I don’t agree with that. If you say a guy needs to play better I can agree with that but when you start talking about a guy fumbling or comparing a quarterback to another top quarterback in the league and say he’s not him, I don’t know how you can misconstrue that too much. He said it was and I have to take him for his word for it until I hear the audio copy of the interview. Regardless of that it came out bad and it’s not gonna look good. It’s something that’s going to be over the head of the Pittsburgh Steelers during the season.”

Whether or not he thinks Harrison is still upset because of how many fines he has received:

“I think against the commissioner it definitely is. Against players around the league and his teammates I don’t think so. I know he and Roger Goodell don’t see eye to eye at all. He is very upset at Mr. Goodell for the fining. You think about any time you take away money out of someone’s pocket they’re going to have some ill-will towards you.”

When he thinks the lockout will end:

“I think it’s right around the corner. I would say a couple of weeks ago everyone was predicting what happened now. You can say you see light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s kinda like a strobe light. It’s blinking on and off. You see it and you don’t see it. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and think that something’s gonna happen in a week. I definitely feel it is imperative that something has to transpire with a deal getting done before August. Once you get into August you already have lost money and once you start losing money even though you don’t want that to continue, the owners and the players will be like okay we already lost so who’s going to be the one to come forward first. You don’t want to get into that kind of confrontation.”