Steelers linebacker James Harrison has taken to the web as he started a blog Wednesday to further explain his thoughts on the recent rule changes. Harrison starts by saying he wants to make it clear that he is all for player safety and that he does not disagree with all of the rule changes. Harrison goes on to say that in his opinion that the leagues attempt to make the game safer, they are clouding up what is actually allowable and says that even the referees were confused last year.
Harrison goes on to infer that he will likely have a bulls-eye on him as he believes there indeed is no equality in enforcement of the rules by the league. He thinks that these new rules are mostly targeting hard hitting players and aggressive defenses such as the Steelers. He ends by saying he loves the game of football, but hates what they are turning the game into.
I applaud Harrison for taking his thoughts to a bigger platform outside of Twitter and I am sure his blog post will be dissected by many over the next few days. I still believe that the comments made by Jamie Dukes on NFL Total Access tonight were uncalled for as Harrison surely is not out to purposely harm or maim other players on purpose. He just loves the game of football and wants to play it the way he has always been taught to play it. Asking a player to ease up or go half speed will lead to more serious injuries as well. You can not expect a player to ease up and anticipate another playing lowering their head.
The league the should be concentrating on getting this lockout solved right now instead of head hunting with rule changes. I am 43 years old and this is not the same NFL that I grew up to love and it gets further away from it every year. LaMarr Woodley said it best this afternoon during his interview on Sirius when he said that every player knows what they sign up for when they choose to play this game. The players have not changed over the years, but the game is and it has to be awful confusing for them as it seems to be with Harrison.
