Christmas Eve, 2005. Pittsburgh Steelers at the Cleveland Browns. Steelers linebacker James Harrison found himself in a giving mood — sort of.
In a 41-0 blowout, Browns fan Nathan Mallett had a bit of liquid courage and ran out onto the field, stopping play.
While celebrating his achievement of getting out onto the field, he started to make his way towards the Steelers’ bench.
That’s when Harrison stepped in, slamming Mallett to the turf from behind, creating “The Slam” of the Browns fan that will live on forever.
For Harrison, the moment remains a hilarious one. Appearing on the “Not Just Football w/ Cam Heyward” podcast Wednesday morning, Harrison recalled the moment, knowing he had the opportunity for “a free one” at a fan, while trying to defend the Steelers.
“I was like ‘I get a free one. I get to slam this dude.’ This is what happened, alright? Verron Haynes is out there at running back and the dude comes at him, and Verron sort of skirts away like he was running from him, so I was just trying to get some of street credit back. That’s really what it came down to,” Harrison said to Heyward, according to video via the NFL on ESPN YouTube page. “By the time he got to me, I was like ‘Alright, I’m going to scoop and slam him.’
“What I was going to do was throw him down and put his arm behind him, but I didn’t want to hurt his arm if they were going to press charges or something. But if I knew that was felony trespassing, I would have threw his arm all up over his back. He wouldn’t have had a chance to touch a face mask!”
Typically when fans find their way onto the field, players tend to stay away because they don’t know the fans’ intentions. It’s more of a safety thing, allowing police and security guards to try and handle it. Harrison is a different breed though.
Harrison quickly and efficiently picked Mallett up and threw him on his back, pinning his left arm down while waiting for security to arrive.
That’s when things took quite the turn in hilarious fashion.
“So after I throw him down, I have his one arm and his other arm is free, he looks up and goes ‘Oh yeah! I got your ass now!’ By the time the police got over there I was laughing, but he wasn’t letting my face mask go, so I started pressing my hand into his throat so he would let my face mask go,” Harrison added, according to video via the NFL on ESPN YouTube page. “When I let him go, he was clean. No dirt on his face, no blood, nothing.
“After I let him go, it wasn’t six seconds and his face was covered in dirt and bloodied. They put foot all up on that man. They was holding his face down with their boots. They dogged him.”
Mallett later told Cleveland’s 19 Action News that he was embarrassed by the moment with Harrison and that he had since apologized to the Browns, though he had to spend Christmas Eve in jail.
Harrison had a lot of memorable moments in his time with the Steelers, including the pick-six in Super Bowl XLIII to help beat the Arizona Cardinals, as well as the Monday Night Football display of dominance against the Baltimore Ravens. But when it comes to Harrison in a Steelers uniform, it’s hard to not have “The Slam” come to mind rather quickly.
He certainly got a free one, and the street credit was restored.
