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Thoughts on Harrison

Hey all --

When I first got wind of the news surrounding Rodney Harrison's suspension, my first thought was "anyone but Rodney."

Rodney has become one of my favorite players in the Patriots' locker room. He is frank, sincere, a devoted family man and takes an interest in many of the reporters he sees on a near-daily basis.

Last season, I was having some personal issues -- which have since been positively resolved -- and somehow I got to telling Rodney about them one particularly bad day. He immediately reached into his bag, pulled out his Bible, and read me a passage: "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me (Philippians 4:13)."

It meant a great deal to me, and it is something I will remember for a long time.

Rodney could have denied the espn.com report, he could been like other players who lie or hide. Instead, he faced the media head-on like so many receivers he's taken down over the years. He apologized -- specific apologies, not some generic, sorry-to-whomever-I-might-have-offended junk -- and he made sure to address the young players who may look to him, the former fifth-round pick from a I-AA school who made a name for himself in an unforgiving league.

All of that said however, there are several issues to be discussed. I am not naive to the intense physical demands required by NFL players, and neither should any football fan. It is by far the hardest professional sport on the players' bodies, yet it is the only league where contracts are not guaranteed. To play requires that the damage you may be doing to yourself be ignored, that any aches and pains be dealt with as quickly as possible ("rub some dirt on it").

To that end, it is almost understandable to see why Harrison would take HGH (the substance he reportedly admitted to taking). He was nearly 33 years old when his left knee was shredded almost two years ago in Pittsburgh; he was 34 when Bobby Wade's questionable block partially tore his MCL on New Year's Eve. Those injuries can take time to heal -- time that an NFL player just doesn't have. There's always someone younger, and likely cheaper, waiting to take your job.

When Marty Schottenheimer cut Rodney loose in 2003, he felt the two-time Pro Bowler's best days were behind him -- and that's when Rodney was 30.

Junior Seau, Rodney's longtime teammate in San Diego and New England, is a 38-year old physical linebacker who has been in the league for 18 years. He knows how crazy it is to play football for as long as he has, saying a few weeks ago, "This game is not made for human beings to be running around smashing each other in the head for a long period of time."

In his recent book, Tedy Bruschi called Rodney the most intense teammate he's ever had. A Sports Illustrated poll of NFL players last year led to Rodney being named the "dirtiest" player in the league -- the truth is, he's probably one of those players that you hate to play but love to have as a teammate. He has played 13 seasons, won two Super Bowls, and set a new standard for safeties (he's the only defensive back in NFL history with more than 30 interceptions and 25 sacks). That's hard to walk away from.

But the simple fact is Rodney admitted to doing something that's illegal in the NFL. For that, he is being suspended and will have to live with the repercussions of what he did, inside his locker room and around the NFL. Despite his assertion that he took a substance to help him recover quicker, he may face questions now about whether anything he's done in his career was legitimate.

Rodney's situation will undoubtedly be a distraction in New England, and that's something the team tries to avoid like the plague.

And while we're all trying not to be naive, we shouldn't be naive to the notion that he's the only player to use HGH (I don't know of any other players; this is an opinion); it is great for recovery, both from workouts and from injuries. Side effects include joint pain and possible increased risk of diabetes, but given some of its positives, those could seem minimal.

Hey, we all make dumb decisions sometimes, from small to serious. Eating a second brownie when one was enough. Looking over a classmate's shoulder during a big test. Getting behind the wheel when you've probably had one drink too many... There are consequences to those decisions, and what you do afterwards is what makes a man or a woman.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments 10

Harrison possibly facing suspension

Hey all --

An ESPN report published within the last hour claims that New England safety Rodney Harrison will be suspended by the NFL for four games because he has been linked to HGH, human growth hormone.

Bear in mind that Harrison has not tested positive for HGH; it can only be detected via blood test and the league does not conduct blood testing, only urine.

Harrison will conduct a conference call at 9:30 p.m. tonight. We of course will have more details as soon as we know anything.

shalise

Posted by Shalise Manza Young  at 9:10 PM | Permalink | Comments 0

Bill Belichick's Friday conference call

I'm just kind of following up from last night. I was impressed with the way the team played. We didn’t really play very many players, but we got a good long look at them. A number of those guys played on a lot of special teams plays as well as their offensive and defensive units. There were certainly some positive things to see from a lot of players almost throughout the entire duration of the game. Certainly there are a lot of things that we need to work on and things that were far from perfect, but overall I thought it was a positive effort. Right now we're just going to have to go through a lot of personnel decisions here in the next day and a half and figure out exactly what we want to try to do. There are a number of factors involved, not only just roster decisions, but practice squad spots, some of the physical condition of our players and so forth. That will be part of it and then, of course, we want to get started on the game preparation for the Jets. That's kind of where we are here for the short term. We'll let you know when we've made any of those personnel moves. There are a lot of moving parts.

It seems like the quarterbacks might make things a little bit more challenging for you in making those decisions. All three guys really played well last night. Can you give us your thoughts if you would be willing to keep four quarterbacks when you make the final roster?
Well, we've done it before. We've kept four. We've kept two and we've kept three. We'll do whatever we think is the best decision for the football team. We'll try to take everything into consideration when we make that decision, not just that decision, but the other roster spots that may be influenced or affected by that as well. I like what the three guys did last night. I thought they all, at various points, handled themselves well and did some good things.

Can you talk a little about Bam Childress? He seems like he would be a tough guy to cut if you had to because of his versatility.
I think you said it best. Bam showed a lot of versatility. We’ve also used him on defense. Last year, he played both the running back and receiver spots in the Jacksonville game. I think that's one of his biggest strengths, is his versatility, his intelligence and the fact that he has value in more than one spot.

Has he learned a lot from being around some of these good receivers that you've had here over the last few years?
Bam is a smart guy and he’s very attentive and works hard. I'm sure he's learned from everybody that he's been around - the quarterbacks, the coaches, the other players, the receivers, guys on defense. He is a student of the game and he works hard at it.

Do you put any stock in the seven sacks of [Jared] Lorenzen, eight overall? I know the second and third stringers were doing a lot of that. Is that a pleasing sign that leaves an impression?
Of course it's always good to hit the quarterback. Again, we try to look at the plays maybe a little bit more on an individual basis when you're evaluating players. Sometimes you have guys that make a good pass rush move and the coverage isn’t tight enough and they throw the ball because there’s a receiver open, and so it doesn't show up in the stats. Then, another time, the coverage is good and the quarterback has to hold the ball and it really isn't a very good pass rush but the result of the play is that you hit the quarterback because maybe more because of coverage than pass rush. From a team standpoint, it's all interrelated and we’ve talked about that a lot, but from an individual evaluation standpoint, sometimes the overall performance of the group skews the production a little bit from what I would say it actually is on an individual basis, in either direction. Again, we just try to look at that and do the best we can evaluating all of the players and what they did and who they did it against and how often it happened and how consistent they are and so forth.

Do we have any idea of the severity of Oscar Lua’s injury?
Not right now, just looking at him, and all of the players really, from after the game.

How do injuries play into tomorrow’s decisions? Are there pretty clear rules governing releasing injured players and that type of thing?
Well, not really. The rules are if you release a player that is injured, then you work out some kind of monetary settlement with that player one way or another and he doesn’t count on your roster. It's just like you release any other player, depending on how long the player is going to be out for, that's governed by the collective bargaining agreement and that's worked out between the club and the player or eventually it could be arbitrated by a third party if the two sides couldn't agree, but that's pretty clear cut. Part of the decision making that the clubs have to deal with is if you carry a player who is injured or unable to play for a while, then essentially you're at 52, or 51, however many of those players you have, who can’t play until they're healthy and depending on the injury, it could be different lengths of time. So that could factor into the decision too, how long you’d want to carry a player that’s not going to be able to play, how long can you afford to do that? That’s how it plays a part. If you release him, you release him, then you just settle with him. If you don't release him, how long are you carrying a player that won't be able to participate?

Is that monetary hit that you guys take for releasing an injured player count against the cap?
Yes, it’s part of the player’s salary.

How has Dante Wesley done? What have you thought of him since you acquitted him in the trade from Chicago?
I think he has improved. Our system is a little bit different than the one they ran up there and so he's had to adjust to some different techniques and different emphasis points in the scheme, but he is a hard-working kid. He's been out there every day. He’s shown up in the kicking game, made some plays on defense. I think he's certainly put himself in a competitive position, relative to playing for this team.

With Brandon [Meriweather] playing safety all game, he played a lot at corner and now he’s played a full game at safety. When you saw him coming into the summer and his position flexibility, and now that you’ve seen it over the course of training camp, are you happy that he’s proficient at both of spots in your system?
Yes, it worked out that way that we were able to give him an opportunity to play, really, all three positions – corner, nickel back and safety. The way that things fell last night with the players, we had more corners available than safeties, so it was good to be able to get him some playing time at safety. Going forward, we’ll just have to decide what the best thing for him and the team is in terms of the positions that he plays. I do feel like he gives us some depth at all of those spots. We'll just have to prioritize how it's going to go and it may change from game to game too. It may not stay the same every week. We'll just have to take it as it comes. We thought he would have flexibility coming into our system and he’s shown that he does have some and he also has a lot of things to work on and the more positions you give him, then the more things there are for him to learn and get proficient at. He has a lot of work to do, but he’s shown some versatility and some playmaking ability on the defensive side of the ball, and showed up a little bit in the kicking game last night too, so that was good.

Can you talk briefly about Heath Evans, one of the potential first string guys who was out there a lot last night playing with a bunch of kids? He’s been a workhorse through camp and maybe doesn’t get a lot of publicity. What does he bring to the table?
Well, again, last week against Carolina, Heath got a few carries, but we wanted to give him an opportunity to get his hands on the ball a little bit more in this game and make sure that he was ready for the season, as well as some plays in the kicking game. He got an opportunity to do that and that was good. I thought he did a pretty good job with it for the most part. Heath is another guy that gives us some position flexibility offensively. He’s carried the ball. He’s picked up the blitz. He’s played some fullback, not the running back position in our offense, and he’s also participated in some kicking situations. His versatility, his intelligence, his toughness, he’s been durable and dependable and we’ve all seen him run with power and make some tough yards. I think he has a lot of things going for him and we wanted to give him an opportunity last night to be able to get some experience in those roles in preseason a little more so than he did in the first couple of games, so I think we did that and that was good.

You don’t see too many quarterbacks on special teams. Matt Gutierrez was out there last night. Was that just him trying to make himself more valuable to you?
Sure. Matt runs fairly well. Again, we didn't have that many players participating in the game so we could use all of the bodies we could get there. Matt runs well enough to be able to participate in some of the special teams plays. There’ve been other guys in that situation and we've all seen that before, so we just wanted to take a look at it and evaluate it and see whether that is worth investing time in or whether it's a waste of time.

Has there been enough time for Richard Seymour and David Thomas who’ve been on the PUP list to get off of it and be able to practice enough to where they would have a legitimate chance of playing against the Jets?
I think they’re in the day-to-day category. Certainly some of that will play into our decisions here over the next day and a half. I think with those kinds of things, you give the situation as much time as you can and sometimes another day or two can give you a little bit more information to work with. That’s probably what we’ll do, take as much time as we have and get as much information as we can and then try to make the best decision for the team that we can.

Are you generally encouraged with the overall health of the team at this point moving forward?
I don’t think it really makes any difference whether I am or not. We have to take our situation and try to make the most of it and that’s really all we’re trying to do. I’m not trying to grade it, whether it’s better or worse, good, bad or that type of thing. We'll just take what is and try to understand it the best that we can and look at all of our options and do what we feel like is the best thing for the team. That's really all we can do.

How much leeway do you have in constructing your game day roster?
It goes without saying that if you're going to be heavy in one area, you're going to be light somewhere else. I know we've had as many as 11 linebackers active for a game. My guess is we've probably had as many as 11 defensive backs active as well. I think seven offensive linemen has pretty much been the norm for us, either five or six defensive linemen and a couple of quarterbacks and four or five receivers. There's a certain number of people that I'd say it's relatively fixed. After that, there are other variables. If it's 11 linebackers, it’s going to be not as many defensive backs or tight ends or running backs. If it’s more balanced, then you’re going to have more of a balanced roster. I think my first year here, if I'm not mistaken, we carried six backs into a lot of games. I don't remember doing that in recent years, very often if at all. I don't think we've done it in a while. I'm sure we carried six back in 2000. It just depends on the makeup of your roster. Sometimes the game day activations are sometimes more special teams related than they are position related. So, for example, if you have a fullback, or a running back, who plays on all of your special teams and you have another running back who plays on all of your special teams and another year you have a couple of linebackers that play on all your special teams, but those players really don't play very many offensive or defensive plays, then to be honest with you, I'm not sure if it makes any difference. What difference does it make if you carry six backs or four backs? Those extra backs are your core special teams players. Defensively, if you carry 10 linebackers instead of eight, but the extra two linebackers are your core special teams players, it doesn't really matter whether they're linebackers, backs, tight ends or defensive backs. If that's what you need them for and they're the best you have at it, then it doesn't really matter what position they play, that's going to be their primary role. You know as well as I do that we've had a number of players that would fall into that category that were almost exclusively special teams players, whether it be Chris Floyd at fullback back in 2000 or Je’Rod Cherry as a safety, Larry Izzo as a linebacker. Those guys didn't get a whole lot of defensive or offensive playing time, they were core special teams players and sometimes the positions that they come from fluctuate a little bit, but you’re looking to get your best team out there. That's kind of the way we view it.

Posted by Art Martone  at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments 0