The Steelers weren't showing any Christmas spirit when it came to the franchise's all-time sack leader. Or maybe they were.
James Harrison, one of the great linebackers in franchise history, was released Saturday to clear space for the return of suspended right tackle Marcus Gilbert.
The move is surprising in its scope, but Harrison told DKPittsburghSports.com in a Dec. 8 exclusive that he was bitterly unhappy with his playing time and that, if he'd known he'd play so little, he never would have signed a contract to return to Pittsburgh for another year.
“No,” Harrison replied that day when I asked if he would have re-signed here. “I would have signed somewhere else.”
I asked if he was frustrated.
“No doubt.”
Harrison, 39, is the Steelers' all-time sacks leader with 80.5. He signed with the team as an undrafted rookie free agent April 22, 2002, and became one of the most feared players in the NFL. He was the league's Defensive Player of the Year in 2008 and played a huge role in the Steelers' Super Bowl championship that season with a 100-yard interception return that's considered one of the great plays in championship history.
In 2016, Harrison remained an impact player with 5.5 sacks, including playoffs, plus consistent pressure on the quarterback and quality run-stopping. But after signing a two-year, $3.5 million contract to return, he never found a place on the 2017 team. He appeared in just five games, and most of his snaps came in a specific matchup in Kansas City -- he's owned the Chiefs' Eric Fisher -- in which he had three tackles, two pressures and a critical fourth-down sack late in the fourth quarter in a 19-13 victory.
In the most recent game, the 27-24 loss to the Patriots this past Sunday at Heinz Field, he suited up but never saw a snap.
Harrison was at the team's practice Saturday and seemed in good spirits. He wore a Christmas sweater and laughed and joked with teammates. Harrison had missed practice Friday with an illness. The Steelers could re-sign him following their game Monday, allowing Harrison to spend his Christmas at home with his family, especially if he were going to be inactive for the game against the Texans.
He posted this Saturday afternoon after the news broke:
It's not the first time Harrison has been released by the Steelers. After going undrafted following a stellar career at Kent State, he was signed by the Steelers as an undrafted free agent but was cut following his initial training camp with the team, later getting signed to the practice squad.
He then bounced back and forth on the team's active roster and practice squad, getting released and re-signed three times. Baltimore signed Harrison late in the 2003 season and sent him to NFL Europe, where he played for the Rhein Fire. But Baltimore released him and Harrison contemplated life after football, going as far as to acquire his CDL license to drive a truck.
Harrison drove a fire truck into the team's training camp earlier this year, saying, "I never got rid of my CDL license."
The Steelers took one more chance on the 6-0, 250-pound linebacker, after starter Clark Haggans suffered a hand injury while weightlifting prior to the start of training camp in 2004. Harrison made the most of what was probably his last shot.
He played special teams throughout the 2004 season, getting his first start in a Nov. 14 game at Cleveland when Joey Porter -- now his outside linebackers coach -- was ejected for a pre-game fight with Browns running back William Green.
Harrison, a native of nearby Akron, Ohio, recorded six tackles and the first of many career sacks in the game as the Steelers won, 24-10.
Despite that game and recording three sacks in spot-start duties in 2005, Harrison continued to languish on the bench under head coach Bill Cowher. But when Cowher left the Steelers following the 2006 season, the first move Mike Tomlin made was to release Porter in a salary cap-related move and make Harrison the starter at right outside linebacker.
Harrison, by then 29 years old, made Tomlin look like a genius. He responded by having the first of five consecutive Pro Bowl seasons, recording 8.5 sacks and 76 tackles.
That season would be just a small taste of what he would accomplish in 2008. Harrison led one of the best team defensive performances in NFL history by posting 67 tackles and a team-record 16.0 sacks as he was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
He finished off that season with perhaps the most memorable defensive play in Super Bowl history, returning a Kurt Warner interception 100 yards on the final play of the first half for a touchdown with no time remaining in the Steelers' 27-23 victory.
"To be honest, I really didn’t think I’d make it all the way back,” Harrison said at the time. “My teammates threw some vicious blocks.”
Vicious would be one way to describe Harrison throughout his career. In the 2006 offseason, Sports Illustrated ran a cover of Porter on its cover, proclaiming him the "Most feared player in the NFL."
Those who covered the Steelers at the time knew that wasn't the truth. Porter wasn't even the most feared man in his own locker room. That honor belonged to Harrison, whom Haggans jokingly tabbed with the nickname "Silverback," early in his career.
Why Silverback?
"Because he's the biggest, baddest monkey in the jungle," Haggans said at the time.
His teammates eventually settled on the nickname of "Deebo," in honor of the character by the same name in the "Friday" and "Next Friday" movies. Harrison resembles actor Tom Lister Jr., who played the character, who is described on one web site as a "sociopathic bully."
Harrison wasn't a sociopath, but he did have some issues, both on and off the field.
In March, 2008, Harrison was arrested and charged with simple assault and criminal mischief following a domestic altercation with his girlfriend. He completed anger management and psychological counseling and the charges were dropped later that spring.
Then, in 2010, he became the unwilling participant in a feud with the NFL when he was fined four times in the league's crackdown on player safety. Harrison was docked $100,000 that season and expressed his displeasure with the league.
“I’m going to sit down and have a serious conversation with my coach tomorrow and see if I can actually play by NFL rules and still be effective,” Harrison said at the time. “If not, I may have to give up playing football.”
He appeared on the cover of "Men's Journal" the following spring and again expressed his displeasure with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Harrison provided the Men’s Journal its Quote of the Year:
“My rep is James Harrison, mean son of a bitch who loves hitting the hell out of people,” Harrison told the magazine. “But up until last year, there was no word of me being dirty – till Roger Goodell, who’s a crook and a puppet, said I was the dirtiest player in the league. If that man was on fire and I had to piss to put him out, I wouldn’t do it. I hate him and will never respect him.”
Later that summer, the NFL players, who were in a contentious contract negotiation with the league on a new contract, voted to ratify a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The Steelers, still angered by the league's treatment of Harrison, were the only team to unanimously reject the new deal.
Harrison made it through most of the 2011 season without incident until a helmet-to-helmet hit on Cleveland quarterback Colt McCoy landed him in hot water with the league once again. McCoy was injured on the scramble, suffering a concussion, and the league suspended Harrison for one game, the first time the league had done so for what it deemed an illegal hit.
Harrison missed seven other games to injury in 2011 and 2012 and the Steelers, in need of salary cap space, asked him to take a pay cut. He refused and was released, eventually signing with the Cincinnati Bengals.
After one season in Cincinnati in which he was misused, Harrison was released by the Bengals and announced his retirement in a ceremony at the Rooney Sports Complex before the 2014 season. But an injury to Jarvis Jones left the Steelers thin at linebacker and they talked the then-36-year-old out of retirement to come back and play.
He recorded 5.5 sacks that season, adding another 10 over the next two seasons, helping him break Jason Gildon's team record of 77 last season.
Harrison, now 39, was a free agent at the end of the 2016 season but the Steelers coaxed him back for another year with a two-year, $3.5-million deal in the offseason. They also allowed Jones to leave as a free agent and selected T.J. Watt in the first round of the draft.
Watt joined Bud Dupree, a first-round draft pick in 2015, in the starting lineup.
“The plan is to get those young guys going,” Porter told me at training camp. “They are our future with Bud, T.J. and (Anthony) Chickillo. At the same time, if they’re not playing up to the standard, then we bring in the old man (Harrison). If we have to pull him out to close out a game, that’s fine. But that’s not the intention. The intention is to let the young guys get the reps.”
That has been the case throughout the season, with Harrison getting just 40 snaps all season.
If this is the end, Harrison would finish his career with 788 total tackles, 82.5 sacks -- including two with the Bengals -- eight interceptions and 33 forced fumbles.