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Brooke PryorESPN Staff Writer
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- Previously covered the Kansas City Chiefs for the Kansas City Star and Oklahoma University for the Oklahoman.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers star James Harrison said coach Mike Tomlin gave him an envelope after the linebacker’s devastating hit on Cleveland Browns wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi in 2010.
“The g-est thing Mike Tomlin ever did, he handed me an envelope after that,” Harrison said on Barstool’s “Going Deep” podcast. “I’m not going to say what, but he handed me an envelope after that.”
Harrison was fined $75,000 for the hit — the most, he said, that he was ever fined. Massaquoi suffered a concussion as a result of the head-to-head hit, which was not flagged in the game.
“Listen, on everything I love, on my Daddy’s grave, I hit that man with about 50% of what I had, and I just hit him because I wanted him to let loose of the ball,” Harrison said on the podcast. “If I had knew they was gonna fine me $75,000, I would have tried to kill him.”
Harrison’s fine also was high because he was considered a repeat offender, and he had been fined $5,000 earlier in the season for unnecessary roughness.
The NFL previously dealt with coaches paying players for hits in the New Orleans Saints’ “Bountygate” scandal, where coaches offered cash rewards to players for knocking opponents out of games.
The NFL declined to comment and the Steelers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Harrison’s new comments echo the sentiments he expressed after the hit a decade ago.
“It was a legal hit,” Harrison told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2010. According to the newspaper, Tomlin agreed.
