James Harrison Says Something Dumb About Hard Knocks

Newly minted Bengal James Harrison got more than he bargained for when he signed with Cincinnati—the Bengals agreed to be this year's Hard Knocks goldfish. And he doesn't like it.

Harrison called the cameras a "pain in the ass" when they first showed up, but a week into the show's airing and he's even more frustrated.

“I don’t feel they deserve to be here. They did nothing to be here, other than want to be here,” he said. “They didn’t put no blood, sweat and tears into none of this. All these men in here, they did that. They (the cameras) did nothing. No one deserves to see this, to come inside of this unless you’re a part of this. That’s why.”

Which is insane, right? The entire point of the show is to give fans a look at a piece of NFL life they'd never see otherwise. He doesn't have to like playing along, but NFL Films has done more than any single player to make the NFL the obscenely successful national sport it is today. A guy like Harrison is as famous as he is, and able to become as famous is he is, thanks in large part to mythmaking like Hard Knocks' minute-long montage of "the baddest man in football" sacking quarterbacks in slow motion, set to martial horns.

What Harrison really means is that he hates reporters (watch him dive into a random fan's car to escape the cameras!). And that's understandable. They always want something from you, your time, your words. But Hard Knocks just wants to be a passive observer, capturing the Silverback in its natural habitat. Harrison's comments are dangerously close to the "you've never played the game" argument, often used by athletes who don't like what reporters write. Next time one tries that, I urge the reporter to deny the criticism's viability because the player has never written a gamer on deadline.

Harrison not a fan of "Hard Knocks" [Enquirer]