By: Taren Vaughan
With the NFL cracking down on quite a few things when it comes to their players and how they are behaving both on and off the field, a number of people’s pockets are starting to feel the hurt. And Pittsburgh Steelers James Harrison just happens to be one of those people. The linebacker recently got fined $25,000 for a roughing-the-passer penalty in Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills. This made the fourth hit that cost Harrison a sizeable chunk out of his paycheck. Of course, Harrison wasn’t too thrilled about losing his money. But apparently his recent loss has led his coach to take up for him on the matter.
Mike Tomlin on Harrison’s fine:
“He’s got two kids. That’s some serious college schooling right there potentially for those kids 16, 18 years from now.”
Come on now, let’s be serious here people. Like this man is the only NFL player that has kids to send off to college because he most definitely is not. Most importantly, the amount of money that he got fined for is equivalent to some people’s yearly salaries. So why are we supposed to get all up in arms about this again?
No disrespect to Coach Tomlin at all, as most of us applaud his exceptional accomplishments as the Steelers head coach. But I’m not so sure how many people actually feel the same amount of sympathy for Harrison as he appears to have. Sorry, but most of us out here are not pulling in million dollar salaries and are still finding ways to send children off to college.
$25,000 is no chump change for anyone, whether you are throwing a football in front of thousands of fans or not. And as of now, James Harrison has racked up approximately $125,000 worth of fines for the season. Harrison may not be a “dirty player”, as Tomlin said Harrison felt he was being portrayed as. But at this rate, he will be a broke one if he doesn’t get it together.
