James Harrison is mad today, but he was the one who made the comments.
The former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker took to Instagram on Friday to clarify a statement he made about Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin handing him an envelope after he was fined for a hit on Cleveland Browns wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi in 2010.
“Wow y’all really comparing what I said to BOUNTYGATE?!? Mike T. Has NEVER paid me for hurting someone or TRYING to hurt someone or put a bounty on ANYBODY! If you knew the full story of what happened back then you’d know that BS fine for a Legal Play wasn’t even penalized during the game. The league was getting pressure because the first concussion lawsuits were starting and they had to look like they cared about player safety all of a sudden. Before that they had been SELLING a photo of THAT SAME PLAY FOR $55 on the NFL website with other videos of the NFL’S GREATEST HITS that the league Profited On back then. When the league had to start pretending like they cared about player safety they took all those things down off their website and they started fining guys ridiculous amounts for the same plays they used to profit off of. EVERYBODY knew it – even these same media people and all the fans that were sending money to me and the team to cover the fine. AGAIN AT NO TIME did Mike T. EVER suggest anybody hurt anybody or that they’d be rewarded for anything like that. GTFOH with that BS!!!”
It was earlier this week when Harrison appeared on Barstool’s Going Deep podcast where he mentioned the envelope story: “The G-est thing Mike Tomlin ever did, he handed me an envelope after that. I’m not going to say what, but he handed me an envelope after that.”
Massaquoi suffered a concussion and Harrison was fined $75,000.
