James Harrison: Should Anybody Really Believe Pittsburgh Steelers LB's Apology?

Pittsburgh Steelers LB James Harrison gave an incredibly weak apology for punishing comments made about players and personnel in the NFL earlier this week.

He conducted an interview with Men's Journal and unleashed hot venom at multiple high-profile players.

He referred to Texans LB Brian Cushing as "juiced out of his mind." It got much worse when he said if NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was on fire he wouldn't even bother to piss on him in order to extinguish the flames. He used gay slurs and committed the cardinal sin of ripping teammates publicly.

He said RB Rashard Mendenhall was a "fumbling machine." Harrison criticized QB Ben Roethlisberger for throwing two INTs in the Super Bowl. He went as far as to say Big Ben "was no Peyton Manning."

After a day's worth of wrath from the 24/7 sports media, Harrison felt the pressure and cracked. He issued the following statement on Thursday:

"

I did make comments about my teammates when I was talking about the emotional Super Bowl loss, but the handful of words that were used and heavily publicized yesterday were pulled out of a long conversation and the context was lost. Obviously, I would never say that it was all Ben’s or Rashard’s fault that we lost the Super Bowl. That would be ridiculous.

I also need to make clear that the comment about Roger Goodell was not intended to be derogatory against gay people in any way. It was careless use of a slang word and I apologize to all who were offended by the remark.

As far as the character and reputation hits I may suffer as a result of my comments in the article, I’ll take those hits and more if it brings increased attention to the re-examination and installation of rules and regulations that would create a real impact on player safety."

Ripping other players and the commissioner is nothing new for the guy, but throwing teammates under the bus is unacceptable.

The author of the piece claimed the two spent the better part of four to five days together. When you are together for that long—there isn't any misquoting.

He meant what he said and was forced to issue the statement by his agent and PR representative. In fact, I'm sure they wrote the speech for him.

Harrison is the one that will have to face his teammates in the locker room. He is the guy that will have to explain this weak excuse to his QB and RB face-to-face. That's his problem.

The apology is a cop-out and a forced, contrived exercise.

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