James Harrison is the meanest player in the NFL.
At least, that’s what his fellow NFL players think, according to a poll of 287 players conducted by Sports Illustrated.
Harrison, the Steelers linebacker who became the poster boy for the NFL’s crackdown on helmet-to-helmet hits last season, came in first in the Sports Illustrated poll. Harrison got a whopping 35 percent of the vote, easily topping Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who came in second with 15 percent, and Lions defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, who came in third with 5 percent.
Perhaps the most surprising results were that two of Suh’s teammates, Lions running back Jerome Harrison and Lions kicker Jason Hanson, got votes even though neither one has a reputation for being mean.
When told that one player voted him the meanest in the league, the 41-year-old Hanson said, “I don’t have a clue who would do that. Maybe a former teammate who thought kicker, bald, old - how much softer can you get than that?”
My guess is that the votes for both Jerome Harrison and Jason Hanson were intended for James Harrison, and that typos or sloppy handwriting were to blame. And therefore James Harrison should have won the title of “Meanest Man in the NFL” by an even greater landslide.
