The steepest with the four fines the former Steelers linebacker James Harrison incurred in 2010 stemmed from a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit he shipped on Cleveland Browns receiver Mohamed Massaquoi, knocking him out with a concussion. The strike went without penalty on the field, however the N.F.L., intent on meting out stiffer discipline for violations of participant safety, docked Harrison $75,000 — no less than some of which, Harrison claimed on the podcast Thursday, was offset by his mentor, Mike Tomlin.

Harrison, showing on Barstool Extra resources Sports activities’s “Heading Deep” podcast, told his former Pittsburgh teammate Willie Colon that Tomlin — who nonetheless coaches the Steelers — slipped him an envelope before long once the good was levied.

“Dude, I’m telling you — seventy five,” Harrison said, referencing the quantity of the great. “And that i ain’t gonna lie to you personally: When that occurred, right, the G-est thing Mike Tomlin ever did, he handed me an envelope following that. I ain’t gonna say what, but he handed me an envelope following that.”

Harrison recounted the Tale unprompted, just after Colon asked him about the heftiest great he absorbed throughout his fifteen N.File.L. seasons.

“Pay attention, on every thing I love, on my daddy’s grave, I hit that person with about max fifty % of what I'd,” Harrison said of Massaquoi. “And I just hit him for the reason that I needed him to Allow free of the ball. If I'd understood they was gonna wonderful me $seventy five,000, I would've tried to eliminate him.”

Harrison’s fine was later on decreased to $fifty,000. Even though Harrison didn't explicitly say what the envelope contained, the mere insinuation that Tomlin compensated him in any way evoked comparison for the so-known as Bountygate scandal, by which The brand new Orleans Saints’ coaching employees was determined in excess of a three-calendar year period of time to acquire available payouts to defensive gamers who wounded opponents, In keeping with a league investigation. The Saints’ coach, Sean Payton, didn't pay out gamers himself, nevertheless the league suspended him for any yr, partially, for not halting the technique soon after he was built conscious of it.

It truly is unclear whether or not the league will discuss the matter with Harrison and Tomlin; a spokesman with the N.F.L. declined to touch upon Friday. League policies stipulate that groups and its associates are prohibited from having to pay a player’s good.

In a statement, Steelers President Artwork Rooney II mentioned he was positive that Harrison’s allegations are untrue. “I am pretty particular practically nothing similar to this ever transpired,” Rooney claimed. “I don't know why James would come up with a comment such as this, but there's merely no foundation for believing anything like this.”

Harrison on Friday posted an announcement to his Instagram account that seemingly walked again his previously remark. “Mike T. Has NEVER compensated me for hurting anyone or Wanting to harm someone or put a bounty on Any one!” it study.

Harrison, along with the Corridor of Fame security Troy Polamalu, was the snarling experience in the Steelers’ protection from the 2000s, if they received two Tremendous Bowls. The league’s defensive player from the yr in 2008, Harrison created a standing for administering violent hits that teetered on the boundaries of legality. After the hit on Massaquoi in 2010, Harrison and Tomlin argued that it had been clean up and didn’t merit a high-quality. Tomlin, at the time, also said he favored harder penalties and rule variations to improve player safety.

A member in the N.F.L.’s Level of competition committee, Payton, as well as Saints’ Firm, have experienced a combative romantic relationship Using the league since Bountygate, and it's got only deepened, after the egregious non-get in touch with that most likely denied New Orleans a brilliant Bowl berth next the 2018 season. In the course of a radio job interview on Thursday, Payton all but challenged N.File.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell to investigate the Steelers, stating he could be “stunned” In the event the league did and that men and women “shouldn’t hold their breath” looking forward to it to take action.

“I think what took place with us back again in 2011 in so some ways was a sham, and but there wasn’t a good deal we could do with it,” Payton mentioned on a hundred and five.7 FM in Baltimore. “The players were being vindicated, but from a league or coaching standpoint, there's no union, there isn't a representation.”

He additional, “That’ll be something which’s tucked absent or underneath the rug at Park Avenue. They’ll take a look at it briefly. Listen, don’t get me begun on that. I lost $6 million in wage, and honestly it absolutely was something that I’ll never actually get over since I know how it absolutely was handled And exactly how it was operate and The explanations guiding it. That’s just the truth.”