Rodney Harrison says Ricky Williams is dirty, but not in the sense of 'he needs a bath'
You can call Ricky Williams dirty if you'd like. But if you do, for the sake of accuracy, you should probably be calling him a "dirty hippie," not a "dirty football player." Patriots safety Rodney Harrison went for the latter. From the Boston Herald:
Rodney Harrison, in fact, called it dirty. When asked if it was because Williams hit Vrabel below the knees after Brown already had scored, Harrison answered in the affirmative.
“You said it better than me,” Harrison said. “There’s no place in the game for that. (But) it’s part of the game. You have to protect yourself. It’s disappointing that guys don’t take care of each other, but we’ll just have to be on guard, because there’s some dirty stuff out there.”
I'm sure he's kidding. He has to be kidding. This is like Chris Henry saying that Warrick Dunn has character issues. It's like Scott Linehan saying Bill Belichick doesn't prepare his team very well. This isn't the pot calling the kettle black, this is the pot calling a snowflake black.
This is the same Rodney Harrison who was voted by his peers as the league's dirtiest player in 2004. The same Rodney Harrison was given the same title by the same people in 2006. And the same Rodney Harrison who was voted in 2008 as the league's dirtiest player by the head coaches of the league.
The Herald chose to play up the "OMG, Ricky Williams smoked marijuana!" angle, sneaking in a couple of clever digs like, "Ricky Williams hit a sticky issue," and "The Patriots weren't happy about getting smoked [by the Dolphins]."
If you want to bring up the herb, it seems to me that it argues against Ricky Williams being a dirty player, as potheads are generally pretty mellow. Also generally pretty mellow are yoga instructors, vegans, and holistic healers, all areas in which Ricky has dabbled.
Maybe Williams crossed the line on a play, maybe he didn't. You can make that call for yourself. But Rodney Harrison, who makes more dirty plays in a quarter of football than most guys make in a career, doesn't get the make the judgment call on anyone else.
Related: , Ricky Williams, Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots
