Games with Names - Dudes on James Harrison

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

We've got a bonus mini-episode for you this week! We're covering legendary Steeler, and former New England Patriots teammate, James Harrison! Gronk and Julian Edelman discuss what makes James Harrison so great and some of their favorite stories.Support the show: http://www.gameswithnames.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking in on the Black Effect Podcast Network. You know, we always say New Year, New Me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to Checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black. Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions

than answers? Who catfishes a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains? Is that the plot of footloose? I'm comedian Rory Scoville, and I'm here to tell you, Josh Dean and I have a new podcast that celebrates the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. It's called Crimeless, a true crime comedy podcast. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangled a dangerous path.

one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? My sister was y'all 22 times. A police officer, right? But what do you do when the monster is the man in blue?

This dude is the devil. He'll hurt you. This is the story of a detective who thought he was above the law until we came together to take him down. I said, you're going to see my face to the day that you die. I got you, I got you, I got you. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I got you. What's up? It's Cam Jordan. I'm back with season three of your favorite podcast, the Off the Edge with Cam Jordan Podcast. It's happening every Wednesday to hear conversations with my friends and stars for the NFL, the sports world in general, and entertainment.

about anything from teams and players making waves to pop culture. And I'll take you inside my journey through my 15th season in the NFL. Looking forward to you joining me this season, the season of more on the Off the Edge with Cam Joined podcast. Catch new episodes every Wednesday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. Store more and do more with your data.

Try them for free at wasabi.com. All right, let's get into our last Halloween. Dishing of dudes on dudes. Guy that we are going to talk about. You know what? I'm looking at this, and it's pretty gnarly. That every one of the scariest guys that we're going over is from the AFC fucking north.

Another Kent State Golden Flash. another man that scares the living shit out of you he sure does his name is debo but his birth name is james harrison uh james henry harrison jrison oh hank i will not call him that to his face he'll probably beat my face in i've seen him doing that volleyball shit what is uh let's see what a i ask to say all right ladies a i for james hank I was probably too scared to write anything about. Holy smokes. Oh, that's blank.

AI was scared. AI is fucking scared. I'm scared. Did not want to get it wrong. Start the clock. Now. Now. James Harrison.

James Harrison was a tenacious and a hard-hitting linebacker. Tenacious. Tenacious. Thank you, Jules. Gotcha. Hey, I'm hairy. I didn't read any books growing up, okay? You know, and a hard-hitting in in-backer.

Known for his relentless work at the timebacker. and physical style of play. Off the field, he was dedicated and resilient, overcoming numerous setbacks to achieve success. Harrison had a significant impact on the Pittsburgh Steelers, on the Pittsburgh Steelers, helping them win two Super Bowls and earning the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award

in 2008. Jesus. Notably, he set a then-Steeler's single-season record with 16 sacks in 2008 and is the only undrafted player to win defensive player of their year. award. He was also a five-time pro-baller and twice named the Steelers MVP. He should have been a Super Bowl MVP. Yeah, but San Antonio Holmes with that

crazy toe tap and catch to end the game. They should give out like two MVP's award, a defensive MVP if deserved, and then an MVP award as well, or an MVP award. And if it was a defensive guy, then if someone played on the offensive side, you know, on the often side of the ball very well. They should also have the offense of MVP. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying by that? Oh, Andy. Yeah. They can get a better sponsorship group out of the NFL too, if they

did that. You could have, you know, Chevy for, you know, the offense and Ford for the defense. We're not business guys. Debo. Hey, Lloyd. You're smarter than I thought. Harry! Your hands are freezing.

James Harrison. absolute scary motherfucker like he's look at him you look at his pictures it's like one degree outside he's got his shirt off in his baggy ass sweats doing a pregame warm up looking like he wants to just i fucking kill every single person on the other side of the team like we played against him and he's got a notion and it's so fucking crazy that he didn't get drafted because he's about six feet tall, but he's also six feet wide. This guy is a fucking fridge. His arms are literally like 30 inches big.

I remember he came and played with us in 17. It literally, when he would walk in the locker room, it felt like the scene in Friday when Debo would roll. Everyone would put their chains away. And he was like a nice guy, but he just had that scary oil. Great guy. Scary aura about him. We're like, no, hey, oh, shit.

What's up? No one wanted to joke with them because you didn't know if he was going to take it or if he could be joked with it. But he was honestly a great teammate for that one year. And he's made so many incredible fucking plays in his career. Like, it's insane. Have you seen him do the shock put? No, I never seen that. I guess he's a huge fucking shock putter.

Like, he's a fuck. I love him. I absolutely loved him. I remember when he played that game in 2008, I was at Kent. state, the Super Bowl, where he had that big 100-yard run in the Super Bowl. And I was just so excited to see a guy like him, you know, dominating the NFL from where I came from. He, I mean, it was, it's crazy. Was Prime's James Harrison faster than you? Yes. Was he? Yes. I'm not going to say he wasn't. I had to think about.

that and I was like, wait, if I am faster than him, I should not say I was faster. That's like me saying I'm stronger than him as well, which obviously I am not stronger than James Harrison. I don't think anyone is. But I'm going to talk a little football, you know, a little technician on the football field here. I mean, in the blocking aspect of the game. And who you're going versus, what type of guy you're going versus, what type of player you're going versus, who you're going versus. Because in the NFL, you scout the player you're going versus. You scout them. You see what type of player they are.

You see how they react to, you know, the type of blocks that they're receiving and all that good stuff. And what size he is, what height the defender is that you're going verse. You get in his chest. You throw your shoulder. There's so many different techniques depending on who you're going versus. And I love blocking a guy that's like 6'5, my height, who stands up. Because then I can get in his chest driving backwards. And a guy that doesn't have that mean look, that mean attitude.

and a guy that's not going to get pissed off because I came flying off the ball and absolutely drilled him and drove him back five yards and embarrass him. That was the last thing I was trying to do with James Harrison. What were you trying to do with James? First off with James, I knew I couldn't get into his chest. The guy is like a bowling ball.

Like you know that 28 pound bowling ball that everyone wants to throw down the freaking lane and just trying to knock down all the pins and like you kind of like do it granny style and it's so heavy. You blow out your back. Well, those are the hardest guys to block. in the NFL, especially at my size, six foot six, you know, it's hard for me to get low. It's hard for me to move that type of guy because they have so much leverage.

Built in pad level. Yes, exactly. That's what he has. And with a guy like that and how scary and intimidating he was, and I've seen it on film, you do not want to piss James Harrison off. Why? What did you see on film? Yes.

What do you see on film? What do you see on film? I've seen him take defenders, offense alignment, toss them. I've seen him absolutely level defenders. and put him out of the game with a concussion. Dude, he knocked out Josh Cribs, one of his teammates from college. Literally knocked his ass out. Therefore, when I'm blocking him, it's a guy that you just kind of want to get in his way.

I'm not going to come off the ball and crush his skull. I'm not trying to do that because if I piss him off, you know, if I hit him hard and I trigger him, man, I'm going to tell you he's going to pick me up and throw me to the next play. So I never wanted to trigger him. I always just try to get in his way, you know, with my shoulder, with my hands. So then when the running back came around and you try to make a play, you know, just get in his way again. You know, so he can't make the play. I could feel his strength. I could feel his strength. Because if I started going strength for strength, that's when I lose.

Yeah. No doubt about it. That's when I lose the block versus a guy like that in leverage. So every time I just tried to just kind of play patty kick, you know, try to let him absorb me. So if I did fly off the ball, he would fly off the ball too, then I would go backwards. And he would have that separation. And the guy would pass. So I just try to stick on him like a, like a sponge, you know, and just always didn't let him out of my rear view mirror.

just always staying in front of them, never trying to piss them off, never trying to give them a cheap shot. That was the way I blocked James Harrison. And it was a whole different style when you go versus a player like him. That's crazy. See, we're here talking about Rob, like, Rob's, Rob used to block the biggest, baddest dude on the defensive line. That's fucking nuts.

You don't see, it's rarely seen, you know, a matchup with the tight end and the nine technique fucking D-end or what, you know, the outside linebacker that's playing down. like that doesn't that's usually not the point of attack a lot of times is it you watch that film yeah you always want to get the tackle on those guys but when you have a tight end in that situation that's willing to do it willing to get dirty that's what expands your offense yeah expands the run game that's what expands the play action game as well and i kind of use that to my advantage and that's actually what helped me get open plenty of time on the play actions when the linebacker step up because they thought you know i'm coming out the block but uh james harrison was a terrifying pocket pressure player low he got he got so low he's just like like yeah he would have that shoulder dip and he would just get right by to off the tackle even though the offense to tackle is twice his size kind of like it looks like twice as height but he would get right underneath him and he was so strong he would just rip through right through his arm and then get to the quarterback and he was quick enough to take kind of an outside angle run the hump yeah run the hump and then bolt right to the corner back he also

would have a great change up where he would just use his strength he'd get right up in that chest of that guy who was about eight inches taller than him and push his ass right back into the pocket and blow up the quarterback. And that's the exact leverage I was talking about him. That's why I didn't go toe to toe with him right off the line because he would get that leverage and you'd push me back. So I would

just try to stay on him and not let him get that force to, you know, to be able to push me back. So just being a smart player. Have you seen his workout videos? His workout videos are freaking ridiculous. He has like 845s on each side when he's freaking benching like 500, like

55 pounds you see it does just ridiculous his conditioning he gets like a a 30 pound or a 40 pound medicine ball and he plays volleyball with it where you have to catch it I have seen that that that's hard people don't realize that's hard that's heavy weight and he does it for a long round like it's so fun to watch his workouts because he does like some world strongest man shit all the time we're like you'll have like a boulder he's pushing or he's fucking pulling a goddamn car or throwing fucking rocks that are like 900 pounds. Like he's just a, he's a cool dude, man.

And the one thing about it, the one thing, would you agree? Does his voice not match his body? I think it does match his body. It does? Because I don't think it's like a low, scary voice. It's not as low as you expect. Yeah.

So I don't think it, like, you would think with that guy, he's like, hey, how are you doing? Yeah, you're expecting that low. No. It's kind of, it's not high, though. No, it's not high. It's kind of like James. I'm not saying you have a high boy.

Which is kind of good because imagine if it was that low, it would be like even scary. Yeah. Like I remember he, remember he gave, I got one of his shirts. Remember he had the Debo shirt in the locker room? I still have the Debo shirt somewhere here. He's like, he can lip like, whatever, 600 pounds, bench, squat, that lift. But what I love about him is that he always posts his regimen. of you know recovering yeah of how he recovers off of those lifts how he was recovering in the

NFL and he would put like 350 acupuncture needles and every day like every other day and he posts about it like you got to be a freak you got to be intense in order to get 350 needles poked inside of your muscle tissue and just take it like an absolute champ like that just shows he just shows like he's dedicated like he's doing whatever it takes to be at that level that he needs to be at who is the mount rushmore of strongest guys we played with you think i would say sebastian volmer left tackle uh was Vince will fork he was super strong strong he didn't really have to even like work out that much he would just walk in the weight room and toss up like 500 pounds of the bench yeah Marcus cannon cannon was the strongest guy I ever saw the squatting world

I remember Canada would be squatting and there'd be 15 fucking 45 and the thing would be bouncing. I swear, I think he had like 12-45s on each side. Remember that? Yeah, the bar would be bouncing like it was a fucking cue tip with fucking rocks on it. It was gnarly. That was a good imitation right there. And then Brandon Bolden for pound for pound. Bolin didn't even work out.

He was like, but he pound for pound when we do all those like. Oh my gosh. I wasn't saying like that was a bad thing to work out. He didn't need to work out. Then I'm like, dude, how are you so strong and ripped? He was like,

yeah, I carry my kids around. And I'm like, I'm like, dang, I got to start having kids. I got to start having kids. And I still haven't started.

And this is eight years later. I would still be playing if I had 10 kids. You would always do those. Remember, we'd always have to do those explosion recordings for some certain things. like the Kaiser's, and he would always be the absolute

he blow people out by a thousand points because he was just so explosive strong. I'd say that's probably our Mount Rushmore. Yes. His last Kent State game,

you know who he sacked five times? Miami of Ohio. Oh, Big Ben. His fucking teammate. Ben Rothesburg. No one's off limits. No one is off limits.

We saw what he did to Josh Cribbs when he was in a Browns uniform. We saw what he did to Ben Laugh. When he was in a Miami of Ohio uniform, like he is fucking Freddie Krueger, bro. This is a, I mean, this is the perfect guy to have on the goddamn Halloween episode. You know, yeah, we're talking about his, you know, defensive skill set and all that.

But what about every time he had an interception? He always almost like brought that ball back to the house. Always. Obviously with one of the biggest Super Bowl plays in history, the 100 yard return versus Arizona Cardinals. And if they scored right on that drive, they were saying the game was going to be over going into half because the carnos had that big of an advantage and that much momentum going in. But he saved the Steelers that game with that interception to the house.

It looked like he was about to be tackled eight different times. And he just kept going and kept going and kept going. He's kind of like a fullback mixed with a running back when he's running the ball. Like Mike Allostott. Yes, exactly like him. He's Mike Allstott of the defensive side of the ball. Did you hear that he's, is he going to be fighting Notcho Cinco? He will be fighting Nocho.

Yeah, Ocho Cinco. Ocho Cinco. First, James Harrison. What are you thinking, Ocho Cinco? What the? Forge, are you thinking? I'll tell you right now, Ocho Cinco's got some ball. He does have some ball.

He raced a horse. He's fought a couple times. And he's lost all the fights, though. Has he? Yeah, he lost a fight. He fought one time. There's something to be said about a man that loses a fight and keeps coming back. He keeps coming back.

Oh, Joe Zinko don't back down. He doesn't. No, he doesn't. But what's he thinking? What is he thinking? I don't, is it, it's UFC, right? It's a-M-M-A style. M-M-A style?

Yeah. I mean, the only way you'd have to fight James Harrison is if you go box him if he couldn't bring you down. Ocho Cinco is 6-1-190 pounds about, I would say. He's got it? He's probably like, yeah? He lost a Brian Maxwell in a boxing match? Did he?

Yeah, it wasn't that pretty. I'm not saying he'd probably beat the shit out of me, but I'm not fucking James Harris. Mm-hmm. James Harrison is a scary man. Should we go? We should go. I got a what-if scenario. Do you think we can beat James Harrison if we tag team versus him?

You mean if we tag team James Harrison? No, no, like you and I versus James Harrison. I don't, honestly, I really don't know. I consider myself a tough guy. And I consider you a large, tough. human as well. We would have to game plan. You have to game plan because you know the Steelers do what they do. They do what they do. They do what they do. They do what they do. They do what they do. They do do what they do. They do what they do. They do what they do. They do what they do. We'd have to game plan

for that fight. Time. All right. But what kind of dude is James Harrison? Okay. I have I have two that I think he is. You know, I don't think he's a dude's dude. No one's, I played with him. And he was kind of kind of a dude's dude, but I was too scared of him the whole time for him to me think that he was a dude's dude. The freak, he's, I mean, he's either a freak or dog to me. You know, and I think it's a crazy thing that if he's a freak, that he was an undrafted freak. That's probably a stat that we'll never say again. And that's freaky. I mean, he is a freak for sure. I would not disagree with a freak. He has dog in him. There's no doubt about that. He's a relentless dog. He's a dog that he's a pit bull. He just never going to stop. It's the pit bull.

that's untrained, yeah, that has a locked dog and just never letting go until that jaw finally gets tired after like time out. You got to put him down. I think you got to put him down basically. You got to kill him to let him go. But he's also freak with the interception and the stride, his stride when he's running is ridiculous. I mean, it's freaky to have a stride like that at that size with that much mass and to be able to run like that, that's freaky. That's freaky tangibles. Dude, no one, five, they say he's six foot.

That dude's 5.11. he may be 5'10 he bout my height and he's 260 and he runs just as fast as me okay if you want to call that not a freak you're fucking crazy yeah you are crazy then he's a freak he's a freak he's a freak he's a freak james harrison freak stamp it hey everybody it's michelle williams host of checking in on the black effect podcast network you know we always say new year new me but real change starts on the inside it starts with giving your mind and your spirit, the same attention you give your goals. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step

into your next season, whole and empowered. New Year, Real You. Listen to checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Have you ever listened to those true crime shows and found yourself with more questions than answers. Who catfishes a city? Is it even safe to snort human remains?

Is that the plot of footloos? I'm comedian Rory Scoville, and I'm here to tell you, Josh Dean and I have a new podcast that celebrates the amazing creativity of the world's dumbest criminals. It's called Crimeless, a true crime comedy podcast.

Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a copy. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late. He was the head of this gang.

You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle the dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? My sister was shot 22 times.

A police officer, right? But what do you do when the monster is the man in blue? This dude is the devil. He'll hurt you. This is the story of a detective who thought he was above the law until we came together to take him down. I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

you get your podcast. What's up? It's Cam Jordan. I'm back with season three of your favorite podcast, The Off the Edge with Cam Jordan podcast. Tap in every Wednesday to hear conversations

with my friends and stars from the NFL, the sports world in general, and entertainment. About anything from teams and players making waves to pop culture. And I'll take you

inside my journey through my 15th season in the NFL. Looking forward to you joining me this season, the season of more on The Off the Edge with Cam Join podcast.

Catch new. episodes every Wednesday on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. Store more and do more with your data. Try them for free at wasabi.com.