My Life and Times

The Patriots' Rodney Harrison and the Eagles' Brian Dawkins are the hard-hitting, often-fined leaders of their secondaries. They are also big fans of each other.


February 5, 2005
With These Safeties on the Loose, Receivers Tread at Their PerilBy DAMON HACK
ACKSONVILLE, Fla., Feb. 4 - Brian Dawkins once visited the headquarters of Marvel Comics in New York so artists could dream up what he might look like as a member of the X-Men.
They rendered Dawkins, a safety with the Philadelphia Eagles, with the body of Wolverine, three blades exploding from each set of knuckles and puncturing a pair of footballs. At his feet lay a dozen more balls, impaled and emitting smoke that seemed to curl into wings above him.
"I take the field," Dawkins said this week, "with a warrior's mentality," a notion that his counterpart, New England Patriots safety Rodney Harrison, endorses.
If there were one player in the N.F.L. to put on a pedestal or to receive an autograph from, "It would be Brian Dawkins," Harrison said.
No players on the field for Super Bowl XXXIX at Alltel Stadium on Sunday will set the physical tenor of the game more than Harrison and Dawkins, whose brutal styles have left a trail of fallen bodies behind them.
Separated by two conferences but joined by the pleasure they share in knocking a receiver to the turf, Dawkins and Harrison have grown up together.
They entered the league two years apart but soon were spying each other on television, Harrison a big thumper first with the San Diego Chargers and now the Patriots, Dawkins the hard-hitting soul of the Eagles.
"He's a crazy man," Dawkins said of Harrison. "I love the way he plays the game."
This season, Dawkins, 31, and Harrison, 32, the premier safeties in the N.F.L. over the past decade, have had to guide young defensive-back units through rough patches to reach this moment.
Dawkins, who was born in Jacksonville, has been credited with mentoring safety Michael Lewis and cornerback Lito Sheppard (also from Jacksonville), who each made his first Pro Bowl. Cornerback Sheldon Brown perhaps could have made the Pro Bowl, too.
Like the Patriots, the Eagles have been smart salary-cap managers, occasionally jettisoning relatively expensive players near the height of their powers instead of on a decline.
When Philadelphia did not re-sign the veteran cornerbacks Bobby Taylor and Troy Vincent after the 2003 season, the secondary was expected to suffer. Instead, it has continued its tradition of ball hawking and helmet knocking, led always by Dawkins.
"Of course, Dawk is the leader of this group, but myself, Lito and Mike all want to outdo each other," Brown said. "That's just the bottom line. We are competitive."
The deference to Dawkins, who has appeared in more games (125) as an Eagle than any player on the roster, is more than just talk. Dawkins's tackles sometimes echo through the stadium, inspiring his secondary to further mayhem.
Dawkins was fined $50,000 in 2002 for misusing his helmet on a hit that dislocated the shoulder of Giants wide receiver Ike Hilliard.
Such hits inspire teammates, according to Lewis. "When you see a fellow safety hit someone and the air comes out, it's huge for me," Lewis said. "To lay somebody out makes you want to lay somebody out."
Dawkins, who is 6 feet and 200 pounds, understands how his intensity crackles through the Eagles' defense but also how Harrison's moxie provides a compass for New England.
At 6-1 and 220 pounds, Harrison moves around the field with the edict to inflict pain. Dawkins has watched, at times in awe.
"Almost every play, you see him getting into it with somebody, some kind of altercation," Dawkins said with respect. "He's always been that way. When he takes the field, you make sure you know where he is because he is either going to hit you, or he's going to tell you where he is."
Harrison, whose play has helped ease the loss of the injured cornerbacks Ty Law and Tyrone Poole, intercepted a Ben Roethlisberger pass and returned it 87 yards for a touchdown in the American Football Conference championship game. But his reputation comes from how he uses his helmet and shoulder pads.
"I think any time you send a message, sometimes people listen and sometimes they don't," Harrison said. "It just depends on how hard you send the message."
Eagles receiver Freddie Mitchell, the loose-lipped, part-time Hollywood showman, dared to jab Harrison verbally during an ESPN interview leading up to the Super Bowl, saying he "had something" for Harrison, perhaps hinting that he could take Harrison's punches and dish out some of his own.
Mitchell did not back off his statements. Harrison said Mitchell was probably joking, then guessed that Mitchell might have been drinking and finally decided that Mitchell was a jerk.
Dawkins said Mitchell erred in tweaking Harrison.
"You get in trouble saying things like that," Dawkins said. "That's why it's better to just keep it clean."
Like Dawkins, Harrison has been known to catch the eye of the league officials who hand out fines for excessively brutal hits. Harrison said this week that he had probably been fined about $350,000 "after taxes" in his career.
"They FedEx you an envelope," Harrison said. "I just got fined $7,500 last week. They said I ripped off Hines Ward's face mask, his helmet or something. I don't even challenge them now. I just throw them in the garbage."
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