Shutdown Corner - NFL

Someone in Philadelphia robbed a bank and killed a cop, so the Philadelphia police are rightfully focusing their efforts there, instead of trying to figure something out in the weird case where someone was shot with a Belgian gun that may or may not belong to Marvin Harrison.

So there are no new developments in the case, and there probably won't be anytime soon. Harrison still isn't a suspect, and his agent says he's not under investigation.

But I wasn't around last week when the story broke, so let's get into it now. The first thought I had, like everyone else, was "Marvin Harrison? Quiet, productive, non-controversial Marvin Harrison? Why, I just can't believe it."

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how much we really know about Marvin Harrison. He is, at least publicly, a very quiet and introverted man. And in the NFL, it's the loud receivers, guys like Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson, and Randy Moss, who are seen as the bad guys. So if Harrison was the opposite of that, he had to be the good guy, right?

Maybe not. Maybe all this time, we were mistaking "quiet" for "well-behaved."

The fact is, we don't know anything about Marvin Harrison (and probably know a lot less about pro athletes in general than we'd like to think), because that's how he's always preferred things. He doesn't share his personal life with the media or with the public, and that's his right.

But regardless of guilt or innocence in this particular case, I learned things about Harrison that I didn't know. I didn't know he owned 25 guns. I wouldn't have guessed that about him. I didn't know that one of those guns was a custom-made Belgian job that shoots .50 caliber bullets, which will come in handy if you ever need to drop a rampaging brontosaurus on PCP with one shot. Why anyone owns one of those things, I have no idea.

I guess the point is that I can be guilty of rushing to judgment on people in both directions. A guy does one thing that's unseemly or out-of-line with how I think people should behave, and he gets painted as a lowlife bastard who isn't fit to share an unpleasant and nonconsensual shower encounter with Rae Carruth.

On the other side of the coin, a guy does absolutely nothing except remain quiet and store a pint of milk in his mustache, and he gets painted as a saint.

Neither is a good idea.

Now, I'm not saying that we've learned in all this that Marvin Harrison's an evil man and that he's had us fooled all along. At this point, he's been charged with and accused of nothing. The point is, that when it comes to Marvin Harrison's character, we just don't know. It's possible that for all these years, I've been mistaking quiet for class.

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11 Comments

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  1. Gbdup
    1. Posted by Gbdup Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:40 pm EDT

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    who ever runs college football is an idiot. first off if its all about the sponsor money for the bowl games, they easily attach sponsors to the playoff games and there would be more excitement for games and also every year we wouldnt have 3 national championships. the college football national championship system is a joke, we want play offs and a team rising up in play offs and 1 champion. til you change that there will always be flaws bcs everyone knows that.
  2. Turtle
    2. Posted by Turtle Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:25 pm EDT

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    I drive a dodge stratus.
  3. Jdfolkerts
    3. Posted by Jdfolkerts Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:28 pm EDT

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    i am trying to understand here... because he owns some firearms he is a bad guy? or more to the point not a good guy? i am not a harrison fan but if he were a problematic premadonna he probably would have been caught just like all the others. he is not a 1 year starter here. he has been in football quite a long while now. if he had issues with the law these probably would have come out to the public by now.
  4. Patrick B
    4. Posted by Patrick B Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:08 pm EDT

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    #3, he was caught assaulting some young fans a few years back. It was highly publized, but he was caught being a thug. MJD, thanks for a well written article.
  5. Tyrone
    5. Posted by Tyrone Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:25 pm EDT

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    So what he owns some firearms, Hes a multi millionare that owns buissnesses in NorthPhila,So do you know what that means? Hes a target!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and when you are a target in North Phila you get got so I dont blame him for having protection in this crazy stupid city. The only problem I have with him is why open up a bussness in that part of town when you know how (some) people act!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  6. Turtle
    6. Posted by Turtle Thu Sep 03, 2009 10:25 pm EDT

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    #8...Do I leave spaces between all the letters to get to that site? Or underscore?
  7. kwt002
    7. Posted by kwt002 Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:55 pm EDT

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    Shoot, only 25 guns? What a cheapskate. On his salary he could easily afford 10 times that. And a serious collector would have more still.
    As for the caliber of the "special gun", the writer here obviously doesn't know squat about guns. A .50 probably would dent the hide of a brontosaurus, but probably not a whole lot more. I may not know a whole lot more than him, but I do know enough to know that shotguns firing slugs of approximately a half-inch diameter are used in deer hunting. But surely there is only a very slight difference in size and toughness between a brontosaurus and a deer.
  8. Forty
    8. Posted by Forty Thu Sep 03, 2009 4:18 pm EDT

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    Payton Manning Deer Hunts....so it may be safe to say that he owns a least one gun...is he a bad guy?
  9. Patrick B
    9. Posted by Patrick B Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:08 pm EDT

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    MJD never said he was a bad guy, he just said that we don't know what kind of guy he is. There's a big difference in owning a few rifles to hunt with, and owning multiple pistols. Rifles are used for hunting animals, pistols are used for killing humans.
  10. Ethan
    10. Posted by Ethan Thu Sep 03, 2009 3:50 pm EDT

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    The problem here is not is not that he owns a gun, but that he owns a custom-made German gun, that matchs the shells used in the shooting.
  11. COWBOY AL
    11. Posted by COWBOY AL Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:49 pm EDT

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    Douchbag.

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Shutdown Corner is an NFL blog edited by Matthew J. Darnell. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.

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