Former NFL safety Rodney Harrison sparked concern among fans during NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcast on Sunday, November 30, after appearing to lose his train of thought while answering a question from fellow analyst Jac Collinsworth.
Collinsworth, 30, asked the former San Diego Chargers and New England Patriots star a question about the Washington Commanders before they took the field for a 27-26 loss to the Denver Broncos.
“Yeah, I look at…” said Harrison, 52, before stopping suddenly. “I forgot the…I’m sorry,” he said after a prolonged pause as Collinsworth repeated the question.
“I’m sorry. There’s a lot of stuff going on, I’m sorry,” Harrison replied. “They don’t have a lot of discipline on the defensive side of the ball. That’s it. I’m sorry, guys.”
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Because it was unclear what happened in the moment, the clip went viral, with fans on social media speculating that he could have been suffering a medical emergency.
“@SNFonNBC needs to check on Rodney Harrison!” one fan wrote. “He doesn’t seem to be feeling well! It looks like he was close to passing out!”
“What is going on with Rodney Harrison and why does sound so off right now?” another asked.
One fan suggested that the brutal temperatures in Washington, D.C. could have played a role.
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“I’m still wondering if Rodney Harrison is really ok or was it because he was cold [that] he was struggling last night?” they wrote.
Harrison soon recovered and appeared on Peacock’s postgame show without raising any more alarm. His bounce-back also prompted some fans to offer more innocuous explanations, like that Harrison could have been distracted by a producer speaking through his earpiece.
Harrison has not publicly addressed the incident as of Monday morning and Us Weekly has reached out to his team and NBC Sports for comment.
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A two-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots, Harrison played 15 seasons in the NFL from 1994 to 2008. He was no stranger to controversy during his career, as NFL players voted him the league’s “dirtiest player” multiple times.
In 2005, he told the New York Post that he believed he had racked up around $750,000 in fines during his career due to his questionable hits.
“I don’t worry about the money,” he told the outlet. “I’ve been in the league a long time, and it’s just about hitting and running around and being a kid out there. I love it. I enjoy it. I’m not worried about the fines. I’m going to keep playing the way I play.”
He has since changed his tune in retirement. In a 2010 interview for NFL.com, he spoke out against a series of helmet-to-helmet hits that plagued the league at the time.
“I’ve got two young boys, and I said, ‘What if those were my sons (being hit)?’” he said. “I would be devastated if I saw one of my sons lying on the ground.”
He also looked back at his own actions during his playing days.
“I was young and I was immature,” he admitted. “When I used to make a lot of those hits, I didn’t think about long-term repercussions from these hits, whether it’s the guy delivering the hit or whether it’s the guy receiving these hits.”
