Rodney Harrison: Patriots being targeted, but they bring it on themselves

Rodney Harrison has used his status as an NFL analyst to defend his former team on several occasions in the past, but he didn’t exactly fight for New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s reputation while discussing Deflategate.

During an appearance on NBC Sports Radio’s “Going Deep” with Amani Toomer and Dan Schwartzman on Friday, Harrison said the Patriots are being targeted but that they asked for it.

“The Patriots are being attacked even more because of what happened with Spygate, because they’re the Patriots, because they win, the way they win, their head coach, their owner,” he said. “I believe they’re being attacked. At the same time, it’d be naive of me to sit back and say they don’t bring it on themselves.

“Obviously, if (Brady) likes his balls softer and it was under the legal limit, that’s messing with the integrity of the game. That’s something, as players, we teach our kids the right thing. We have to teach them that you can’t break the rules and when you do, you get punished.”

Harrison added that he believes Brady should have been suspended for two games and the team should not have been punished at all after the Ted Wells report exonerated both Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft. He also said Deflategate has been blown out of proportion

“It’s kind of overblown, I really believe that,” Harrison said. “I understand that there’s a certain level of integrity of the game. Quarterbacks are very, very anal when it comes to their balls. To sit here and be naive and say that Tom Brady didn’t have any idea that the balls were under a certain level, I would have to say I don’t believe that.”

Harrison’s stance is much different from the one that former Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi took, as Bruschi said there is no way he believes Brady violated rules intentionally. At least one future Hall of Fame quarterback seems to agree with Bruschi.

Harrison spent six seasons with the Patriots and won two Super Bowls during that span. He was there in 2007 when the Spygate scandal erupted and was suspended for the first four games that season for using performance-enhancing drugs, so he is plenty familiar with being labeled a cheater.