(Screenshot of James Harrison slamming a Browns fan from YouTube)
Former Steelers guard Alan Faneca, who will be formally enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this summer as a part of the Class of 2021, was on the Soup with Coop podcast recently and talked about the famous moment when James Harrison slammed a Browns fan on the field.
“He’s one of the best,” Faneca told host Cooper Manning via 93.7 The Fan. “You know, everybody loves to talk about James and his strength; one of the best sequences of it that I've ever seen was when we were in Cleveland and one of these guys runs down on the field and he's running laps around the field and avoiding the police and security, and he comes just close enough to the sideline and James takes two quick steps out and grabs him by his waist and his shirt and literally picks him up and body slams him all in like one smooth motion. And my man was, you know, he was evading the police but he really shouldn't have been. He was definitely north of 230 [pounds] in a 5-foot-8 frame, and [James] just, I mean he just snatched him and threw him to the ground like it was no effort, like he was just picking up a five-pound thing of potatoes at Whole Foods.”
Harrison slammed the Browns fan on Christmas Eve in 2005, a game in which the Steelers won, 41-0, in Cleveland.
The name of the Browns fan was Nathan Mallet and he was intoxicated when he decided to run out on the field. Mallet told Cleveland's 19 Action News that he was embarrassed by the moment and apologized to the Browns, along with advising others to not do what he did.
"Don't do it," Mallett said, who spent Christmas Eve behind bars. "It ain't worth it."
Mallet also made this statement, "There's nothing I can say except I hate losing to the Steelers."
Harrison said he slammed Mallett because he was heading toward the Steelers' sideline.
"We didn't know if he had anything on him or if he might do something. I was protecting my teammates," Harrison said. "I didn't want to hurt him. I just wanted to keep him down until the proper authorities came."