The Media likes wide receivers to be silent.  They want them to just go out there and “do their job.”  Simply put they want them to catch the ball, get tackled, get up, and go back to the huddle. How many times have you heard Chris Berman praise an athlete that hands the ball to the referee right after they score instead of dancing in the end zone?  The media does not want to see the wide outs celebrate, talk trash, or get into off the field incidences. The media talks so poorly about the wide receivers that celebrate their accomplishments that the public starts to believe those athletes are all around just bad people.

On the other end of the spectrum the media praises the quiet receiver that goes out and just makes plays.  They say they are good team players and unselfish.  They talk so highly of these receivers and lead us to believe that these quiet assassins are outstanding individuals and great role models. 

In my opinion I have no idea why the media believes the reserved, quiet receiver is a better athlete and better person than the loud, flamboyant one.  A perfect example of why this is not true is Marvin Harrison.

Marvin Harrison is a paradigm of a receiver that just did what he was told.  The media loved him because he did not act like Chad Johnson and  Terrell Owens.  They labeled him as good guy, a classy standup individual that would never get into trouble off the field, a perfect example for young athletes everywhere.  That all changed on April 28, 2008.

The facts about the incident that happened that night are hazy but this is what was reported.  On the night of the 28th Marvin Harrison got into an argument at 5:00 PM at Playmakers, a bar he owns in Philadelphia.  The man left the bar and Harrison followed.  Gunshots rang out and the other man was shot in the hand and flying glass that resulted from a car window getting shot gave a young girl minor cuts.  Police came to the scene but neither victim identified a shooter. Ballistic tests showed that the bullets came from a very rare custom-made Belgian pistol.  Guess who owned one?  Mr. Quiet Marvin Harrison.

It gets worse for Harrison.  He admitted to the police that he did own such a gun but he stated that it never left his house.  The police searched a car-wash owned by Harrison and found the gun in a bucket. The gun had recently discharged several bullets, which were a perfect match with those fired at the scene of the crime. 

After all of this, Marvin Harrison was never charged with Attempted Murder.  The harshest penalty he is facing right now is $100,000 lawsuit from the victim.

I bet a majority of you out there and the average sports fan never even heard of this incident.  The ones who did hear about it were shocked.  I was even shocked.  No one expected this from Harrison because he was always such a good guy… or the media led us to believe he was a good guy.

Marvin Harrison is having probably his worst season in the last several years.  Sports analysts are blaming this on age.  Not one has stated that maybe his mind is elsewhere and he can’t focus because he shot someone.  It still seems the media has some allegiance to this guy.  I know a man is not guilty until proven so, but if this was Chad Johnson or Terrell Owens the media would be camping outside their houses and the story would be run 24/7 on every news network. The police would have to arrest either of them because of how much attention the story would get.  If they didn’t charge either of them the media would crush the police department and claim they let them off due to Johnson or Owens being famous and/or wealthy.

You can hate Chad Johnson and Terrell Owens for their over the top dramatics on the field but neither of them have ever been on the wrong side of the law, so don’t let the media convince you that they are bad people. 

Maybe it is the quiet ones we should be worried about.