Rodney Harrison, here having a heated conversation with Dolphins quarterback Chad Pennington last season, has said he won't make many friends as an NBC analyst.

Journal photo / Bob Breidenbach

“Everyone had pretty much blown us off. Didn’t give us a chance. Everyone picked Philly to win the game.”

-- Rodney Harrison, sounding off after the Patriots beat the Eagles, 24-21, in Super Bowl XXIX

Good luck to NBC.

Hopefully, they hired him to be outrageous, not accurate; to incite viewers, rather than provide them with meaningful insights.

“Everyone,” Harrison declared, after the Patriots had won their third Super Bowl in four years, “had pretty much blown us off.”

Everyone?

How about hardly anyone?

The Patriots were favored by a touchdown by the oddsmakers in Las Vegas. (And, it should be noted, failed to cover the spread.) A friend of mine who covers pro football for the Richmond, Va., Times-Dispatch polled writers at the Super Bowl that week to get their opinion of whether the Eagles or the Patriots would win. When he asked me, 31 of 32 writers had picked the Pats. My selection made it 32 of 33.

So, if you tune into “Football Night in America” this season, you might want to take Harrison’s comments with more than a few grains of salt.

“I’m going to be honest,” said Harrison, when asked Wednesday about how he was going to approach his new gig, “and I’m going to be forthright, and I’m going to do it with passion. Just like I played the game.”

Harrison played the game very well and very passionately. But not exactly cleanly. He earned – yes, earned –– a reputation, during his 15 years in the league, as one of the NFL’s dirtiest players.

His hard-hitting – and occasionally late-hitting – style made him the type of player fans loved, if he played for their team, and hated if he played for the opposition.

Certainly, he is beloved in New England – and for good reason. He was a team leader from the time he signed as a free agent with the Patriots in 2003 after playing the first nine years of his career in San Diego. He was a major contributor to the Pats’ back-to-back championship seasons in 2003 and 2004 – especially in ’04, when he made four interceptions in the playoffs, including two against the Eagles in the Super Bowl, the second of which ended Philly’s hopes for a late-game comeback.

But, being honest and forthright, as Harrison promises to be on TV –– he wasn’t as good as many Patriots fans seem to believe. Nor should his suspension, at the start of the 2007 season, for using HGH be glossed over.

In an online poll conducted on projo.com, fans have been voting overwhelmingly in favor of Harrison’s future induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

As my fellow columnist, Billy Reynolds, likes to say: Please.

There are four former Patriots in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Mike Haynes is the best cornerback I’ve seen in more than 30 years of covering the NFL. John Hannah is generally considered, along with Jim Parker of the Baltimore Colts, as one of the two greatest offensive linemen in pro football history. Andre Tippett was a fearsome pass rusher who used an awesome combination of speed and strength to overpower blockers and sack the quarterback. Nick Buoniconti is more famous as a member of the Dolphins – in particular, the undefeated 1972 team which featured the “No-Name Defense” – but played in five AFL all-star games in eight seasons with the Patriots and, as a linebacker, intercepted 24 passes.

Harrison was a very good player. But not one worthy of mention with the likes of Haynes and Hannah, Tippett or Buoniconti.

Pittsburgh Steelers safety Rod Woodson, a member of the 2009 Hall of Fame class, six times was voted first-team, all-pro, and played in 11 Pro Bowls. Ronnie Lott, a member of the class of 2000, was an all-pro pick at three positions – cornerback, strong safety, and free safety. He played in 10 Pro Bowls and helped the 49ers win four Super Bowls.

You want to talk about Harrison, who played in two Pro Bowls, and was first-team All Pro once, as a future member of the Patriots Hall of Fame, fine. But the Pro Football Hall of Fame? Get serious.

Tom Brady is a future Hall of Famer. Does anyone really think Harrison is to safeties what Brady is to quarterbacks?

The idea of Harrison someday being enshrined in Canton becomes even more ludicrous when you consider the debate raging over whether baseball players who took steroids should be admitted to Cooperstown.

Based on performance, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire – to name just a few – are unquestioned Hall of Famers. But, because of the taint of performance-enhancing drugs, their accomplishments are, justifiably, being questioned.

Harrison took HGH, no question. His rationale, he says, was to help him recover from injuries.

Which is akin to saying: “I stole money because I felt I needed it. Does that make me a real robber?”

While baseball’s stars are vilified, Harrison largely gets a free pass from adoring fans in New England.

Injuries were a problem for Harrison in the years after he earned a second Super Bowl ring by beating the Eagles. He played in just three games in 2005 before torn knee ligaments ended his season. He missed six games the following year with a broken shoulder blade, then missed the playoffs because of a knee injury suffered in the final game of the regular season.

After sitting out the first four games of the 2007 season while on suspension for having taken HGH, Harrison played the rest of that year, but it was his inability to prevent Giants wide receiver David Tyree from catching a ball on the top of his helmet that enabled New York to drive 83 yards in the final minutes of Super Bowl XLII and spoil the Patriots’ bid for a perfect season.

Which is not to say Harrison didn’t have some tremendous performances in the postseason. In the 2003 AFC championship game, he had an interception in the end zone on the Colts’ first possession, and later put a hit on wide receiver Marvin Harrison that forced him to cough up the ball deep in New England territory. In 2004 playoffs, he again helped throttle what was the league’s highest-scoring offense in the conference semifinal in Foxboro, when the Patriots beat Indy, 20-3, and then broke open the AFC championship game in Pittsburgh when he returned a Ben Roethlisberger pass 87 yards for a touchdown.

Harrison says he’ll be as hard-hitting as a commentator as he was as a safety.

“When I played,” he said, “I didn’t have many friends. I’m sure I’m not going to make many friends now.”

Good luck to NBC.

jdonalds@projo.com