It sucks. Did anyone watch Hard Knocks? I think it was episode two where there was this beast of a linebacker and they cut him because he had chronically weak knees. It was hard to watch and you could see that it was hard for Rex and Tanenbaum. Cruel reality in the NFL. I have been pulling for Harrell his whole time here, but it is starting to look pretty clearly like his body just isn't built to stand up to NFL punishment.

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The Justin Harrell Story will be a "Movie Of The Week" one day.

The movie will be a story of a talented kid with the perseverance of Abe Lincoln. The fortitude of the American Dream, and the "Keep On Keeping On" attitude of Colonel Harland Sanders. A remarkable man who refused to give up.

Call him a bust if you will.

Call him a wasted pick if it makes you feel like a NFL General Manager.

Call for the Packers to cut his ass if you can say he has not worked his ass off to overcome and achieve.

I admire the kid. I admire how he ha worked so hard time after time to make this work with all of the bad luck and challenges he has had. While many of us have been drinking beer, shooting vodka shots, cutting off early from work, and not giving the best we can on a school paper...

Justin Tyrell Harrell has been doing everything he can, following every doctors order, busting his ass at 0500 hours in the morning to contribute to the Packers, despite what can be called a genuine run of bad luck.

Did he give up? Did he quit? Did he take the money and open his own rental car company, or his own restaurant. No he kept battling, overcoming and re-habing so he can contribute to the team who took a chance on him by drafting him.

He has never given up.

I have a great deal of respect for this kid. He beats the shit out of most of humanity.

If he has not given up. Why give up on a guy who has accomplished more in his 26 years on the planet earth, than most of us here could ever dream of accomplishing in a life time.

No Drugs, No Wife beating, No Bar Brawls, No Bad Press, No Bad Attitude, No excuses, No Attitude.

He Just keeps on keeping on. Chasing his dream. Even though luck has kicked him in the nuts over and over again.

I am on his bandwagon. He is a good kid, a great human, and I hope the Knee injury gives him a year to stregthen his back and be back next year.

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So the Packers should keep wasting money on him because he's a good guy? Got it.

I was a good kid, worked my ass off to play this game late nights after chores, lifting in the hay loft until bedtime.

After a long day on the field bailing hay I ran into the dark to make sure I got my cardio in.

Worked for, at times, 5 different farmers in the fields to make extra cash to attend various football camps around the Midwest to make sure I exposed myself to different concepts and coaches... and to make sure I got noticed as well.

Sure I got in a couple teenage fisticuffs or mischief, but always made sure that my nose was clean, grades were up and classes fit to the college grind.

But I got hurt and I had to face the fact that my career, what I literally put thousands of hours into was done.

No one offered a scholarship nor a contract because I had worked hard and was a good kid.

Instead they pulled the scholarship offers because I couldn't perform upon the field anymore. It might seem cold that the recruiting letters stopped and a couple coaches no longer returned my calls or my interest in their programs.

And this is a high school kid at the next level.. college. But the fairytale that playing ball is a game is lost on most.. at the root of it all is that it is a business. A cold business at that.

As a player your play is your only asset and if year after year you prove you can't play because you can't stay on the field, sooner or later you have to realize that your dream has closed.

Sure you can continue to try to play, but you also have to think about the future and your quality of life beyond the game. Is it worth it to mortgage your future health for today's glory?

Justin has been a lot more fortunate than most that eventually come to that crossroads.. he has a bank account built that should secure his financial future.

Personally, I hope he makes the right decision after consulting the doctors looking over his history of injuries. That will be his crossroad choice of a lifetime and it would be foolish for me to give advice without intimate knowledge of the facts.

I just hope that if he takes that path without football, that he has the mental strength to accept it cleanly or he has a support system in place to help him close that door.

Because even though to most this is a business, at times a cruel business.. to you as a player, it is your dream since childhood and one tough fate to accept it has passed.

Once again.. Gods speed Justin for the road ahead, no matter the destination.

That said.. the Packers have to do what is the best interest of the Packers.. and that more than likely doesn't include Justin as a part of the roster. That is just part of the business, this cold cruel business at times.

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Nice post, Shawn, and I couldn't agree more. I wish I could put it more eloquently, but it comes back to one simple fact for me: If the Packers bring Justin Harrell back next year on the 80-man roster, they are simply occupying a slot with an unreliable player that could have been filled with another potential recruit whose talent they would then be able to evaluate. It makes no sense to me. Let someone else experiment with Harrell. I would be willing to bet quite a bit of money no one else would pick him up, and even if they did, he'd never make the active gameday roster.

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Shawn, Rourke = Justin Harrell haters.

This thread is proof that we hate Ted Thompson, Dave.

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I just don't get it. Lots of players have blow out ACLs and we see no problem with giving them a chance to come back.

If you want to say, "he's too much of a risk because of his back," well, ok, I can understand the fear of chronic back problems. But this is not a repeat injury.

It takes one play to blow out a knee. Blowing out a knee doesn't make Harrell any more of a risk than any other player coming back from the same.

Do we say "Al Harris" should be gone and should retire because of his knee injury? I think not. Do we say "Chad Clifton" should be gone and retire because his knees have been hurt? No.

Maybe he has a particular injury that cannot be returned from. That's one thing. But the fact that he happened to have other injuries to other parts of his body doesn't make his knee injury different.

If you want to say his back means he shouldn't have been kept on the 53 man roster, fine. But this injury is a wholly different thing.

The NFL is full of players who have come back from ACLs. And been welcomed back because the repaired ACL didn't significantly enough affect their ability to play. Harrell should be given the same chance.

Geez.

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Wade, Justin Harrell will never be healthy enough to play at the NFL level. I know this is difficult for you to accept, but it is a fact. If you seriously think the Packers should bring him back next year, I want what you are smoking. I'm not joking either.

Unfortunately Justin has had a long list of injuries through his professional career, and I believe college as well.

I like Justin, I think he's a good fella, but I just don't think he's NFL material. Call it back luck, being injury prone, fragile, whatever, bottom line is he can't be counted on, on Sundays and our coach preaches "availability and accountability" heavily. It would be damn near hypocritical to continue giving Harrell chances after this recent injury. He's not available.

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