Harrison return is low key

FOXBOROUGH -- Rodney Harrison's face betrayed no emotion, which was reason for euphoria. The last time he'd officially stepped on an NFL gridiron -- or been carted off one -- he had been a portrait of agony.

That had been almost a year ago, when Harrison was the victim of a play that was utterly innocuous, except that it could have ended his career. Standing around minding his own business, the Patriots safety was leveled by the Steelers' Cedrick Wilson -- not with a crunching block but a random roll on the ground that bulldozed Harrison's left knee.

The toll was hideous: tears in all three of the ligaments and surgery that ended his season.

That was the optimistic prognosis, anyway.

There's not much leeway in your future when you're running on a knee with no ligaments to spare, especially if you're 33 years old and have spent your entire 12-year career ignoring your body's pleas for mercy while earning a reputation as perhaps the fiercest hitter in the NFL.

So his return after almost 12 months of lonely, arduous rehabilitation, trying to strengthen his knee and dilute the doubts in his mind, certainly was cause for celebration. One would think, anyway.

Surely, there was a milestone moment for Harrison in the Patriots' sluggish 19-17 season-opening victory over the Buffalo Bills at Gillette Stadium. Perhaps it was the cacophonous standing ovation during player introductions that greeted the public address announcer's embellished calling of his name: ``Rod-NEY HAR-ri-son." Or maybe it was the resounding impact of his first tackle, when he combined with linebacker Junior Seau to plug Buffalo's Willis McGahee after a 6-yard gain with 1:58 left in the first quarter. Or it could have been . . .

Nothing.

Afterward, Harrison looked like the first player in NFL history to celebrate an anticlimactic comeback.

``Before I stepped on the field I felt like [I was really back]," he said with a deadpan expression, a monotone voice, and blank eyes. ``I felt fine. I wasn't tired or anything like that. It's not 100 percent, but it's coming, slowly but surely."

That was it. No elaboration. No rhetoric. And, heaven forbid, no self-congratulation.

His colleague in the secondary, cornerback Ellis Hobbs, may have pinpointed the reason for Harrison's curious stoicism: He's back, but he's already been back.

Specifically, he returned two weeks ago for an exhibition game against the Washington Redskins at Gillette. While players insist there's no relation between warm-up games and the ones that count, the pain is the same. And Harrison survived that test with ease. Plus, the hallelujah chorus he heard yesterday was just as real when it descended upon him a fortnight ago.

By then, his comeback had become a fait accompli to the Patriots.

``We saw him all during the offseason," said Hobbs. ``We saw the improvement he was making every day, saw all the hard work he was doing. To us, he's been here."

Still, familiarity didn't make Hobbs any less thrilled to welcome Harrison back to the huddle.

``It feels good to get him out there talking," said Hobbs. ``It's a different situation when he's out there. You know he's got your back."

It is, Hobbs emphasized, a wonderful feeling -- like the one Harrison was enjoying yesterday. Maybe.