At 34, Harrison shows no signs of slowing down

INDIANAPOLIS -- Talk to Marvin Harrison's friends, teammates or opponents and they'll tell you everything still looks the same. The crisp patterns, the uncanny fakes, the relentless workouts, even the old-school flip after touchdowns.\nHonestly, Harrison hasn't changed much since coming into the league a decade ago. At 34, an age where many NFL players ponder life after football, Harrison is still in great shape, one of the NFL's most productive receivers and playing like a man 10 years younger.\nHe expects nothing less.\n"You just have to work hard and give 100 percent on every route," the six-time Pro Bowler said. "It's not only making the route look good. It's about making people think you're going to get by them every time."\nHarrison has done more than just gotten by.\nHe routinely outperforms 1996 draft classmates, guys like Keyshawn Johnson, Eric Moulds and Terry Glenn, and has piled up milestones at an unfathomable pace.\nHe needs 64 catches to become the fourth player in league history with 1,000 career receptions. Seven more catches will break Jerry Rice's mark for most receptions in a player's first 11 NFL seasons, and there are still 15 games remaining. He needs five receptions to pass Art Monk for No. 5 all-time. The list of records is so long now, Harrison sometimes struggles to keep track.\nAside from topping the Colts' receiving charts, he holds the NFL's single-season receptions mark (143 in 2002), shares the league record with Rice for most 100-reception seasons (four) and ranks second all-time in 100-yard games (54). Harrison and Peyton Manning also have combined for more completions (792), yards (10,655) and TDs (94) than any tandem in league history.\nBy the end of 2006, Harrison's list is likely to expand again. With 110 TDs and 670 career points, he's on the verge of breaking Lenny Moore's franchise records for touchdowns (113) and scoring among nonkickers (678).\nAnd as he demonstrated in Sunday's 26-21 victory against New York, age -- like the NFL's defensive backs -- hasn't caught up to the Colts' oldest player. He had nine catches for 113 yards, another typical day in Harrison's remarkable world.\nThe key is repetition.\n"The thing about Marvin is I remember talking to Aaron Glenn once, and he said the first 12 yards, everything looks the same," said Manning, the two-time MVP. "He said you can't tell what he's running, so you've got to think he's going deep. That, to me, is the ultimate compliment to a receiver."\nHarrison takes his job seriously. He rarely misses a practice, never seems to tire and is always one of the Colts best-conditioned athletes.\nHe's also old-school.\nRather than wasting energy trading banter, complaining or drawing attention to himself with theatric celebrations, Harrison responds to big plays like another Jim Brown, another Syracuse grad: with professionalism.\nAfter one of his most memorable receptions -- a diving, twisting one-handed grab at Tennessee in 2003 -- Harrison jumped up and simply waved his teammates down the field to run the next play. That's about as demonstrative as Harrison gets.\nThe Colts, including Harrison, insist he's had more impressive catches in practice where he routinely beats defensive backs even when they know what's coming.\nBut what turned the Manning-to-Harrison connection from one of the league's most feared to the greatest ever was the rapport they developed in the late '90s by practicing the same routes over and over.\nManning tells the story how they would sometimes work on only one route during a regular practice day. It's an example he still uses to educate Colts receivers.\n"Reggie (Wayne), to me, made the greatest one-year maturation of anyone I've ever seen," Manning said. "It was like all of a sudden he kind of figures out why (I'm) throwing to Marvin all the time -- it's because Marvin doesn't miss practice. Reggie figures that out and you see what happened."\nWayne did the unthinkable in 2005, wresting the Colts' season receiving title away from Harrison. Wayne finished with 83 catches, one more than Harrison, ending the veteran's six-year reign as the team's receiving leader.\nCoach Tony Dungy considers that more a result of how defenses played Indy than an indication Harrison might be slowing down.\n"I think he's probably the same as he was as a rookie," Dungy said. "You have teams last year that tried to take away the pass, and he still makes 82 catches.\n"I've not been around a guy quite like him, who it means so much to do his job week in and week out," Dungy added. "There are times in practice where he just goes in there with (backup quarterback) Jim Sorgi because he wants to catch more passes."\nAbout the only thing Harrison hasn't done during his first decade in the league is win a Super Bowl. He's hoping that changes as he starts his second decade in the NFL.\nOther than that, Harrison won't change. He still feels young and intends to keep playing as long as it's still fun -- something that should make opposing defensive backs cringe.\n"I'm sure I've learned some different things over the years as far as speed and quickness and hands," he said. "It definitely doesn't feel like 11 years, but I'm enjoying it"