Harrington Gets a Scare During Game

Detroit Lion rookie quarterback Joey Harrington left Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay at Pontiac, Mich., because of an irregular heartbeat and was taken to the hospital for tests and observation.

He was to stay overnight at Henry Ford Hospital as a precaution.

“Joey Harrington is doing fine right now,” said internist Keith Burch, a Lion team physician.

“I suspect that if we find nothing through the work-up, that he’ll maybe miss one game and be back, and then maybe even play in the next game, depending on what they find,” Burch said. “He could miss the remainder because there are only two left. That’s a possibility.”

Irregular heartbeats could be a sign of a larger problem, and a few players during the last 11 NFL seasons have had to sit out games because of heart arrhythmia.

* In 1991, Joe Walter, a guard with the Cincinnati Bengals, was held out of a game against Oakland. He played one more season before retiring.

* Kansas City defensive end Derrick Thomas was removed from a 1991 game against the Raiders. He died of a heart attack in 2000, 16 days after being paralyzed from the chest down in a car crash.

* Defensive end Alfred Williams had problems twice. He underwent two surgeries with Cincinnati before the 1992 season to correct a defect that caused an irregular beat, then was held out of practice in 1997 by Denver after developing arrhythmia while lifting weights. Williams retired during the 2000 season.

* Houston Oiler wide receiver Haywood Jeffires was held out of a practice in 1993 after his heart rate was irregular and rose to 170. He didn’t miss a game that season and retired during the 1997 season with 535 receptions.

* Pittsburgh guard Will Wolford was hospitalized in 1996 but returned the next day and didn’t miss a game that season. Wolford retired after the 1998 season.

* Simeon Rice missed a practice while with Arizona in 1999, but played the next week and set a record with Tampa Bay this season with multiple sacks in five consecutive games.

Sunday, Harrington played on one possession, and threw one incomplete pass, before leaving in the second quarter after he started to feel ill.

“Joey Harrington had an irregular heartbeat that returned to a normal rhythm before he left [Ford Field],” Kyle Anderson, a team orthopedist, said. “Because Joey had no previous history of an irregular heartbeat, we had to make sure we took precautionary measures.”

Harrington, the No. 3 overall pick from Oregon, started his 12th straight game for the Lions. He began Sunday’s game completing just more than 50% of his passes, with 2,294 yards, 12 touchdowns and 16 interceptions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.