Former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh had some memorable moments against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

A pair of two-touchdown games, trash talking Troy Polamalu, and infamously wiping his feet with the Terrible Towel after the Bengals beat the Steelers in 2005 at Heinz Field, helping them eventually clinch the AFC North title come to mind.

But one moment that left an impact on Houshmandzadeh was the time he tried to trash talk former Steelers outside linebacker James Harrison and found out the hard way that it was a terrible, no-good idea.

Appearing on “Nightcap” with Harrison Wednesday night, Houshmandzadeh shared the story.

“He used to just walk around with his helmet on, obviously, and he would just look at everybody just real crazy. Didn’t say anything, didn’t smile at you. And so one day he was, I don’t know who he was talking to, it was during the timeout with his players, and I just walked by him. I said, ‘The fuck you always looking like you tough? You ain’t tough.’ That’s what I said to him,” Houshmandzadeh recalled of when he trash talked Harrison, according to audio via the show’s podcast page. “He didn’t say one word to me. He just looked at me real crazy. And so then I said, ‘Oh, you think you scaring me, huh? Ain’t nobody scared of you, boy.’

“And bro, when I said that, you looked at me so crazy.”

Harrison certainly cut quite the imposing figure on the field. He was shorter than most outside linebackers, but he was built well, played a physically menacing style, and took no prisoners on the field. Once he crossed that white line, there were no friends, only enemies he was looking to destroy.

That mentality is something he says he developed when he was a kid and his father told him to play that way, and it just stuck with him. It made him into one of the greatest defensive players in Steelers history.

He made sure Houshmandzadeh knew what happens if you mess with him on the field shortly after that comment.

“So then I go back to the huddle, [Bengals OT] Willie Anderson, we about to get the play going. He says, ‘Will you leave him alone? You ain’t gotta block him.’ So I catch a little out, and you spear me in my back, and you get up looking at me and you say, ‘Say another word to me, punk!’” Houshmandzadeh recalled of that moment with Harrison. “I was like, what? This dude, just the rest of the game, every time I looked at you, you was just looking at me like, when I see you.”

It’s hard to know what year or which of his 15 career games against the Steelers that Houshmandzadeh is recalling this moment happening, but that sure sums up James Harrison from the perspective of a rival.

While Harrison had a killer mentality on the field, he was a different person off the field, and guys were shocked to see that type of demeanor from Harrison away from football. There was clearly a switch that Harrison flipped between being on the field and off it.

Though he had some ugly moments off the field during his Steelers career — he made some pointed comments about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell that made headlines and was the poster boy for the dark side of the game for a brief period due to the violence that he played with — Harrison personified being a Steeler.

He was self-made, played hard and became a legend for the franchise. And he made sure opponents knew it, too, just with a look like Houshmandzadeh found out.