After James Harrison signed with New England this week, several Steelers players ripped him on Wednesday for the way he acted during his final weeks in Pittsburgh. 

According to Steelers linebacker Bud DuPree, Harrison made it clear with his actions that he didn't want to be in Pittsburgh anymore. DuPree said Harrison basically forced the Steelers to cut him because of the way he acted, which included skipping practices, skipping meetings, leaving games and not visiting Ryan Shazier in the hospital. 

"At the end of the day, he just did a lot of stuff that really wasn't Steeler-like," DuPree said. "It's no one's fault on our team, why he got cut. He cut himself. He came in, he didn't want to do anything that made us better."

Although Harrison hasn't responded to all of the accusations, he did confirm one thing that DuPree said: He definitely wanted out of Pittsburgh. During an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Wednesday, Harrison revealed that he asked the Steelers a total of three times to cut him this season after he realized he wasn't going to get the playing time that the team had promised. 

"I have to assume when they say you're going to get 25 percent of the snaps and you get 25, safe to say things didn't go as planned," Harrison said.

The former Steelers linebacker only played a total of four snaps in a 21-18 Week 1 win over the Browns and that's when he first decided that he wanted out.  

"After the first week of the season, I said to them, it's clear you want to play your younger guys and I understand, so why don't you release me," Harrison said. "You go on your way and I'll go on mine. They said, 'No, no, no, we got a role for you.'"

During the season, Harrison was inactive for six games and played a total of only 40 snaps. Apparently, the final straw for Harrison came in Week 15, when he didn't play at all during the Steelers' 27-24 loss to the Patriots. 

"If I didn't play in the biggest game of the year, that told me I wouldn't get any more snaps," Harrison said. "So all that lip service you gave me before didn't matter."

After sitting out the Patriots game, Harrison decided the Steelers had no use for him, so he went to coach Mike Tomlin and requested to be released. However, that release never came. According to Harrison, Tomlin said he wanted to hold on to the veteran linebacker because the Steelers would be "absolutely crazy to release you if something happened with injuries."

So why did Tomlin change his mind and cut Harrison five days after that conversation? 

If the stories from DuPree and other Steelers players are true, the team just got tired of his antics. 

Harrison did say that he reached out to Steelers linebackers coach Joey Porter before signing with the Patriots on Tuesday. 

"I explained the situation to him and he said, 'I'm not going to sit here and tell you not to do something when you're making a business decision,'" Harrison said. "I made a decision based on what was best for me."

There's obviously some bad blood between Harrison and the Steelers, but that's only going to matter on the field if the two teams end up playing each other again this year, and the only way that can happen is if both teams make it to the AFC title game.