An ugly brawl broke in the closing seconds of Thursday Night’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns that is dominating national discussion, even outside the world of sports, on Friday.
Browns defensive end Myles Garrett was ejected after ripping the helmet off Steelers’ quarterback Mason Rudolph and striking him in the head with it.
Along with Garrett, Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and Steelers’ center Maurkice Pouncey were also ejected.
Ogunjobi pushed Rudolph to the ground from behind following Garrett’s hit on Rudolph, and Pouncey jumped onto Garrett, punching and kicking him as Steelers’ guard David DeCastro was holding Garrett to the ground, as the fight continued.
“I thought it was pretty cowardly,” Rudolph said following the game.”Pretty bush league.”
Browns’ head coach Freddie Kitchens called Garrett’s actions “embarrassing” and said there was “no excuse” for what Garrett did at the end of the game.
“I’ve never seen that in my life,” Kitchens said. “It’s not good.”
What I did was foolish, and I shouldn’t allow myself to slip like that,” Garrett said. “That’s out of character, but a situation like that where it’s an emotional game, and I allowed myself to fall into those emotions with what happened.”
Garrett is likely to be hit with a significant suspension, and many are calling for the NFL to levy the biggest suspension the league has ever seen.
“Absolutely, 100 percent,” Pouncey said, saying he believes Garrett should be suspended for the rest of the season. “We’ll see how serious the NFL is about their players. … My man got hit in the head with a helmet.”
“At that point, it’s bigger than football,” Pouncey said. “It’s protection. … He could have killed him. What if he’d hit in him the temple?”
“Myles is a good dude,” Steelers’ cornerback Joe Haden said. “I mean, I’ve never seen him act like that or do anything like that on what happened. But that’s not OK.”
“Obviously, stuff like that is dangerous,” Browns’ quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “So it was tough to see that, knowing Mason.
“It was tough to watch.”
The longest ban for a single on-field incident in NFL history is the five games, when the league hit Tennessee Titan’s defensive tackle Albert Haynesworth with the suspension back in 2006 when he stomped on the head of Dallas Cowboys’ offensive lineman Andre Gurode, which resulted in Gurode needing stitches.