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New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick addressed the incident between Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph. After the two players wrestled following the whistle on Thursday night, Garrett ripped off Rudolph’s helmet and struck him in the head with it, which caused a full-field brawl during the final seconds of the Browns’ win in Week 11.
“We’ve addressed that multiple times,” Belichick said during a press conference at Gillette Stadium on Friday. “Every situation is different. There’s no two that are the same. We can go back and look 50 of these through the years — fighting, ejections — there all a little bit different. I wouldn’t say that it’s like offside penalties — there’s a lot of different things that happen, different situations and so forth and so on. Fundamentally, we tell players what we should do in those situations, how we should handle them, and I think they’ve done a good job with it.”
The Patriots have had a few incidents of fighting and needless violence, most recently with retired tight end Rob Gronkowski going after Buffalo Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White in December 2017. After the whistle, Gronk body-slammed White, who was on the ground and out of bounds.
Still, the conversation around Garrett’s moments of rage was intense on social media. When a reporter mentioned that heated discussion, Belichick digressed into jokes about how engaged he is in Twitter discussions.
“See what happened, check it out, absolutely,” Belichick said. “Interact with everybody, see what they think, get my opinions out there. I don’t want to get left behind on that. Then brush my teeth.”
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