Tag: Cleveland Browns

Multiple players suspended for Browns-Steelers fight

Three players, including Myles Garrett, were suspended for their roles in the Steelers-Browns fight on Thursday night.

If you missed the Week 11 contest between the AFC North rivals Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns, you missed a complete meltdown at the end of the game. Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett ripped Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph’s helmet off and swung it at him, connecting with his head and sparking a melee in the end zone at FirstEnergy Stadium.

A day later and the end result is the suspension of three players – two from Cleveland and one from Pittsburgh — as well as some big fines, according to the NFL.

  • Garrett is suspended indefinitely, which will include the rest of the 2019 season at a minimum.
  • Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi is suspended for one game.
  • Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey is suspended for three games.
  • Pittsburgh and Cleveland were fined $250,000 each.

There also appears to be some additional punishments coming down the line for other players as the league dives further into what happened during the scuffle.

These suspensions will deal a big blow to both the Steelers’ and Browns’ chances of making the postseason. All three players are starters and have been important pieces of their respective teams. Furthermore, if Garrett’s suspension holds, he’ll end up missing the Week 16 Ravens-Browns rematch that could very well decide Cleveland’s postseason fate.

With their win, the Browns are now 4-6 while the Steelers sit at 5-5. Even if Baltimore were to lose this week to the Houston Texans, the Ravens would still effectively hold a three-game lead over Pittsburgh given their head-to-head tiebreaker from the Week 5 win.

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Nick Chubb is the first NFL RB to reach 1,000 yards in 2019

Georgia football great Nick Chubb, of the Cleveland Browns, is the first NFL running back of 2019 to reach the 1,000 yard stat.

Georgia football great Nick Chubb went over the 1,000 yard marker on Thursday night as the Cleveland Browns took down the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Chubb toted the rock 27 times and racked up 92 yards, putting him at 1,011 yards on the season and making him the first NFL running back of 2019 to reach that milestone.

Currently, he leads Minnesota Vikings back Dalvin Cook – the older brother of Georgia’s James Cook – by 20 yards and is tied for fifth in yards per carry with an average of 5.0 (Lamar Jackson is first with an average of 6.6 YPC).

Last year, Chubb finished his rookie season with 996 yards on 192 carries. He briefly was sitting on the other side of 1,000 before his final few carries saw him lose yards, bringing him back down 996.

Through ten games this season, Chubb has already amassed his total carries from last season and is currently sitting at 201, the second highest in the NFL behind Cook’s 203.

Current, former Saints players react to Steelers-Browns brawl

The NFL’s Thursday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers took a nasty turn when a fight broke out; the skirmish followed Browns pass rusher Myles Garrett’s takedown of Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph, and ended …

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The NFL’s Thursday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers took a nasty turn when a fight broke out; the skirmish followed Browns pass rusher Myles Garrett’s takedown of Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph, and ended up involving multiple players from both teams. Garrett and Steelers offensive lineman Maurkice Pouncey were ejected, and suspensions are expected to be handed out by the league office in the coming days.

And the events didn’t go unnoticed by several New Orleans Saints players, both those with the team now and others who have since retired. Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan observed that while Rudolph instigated the fight by trying to take off Garrett’s helmet, there’s no excusing Garrett’s response to batter the quarterback with his own helmet.

Wide receiver Michael Thomas also chimed in, pointing out that one should, “Know who you running up on” before starting a fight. There’s a clear size mismatch between the 236-pound Rudolph and 271-pound Garrett, making the quarterback’s decision to start grappling with his opponent somewhat questionable.

Longtime Saints right tackle Zach Strief focused on Garrett’s use of Rudolph’s helmet as a weapon, noting that the action would be expensive and asking, “Anyone know the current fine for assault with a deadly weapon?”

An interesting perspective comes from former Saints offensive lineman Kyle Turley, who once defended quarterback Aaron Brooks by removing an opponent’s helmet and throwing it across the field. Turley chided both Garrett and Pouncey for risking a series brain injury with so many blows to the head:

Obviously there’s no place in football — or any other professional setting — for this sort of violence, but it’s also clear that neither Garrett nor Rudolph and the other Steelers players involved came out of this looking innocent. Hopefully the NFL can navigate the situation tactfully and do its part to discourage future incidents like this.

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Browns’ Myles Garrett swings helmet at Steelers QB Mason Rudolph with seconds left in game

NFL players weigh in on the explosive brawl between Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mason Rudolph.

NFL players weigh in on the explosive brawl between Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mason Rudolph.

Let’s all just calm down a bit about the Myles Garrett incident

People are calling for Garrett to be prosecuted.

Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: what Myles Garrett did on Thursday night in hitting Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph over the head with his own helmet should never, ever happen in a football game.

It was disturbing, it was horrifying and it deserves a lengthy suspension. I’ve seen calls for the rest of the season, which would amount to six games.

But there are shouts from all corners for him to face worse. A year-long ban. A lifetime ban. There’s talk of prosecuting him and having him serve jail time.

And that’s where we need to all take a step back.

We don’t talk about assault when it’s a safety launching his helmet like a missile at a defenseless wide receiver’s head, when we’ve seen what repeated blows to the brain can do to a former NFL player. We don’t wonder if a player should face jail time if he sees a quarterback on the run out of the pocket and goes for a hard tackle.

What’s more, we don’t say the same about pitchers who throw 100 MPH fastballs at the heads of hitters for the simple act of tossing a bat or staring at a home run one millisecond too long. As former NFL running back Arian Foster correctly pointed out, we’re perfectly fine with fighting in hockey even though we’ve seen the effect it has had on some former NHL enforcers.

And on top of all of this, it’s not the first time this has happened.

Just this past August, Chicago Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long was ejected from training camp for taking off rookie DE Jalen Dalton’s helmet and hitting him with it. Did anyone call for Long to be prosecuted? No. We didn’t collectively see the footage and have spread across social media instantaneously. Yet Foster — a veteran of eight NFL seasons — said this kind of incident “happens in every training camp.”

This hit was blatant. It was obvious. It was on national television. Of course it deserves the attention it’s getting. A suspension is the just punishment. But to bring up jail time when we look the other way on other examples of violence in sports is a step too far.

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Current, former Giants react to Myles Garrett meltdown

Current and former members of the New York Giants reacted to Myles Garrett hitting Mason Rudolph in the head with a helmet.

Cleveland Browns edge rusher Myles Garrett went off the rails during a Thursday Night Football game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, ripping the helmet off of quarterback Mason Rudolph before proceeding to strike him in the head with it.

The incident sparked field-wide chaos including several isolated fights, leading to multiple ejections and what will amount to some serious suspensions and fines.

After the games, Garrett faced the media and took responsibility for his action. Former New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. joined him in shouldering the blame on behalf of the Browns, saying that incidents like that have no place in football.

“It’s not what direction we’re headed in as an organization,” Beckham said, via Browns Wire. “It just was not where we’ve been going. And it does feel like we lost the game.”

Several other current and former members of the Giants reacted during and after the event as well.

Just a crazy scene — one unlike the NFL has ever seen before.

Arian Foster calls out NFL fans for being hypocrites over Myles Garrett attack

Arian Foster spoke out about the Myles Garrett attack on Mason Rudolph, pointing out that NFL fans like violence when it’s within rules.

The Browns’ Myles Garrett could face a lengthy suspension for an on-field fight during Thursday Night Football, when he removed the helmet of Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and then hit Rudolph over the head with the helmet.

Fans were outraged. Rudolph called it “bush league.” A lot of people were very upset.

Former NFL running back Arian Foster wasn’t comfortable with any of that, really. On Twitter, Foster called out NFL fans on their hypocrisy, saying they were totally fine with the violence of the sport, as long as it was within the confines of the rules. If violence occurs outside those rules, however, suddenly everyone gets very sanctimonious indeed.

He’s got a good point. Fans lament the days when safeties could head hunt defenseless receivers over the middle, but are ready to suspend Garrett indefinitely because he swung a helmet at a guy. Neither is good, of course, but you can’t really have it both ways.

Because it’s Twitter, a lot of people didn’t seem to understand the point Foster was trying to make, and got furious about it. This only sort of reinforced his point.

We need these lines of demarcation about what is appropriate/inappropriate on a football field, because if we don’t, then we’re just left with the realization that these players are crushing each other’s brains on every play.

Foster went on to talk about how fights like this happen all the time in training camp, and how no one seems to make as big a deal as this when baseball pitchers throw a hard object 100 mph at an opponent’s head. All good points!

The rest of his tweets have some pretty NSFW language, and rather them edit them all out, you can check them out at his Twitter feed.

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Ex-players, current NFL stars react to the Myles Garrett-Mason Rudolph fight

One of the wildest incidents in NFL history overshadowed a big AFC North win for the Cleveland Browns.

Not long after the clock struck midnight in Cleveland, the big win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, the first one in five years, had already been forgotten. The joy of finally overcoming the AFC North rival deflated and distorted into a media-frenzy of questions and moments of dead air—because even the ones who get paid to make sure dead air doesn’t happen were speechless.

In case you missed it:

Although the NFL will inevitably over-starch the canvas while trying to iron this debacle out, the courts of public opinion work a little more quickly. Beyond those who have been self-appointed as Measurers of Proper Football Inflating, there were some strong takes from both current and ex-NFL players, no more than 20-some minutes after the ugly (ugliest?) incident occurred:

And then, in the left corner, the man fighting out of Oklahoma State:

In the right corner, fighting out of Texas A&M:

 

Probably the most-reasonable sound clips to come out of this, so far, has been from the coaches:

Those expecting quick and precise justice for this incident might want to hit the breaks, too—there has already been a scorecard debate that judges this bout as more of a push, a “He took my lunch, first!” ordeal.

And no, I don’t think Odell Beckham Jr. was fined for any uniform infractions tonight.

Myles Garrett somehow doesn’t think his ugly attack overshadowed Browns’ win

“A win is a win. … I don’t think it’s overshadowed by what happens in 8 seconds.”

Myles Garrett committed one of the ugliest attacks you’ll ever see in a football game when he ripped off Mason Rudolph’s helmet and struck him in the head with it.

Garrett should be suspended for the rest of the season. His QB, Baker Mayfield, called the attack “inexcusable.” And the NFL world couldn’t believe it.

Which makes Garrett’s comments after the game all the more insane. The former No. 1 pick was asked by a reporter in the locker room about his attack overshadowing a big win by the Browns.

But Garrett didn’t think it overshadowed the win, which is crazy because that’s all anyone’s going to be talking about for a while.

Here he is breaking it down:

Yeah, that’s just wrong. This overshadowed the win. By a lot.

He did, however, call his actions “foolish.”

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Mason Rudolph blasts Myles Garrett for ‘cowardly’ helmet attack

Mason Rudolph blasted Myles Garrett for helmet attack.

Mason Rudolph was lucky to avoid any type of injury when Browns defensive end Myles Garrett ripped off the QB’s helmet and hit him in the head with it in what was one of the ugliest moments in NFL history.

And after the game the Pittsburgh Steelers’ QB didn’t hold back on his thoughts on Garrett and what happened in the final seconds of Cleveland’s win over over the Steelers.

Garrett, who should be suspended for the rest of the season, is very lucky that Rudolph didn’t suffer a serious head injury. An NFL helmet being used as a weapon like that is something we’ve never seen before.

Rudolph sounded off after the game:

Here’s how it went down:

That was very cowardly and bush-league, indeed.

Thankfully, Rudolph is OK.

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