Steelers hope to leave brawl with Browns in the past
Four players were ejected. Three have been suspended. Two other players suffered concussions after illegal hits. And another escaped a potentially serious injury in one of the worst on-field incidents ever witnessed by players on both teams.
The Steelers and Cleveland Browns meet again in two weeks after the ugly events that marred the ending of Thursday night’s game in Cleveland and were witnessed by a national television audience. But the Steelers don’t expect what happened in the waning seconds of their 21-7 loss to the Browns to turn into a nasty, bitter rematch like what happened four years ago with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Despite the physical nature of the game in which they lost three of their top offensive performers with injuries, Steelers players appeared to be bothered by one incident — Browns defensive end Myles Garrett hitting quarterback Mason Rudolph with his own helmet — and not anything else that occurred during the game.
“No, it wasn’t getting out of hand,” cornerback Joe Haden said. “We’re playing physical, we don’t like them, they don’t like us. It’s a rivalry. People making hits, people making plays. Everybody was jacked up. That happens all the time. But you never see anyone swinging at someone’s head.”
The Steelers won’t have a chance at any type of retribution against Garrett, even if they wanted. He has been suspended indefinitely by the league and won’t play in the Dec. 1 rematch at Heinz Field, if at all the rest of the season.
What’s more, the Steelers dismissed hits that resulted in concussions against receivers JuJu Smith-Schuster and Dionate Johnson as an unfortunate and sometimes incidental part of football, even though Browns safety Damarious Randall was ejected for his hit on defenseless Johnson in the third quarter.
Outside linebacker Ola Adeniyi also left the game with a concussion, but it was the result of a tackle he made in the first quarter.
“That’s part of football,” said center Maurkice Pouncey, who was suspended three games for punching and kicking Garrett after he hit Rudolph in the head. “Guys are trying not to hit guys helmet-to-helmet. That’s not the first time that’s happened. We can’t say that was it. This was just sporadic. It was out of the blue.”
Unlike the tension that existed between the players and the organization with the bitter incidents that marred several games with the Bengals, including the 2015 AFC wild card playoff game in Paul Brown Stadium, both sides have made sure to point out that this was an isolated incident and not a result of simmering bad blood.
The feud with the Bengals was a result of several players, most notably linebacker Vontaze Burfict and cornerback Adam Jones, inciting the bitterness and bad feelings with what the Steelers considered to be repeated dirty plays
Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, a former Steelers investor, said in a statement on Friday he was “extremely disappointed in what transpired” at the end of the game and wanted to “sincerely apologize to Mason Rudolph and the Pittsburgh Steelers.” He called Garrett’s actions “completely unacceptable.”
Steelers guard David DeCastro, who was trying to break up the scuffle between Garrett and Rudolph when the helmet-swinging incident occurred, was asked if any tension between the teams was building that might have incited what happened.
“Honestly, not really,” DeCastro said. “It was just one of those weird plays where things kind of set each other off. The game was over at that point. It’s kind of unfortunate it had to happen.”
Even Garrett noted after the game that DeCastro was acting as a sort of peacemaker and trying to protect him from more retaliation.
“He was trying to keep everybody off me,” Garrett said. “He understood the reality of the situation. He didn't want any more blows to be thrown. He knew it was just two guys getting chippy, and [Rudolph] and I made a mistake. But I appreciate him coming up to me, and [teammate] Larry [Ogunjobi] coming up to me, just having my back in the whole situation.”