A Line Best Left Uncrossed

With eight seconds left in Thursday night’s Browns-Steelers game and Cleveland about to win 21-7, Cleveland defensive end Myles Garrett knocked down Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph at the end of a pass play.  Unfortunately for all concerned, that was not the end of story.

Rudolph, being a quarterback, did not like being on the receiving end of what could have passed for a WWR takedown.  Whatever Rudolph did while either going down or while on his back led Garrett to rip off the quarterback’s helmet and give him a whack over the head with it.  Garrett has received an indefinite suspension from the NFL.

The reactions are as revealing as the incident itself.  Retired players are bigtime critical of Garrett and current players pretty much mum, or worse.  Here’s a tweet by the Bears’ Akiem Hicks, quoted in today’s Sun-Times: “If you don’t wanna get hit with your own helmet don’t run up.”  In other words, take your beating laying down.

For his part, coach Matt Nagy reverted to his happy-talk persona.  “The good part for us is that we know we are top 10 in uniform violations and in unnecessary roughness [penalties] and on-field violations.  I think that’s important that our guys do that.”

Three “that’s” in one sentence—Nagy must be taking lessons in public speaking from Rick Hahn of the White Sox.  What current players and coaches are unable and/or unwilling to do (oddly enough, among the exceptions is Garrett’s teammate quarterback Baker Mayfield, someone not often confused with a model of maturity) is to call out bad behavior pure and simple.

For a sport so fond of wrapping itself in the flag, you wouldn’t think that would be such a problem.