Myles Garrett vs. Mason Rudolf

On Thursday night of last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers went to Cleveland to play against the Browns for week 11 in the NFL regular season. The Browns were playing quite well all around. But something quite rare happened that game: a fight broke out.

Yes, fights aren’t that rare to see during the football game, but it was the severity of the fight that broke precedent.

Defensive end for the Browns Myles Garrett was about to sack quarterback for the Steelers Mason Rudolf. As Myles Garrett was tackling Mason Rudolf, the cameras caught Mason Rudolf grabbing Myles Garrett’s helmet. This agitated Myles so he proceeded to rip off Rudolf’s helmet and strike him in the head with it. Steeler players were trying to defend their quarterback and also took revenge by cleating and beating Garrett to the ground. Players from both teams started to rush out onto the field.

It was chaos.

Such a thing hasn’t been seen since 1982, when the Los Angeles Raiders were playing the New York Jets. On one play Lyle Alzado ripped off the helmet of a Jets player and threw it at him. This incident is responsible for the NFL rule stating that using a football helmet as a weapon is not allowed.

Myles Garrett is suspended for the rest of the NFL season, and has been fined for an undisclosed amount.

Other players were fined and suspended also. Steelers offensive lineman Maurkice Pouncey is suspended for three games, and Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi is barred for one. Both of their fines were undisclosed as well. The NFL also slapped both the Steelers and Browns franchises with a fine of 250,000 dollars each.

Some have suggested that Myles Garrett should receive an assault charge, but was it entirely his fault? Mason Rudolf was pulling on the back of his helmet as Garrett was trying to make a tackle, but was this just poor hand placement by the quarterback? Currently Rudolf has not gotten any suspensions or fines, but could possibly be out for next week’s game due to a possible concussion.

Garrett will also have to meet the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, to reinstate himself into the NFL.

During his trial on Wednesday, November 20th, Garrett pointed out another incident that happened with a player hitting another player with his own helmet. During a preseason game in 2013, the Houston Texans were playing the Miami Dolphin. On a particular play Antonio Smith, Houston defensive end ripped off the helmet of Dolphins offensive linemen Richie Incognito and hit him with it. But Smith was only fined 11,000 dollars and suspended for only 2 preseason games and for week 1.

Why was Antonio Smith only given an 11,000 dollar fine and a 3 game suspension when Myles Garrett was suspended for the rest of the season and given an undisclosed fine which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars? The helmet rule hasn’t changed much since then, so why was Garrett punished so severely while Smith was given a slap on the wrist? Could it have something it have something to do with the NFL being biased toward the Steelers? Or are they biased towards Mason Rudolf?

LHS sophomore Joey Sims has a strong opinion on the situation. “Rudolf should face a suspension for 2 games for instigating a fight and for trying to pull off Myles helmet first.” He continued, “If this was a Steeler doing this to a Brown, that Steeler wouldn’t be punished so severely.  I sense the NFL is slightly biased towards the Steelers in this case because the Steelers are a well-paying franchise and generate the NFL a lot of income.”

Audrey Kovacs, sophomore at Lafayette and football fan, said, “Its all about money, to be honest.  The NFL is gonna do whatever they can to keep the most paying fan bases happy, by backing up the team these fan bases put a lot of their money into.”