Week 11 of the NFL season all about one ugly "performance"

No Packer game this week, but the results of any game would not be the top story of the weekend in any case—that would go to the final seconds of Thursday night’s game between the Steelers and the Browns. The game was mostly up in the air with the score 14-7 in favor of the Browns until Steeler quarterback Mason Rudolph threw his third interception of the game with 6:32 to play, and the Browns needed to cover just four yards to make it 21-7. Rudolph threw another interception on the Steelers’ next possession and that sealed the game. The Steelers got the ball back with 1:40 to play, and basically went nowhere with the ball. With 14 seconds to play and third and 29, Rudolph, with the Browns’ Myles Garrett in his face quickly dumped the ball off to Trey Edmunds, who ran for a 11-yard gain, setting-up fourth and 18 with 8 seconds to play. According to ESPN’s play-by-play description, this is how matters developed from there:

Penalty on PIT-M.Pouncey, Disqualification, offsetting. Penalty on CLV-M.Garrett, Disqualification, offsetting. Penalty on CLV-L.Ogunjobi, Disqualification, offsetting.

What the hell happened? Despite the fact that Rudolph had already got rid of the ball, Garrett still came after him, wrestling him and then driving him into the turf. It was completely unnecessary and should have been a roughing the passer penalty by itself. We then see an irate Rudolph grabbing at Garrett’s helmet. As both players started to get up, Garrett grabbed the face guard of Rudolph’s helmet and wretched it off his head. Both got up off the ground and started jawing at each other, with Steelers lineman David DeCastro attempted to hold Garrett back. But Garrett managed to swing Rudolph’s helmet with his free arm and strike him between the top and temple of his head. While DeCastro wrestled Garrett to the ground, the Steelers Maurkice Pouncey came up and kicked Garrett in the helmet; while that was happening, the Browns Larry Ogunjobi came up from behind Rudolph and shoved him to the ground, another completely unnecessary and inexcusable act. The telling of it was bad enough, but the video was worse; this was the kind of thing you would expect to see in an NBA game, but not the NFL.

The league needed to “discourage” this kind of thing, and predictably and justifiably Garrett received the harshest punishment, an indefinite suspension. Interestingly, Rudolph was involved in another ugly play, during Week 5 when former Seahawk and current Raven Earl Thomas drove his helmet into Rudolph’s jaw from underneath, knocking him unconscious. Thomas was only penalized and later received a fine which he appealed. Watching that play again, Thomas was clearly attempting an illegal hit that was meant to cause serious injury; it cannot be justified in any way. 

Thomas should have received at least a one-game suspension, but it seems the league hasn’t learned much since the 2009 NFC Championship Game, when Saints players were paid a “bounty” for hits on the Vikings Brett Favre, with the biggest “payout” going to whoever knocked him out of the game by whatever means necessary. We saw how Saints’ defenders repeatedly went after Favre’s ankles, and after the game, Favre was not shy about showing the mass of ugly bruising on his legs and his badly swollen ankle. While the NFL did institute some new rules regarding hits on quarterbacks, they have been inconsistently enforced. Although Garrett’s actions occurred after the play had ended and thus regarded more harshly, so-called “football plays” like that of Thomas should not be considered any less blameworthy.