Pittsburgh Steelers head coach, Mike Tomlin is not sure what happened last Thursday night when his team and the Cleveland Browns went at it with eight seconds remaining in the game. However, he knows something like that can’t happen again. On Tuesday, Tomlin spoke to the media about the fight which including his quarterback, Mason Rudolph get hit in the head with his own helmet by Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett. Tomlin said it was “ugly for the game of football,” but also said he’s not sure how or why it happened.
“I don’t know that we did anything to make it happen in the first place,” Tomlin said Tuesday per USA Today. “That’s why I said we didn’t have anything to learn from it.”
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Once Rudolph got hit in the head, that’s when the fight escalated Steelers center Maurkice Pouncey started punching and kicking Garrett and players from both sides cleared the sidelines to help their teammates.
“All of us that are involved in the game, particularly at this level, want to safeguard and protect the game, its integrity,” Tomlin said. “And in that instance, it was compromised, obviously with an unfortunate incident. None of us want those things to transpire. It did. We were a part of it. We accept responsibility of our actions within it.”
Rudolph got a chance to speak to the media this week about the fight and said he would have handled everything differently if he could do it all over again.
“I should’ve done a better job handling that situation,” Rudolph said per ESPN. “I have no ill will towards Myles Garrett. Great respect for his ability as a player. And I know that if Myles could go back, he would handle the situation differently. As for my involvement last week, there’s no acceptable excuse. The bottom line is I should’ve done a better job keeping my composure in that situation and [not] fall short of what I believe it means to be a Pittsburgh Steeler and a member of the NFL.”
The Steelers and the Browns were fined $250,000 for the brawl and Garrett has been suspended indefinitely. Pouncey was suspended for three games for his involvement and Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi was suspended for one game.
