Monday (really Thursday) leftovers

Myles Garrett is a lucky young man. He is lucky he wasn’t banned for life Friday after striking Mason Rudolph on the skull with the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback’s own helmet with eight seconds left in the Browns’ 21-7 victory Thursday night.

The National Football League Friday suspended the defensive end for the rest of the regular season (six games) and playoffs should the Browns be fortunate enough to qualify for the postseason.

The egregious act had no precedent in the NFL, so the league decided to set one with one other condition to allow Garrett back into the league in the future. He will have to meet with the office of Commissioner Roger Goodell before possibly being reinstated in 2020.

The length of the suspension is the longest in the history of the 100-year-old league for a single incident on the field. According to ESPN, Garrett will appeal the punishment.

There is some question among those who reside in Browns Nation whether the punishment fits the crime, citing Rudolph’s actions with regard to where his right foot was during the initial scrum.

The video replay – and I watched it many times in super slow motion – showed Rudolph’s right foot, while he’s lying on the ground, attempting to shove Garrett away with the foot in Garrett’s groin area. It was not a kick, as some claim, and he did not aim for that area.

Garrett’s defenders also point to another groin attempt once Rudolph was back on his feet and charging Garrett. Not even close. His right leg landed harmlessly well away from the groin.

The fact Garrett did not drop Rudolph’s helmet immediately once he pried it off shows possible intent. He eventually used it as a weapon. He had to know once he began to swing it like a club that any connection with Rudolph could possibly cause serious damage.

No one knows for certain why he did not drop the helmet and retaliate with a less powerful weapon like his hands. He is extremely fortunate he did not do more damage to Rudolph’s skull than he did.

It was wrong in so many ways and added to the bad-boy reputation the former No. 1 overall draft choice has developed. He has already been fined (before this incident) $50,000 for punching an opponent earlier this season and numerous flags for roughing the passer.

All he had to do once the brawl escalated to a dangerous level was drop the helmet. That simple. Drop the damn bonnet. If he does that, all else that followed would have earned him a hefty fine and maybe a suspended game of two.

But no. The undisciplined nature that has pervaded Berea this season embraced its next victim and this one will pay the ultimate price.

Fans will remember the 21-7 victory over the Steelers Thursday night. That will fade soon enough. But Myles Garrett and the helmet mash-up will become folklore in the great Browns-Steelers rivalry, but not for the right reasons.

After profusely apologizing after the game, Garrett tried to put the incident in perspective. “A win’s a win,” he told reporters. “I don’t think it’s overshadowed by what happens in eight seconds.

“Played a hell of a game on defense, offense came out firing and we held it down from there. What we did on the field of play for the rest of that game, for the first 59 minutes, that shouldn’t go unnoticed.”

Of course it shouldn’t. But what followed shouldn’t go unnoticed, either, because it overshadowed the final score.

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This was supposed to be the season all the dysfunction would disappear and an honest-to-goodness competitive football team with little or no drama would replace two decades of embarrassing football in Berea.

New coach. New philosophy. New culture. New hopes. Just about new everything.  And then this.

The dysfunction never left. The culture and philosophy remain the same. The new coach probably won’t win a popularity contest due mainly to his inept coaching. And those new hopes are just that – hopes. The more things change, it has been said, the more they stay the same.

So it’s not surprising this undisciplined football team has wound up once again as the butt of jokes and retakes the lead as the NFL’s most embarrassing franchise with players who are cut for habitual tardiness and unwisely post angry, threatening tweets.

The secondary Thursday night was guilty on at least three occasions of helmet-to-helmet hits that knocked Steelers out of the game. If that’s the way members of that unit are being taught to hit, something is wrong. Terrible discipline.

In his apology to the team Friday, Garrett said he lost his cool and called his monumental display Thursday night “a moment of weakness.”  In other words, a lack of discipline. Just another reason the Browns are 4-6 today.

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Sudden thought: Wonder how those who get defensive about the Garrett-Rudolph dustup would feel if the quarterback was, say, Baker Mayfield and the offending party was, say, Cameron Heyward of the Steelers.

I can’t help but think the extremely zealous fans of this team are very sensitive to any criticism of their players. The uproar would most likely be deafening. When the on-the-other-hand argument kicks in, though, greater understanding enters the picture.

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Mayfield decried the Garrett-Rudolph incident.  “I didn’t see why it started, but it’s inexcusable,”  he told FOX’s Erin Andrews after the game. “I don’t care rivalry or not, we can’t do that. . . . . We can’t continue to hurt our team.

“That’s the kind if history of what’s been going on here lately. Hurting yourself. That’s just endangering the other team (Pittsburgh). It’s inexcusable. He (Garrett) knows that. I hope he does now. It’s tough, man. We’ll see.”

He then candidly assessed the offense’s performance against the Steelers. “We still didn’t play good enough at all,” he said. “We came out and had a great first drive and then kind of fluttered out a little bit. . . We’ll look at the film. We’ve got to get better than that. Offensively, it’s still not even close to being good enough.”

Finally . . .  With Olivier Vernon still nursing a sore knee and Garrett unavailable the rest of the season, it looks as though the Browns will finally see what Chad Thomas can do on a full-time basis at defensive end if Vernon can’t make the Miami game Sunday. The third-round draft pick in 2018 had three solo tackles, a sack and a quarterback hit against the Steelers. Chris Smith and newcomer Bryan Cox Jr. will most likely split reps on the other side. . . . With Morgan Burnett out with an Achilles problem, Juston Burris will fill in. at strong safety. He acquitted himself well against the Steelers with five tackles, a sack, a quarterback hit and a tackle for loss. . . . KhaDarel Hodge is the newest receiver in Mayfield’s arsenal. Their 41-yartd connection was part of a 77-yard drive that wound as a touchdown to give the Browns a 14-0 lead midway through the second quarter. . . . Nick Chubb reached the 1,000-yard mark this season with a hard-earned 27-carry, 92-yard evening. He now has 1,011 yards with six games left, many against teams with weak run defenses.  . . After making his first 14 field goals this season, Austin Seibert was uncharacteristically wide right twice from 45 and 50 yards.