Week 11 of the 2019 NFL season was kicked off with an unfortunate incident.
The Browns will be forced to play the remainder of the campaign without Myles Garrett, who garnered an indefinite suspension for his actions in the closing moments of Cleveland’s “Thursday Night Football” win over the Steelers. After engaging in a bit of a skirmish with Mason Rudolph, Garrett took it to the next level by removing the Pittsburgh quarterback’s helmet and striking him in the head with it.
Rob Gronkowski, like anyone else who saw what took place at FirstEnergy Stadium, thought Garrett’s actions were out of line. But in an attempt to figure out how the Browns star D-lineman could act so recklessly, Gronk revisited a personal experience of regret.
“I’ve never seen something like this and it’s just not made for the game of football. It was ugly,” Gronkowski said Sunday on FOX. “You got to look at all the circumstances. I’ve had a similar situation happen to me like this before. I kind of would call it like a blackout, you just blackout on the field. It was when I was playing the Buffalo Bills and it was vs. Tre’Davious White. I got held three times in the play, I was getting held throughout the whole season. That frustration finally came to me right there on the spot. He made the interception on the play, I got held about three times on that same play and I just got up and I was frustrated. Like, I just blacked out and I was furious. I was running after him like the play was still going on and I went down and the second I went down, the second I brought the elbow right to his neck, head area I said, ‘Oh no. What am I doing? This isn’t me.’ The follow-through went through, it happened. But I knew right at that second, it wasn’t me.”
"We have to understand that at the end of the day, we are all professionals."
The FOX NFL Kickoff crew addresses the Steelers-Browns incident at the end of the game on TNF. @RobGronkowski | @TonyGonzalez88 | @MichaelVick | @CharlesWoodson pic.twitter.com/H8HC2Ggz1i
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 17, 2019
Gronkowski, unlike Garrett, was not ejected from the game for his actions but eventually was issued a one-game suspension. Garrett’s incident likely was a product of the overwhelming rage Gronkowski referenced, but it by no means justifies how the 23-year-old handled himself. Garrett might not have been the instigator in the ordeal, but how he finished it went well beyond defending himself.
Garrett since has appealed the league’s ruling of an indefinite suspension, with a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
