If the Cleveland Browns’ best player sometimes disappears late in the going, it is not because he is giving too little but because he has already given so much. Even Superman could appear weak. All it took was a chunk of Kryptonite. Myles Garrett may not wear a cape but he is a fire-breathing, strip-sacking, fumble-recovering whirlwind who can appear to be a Man of Steel as surely as the Super One himself.
Except for one teensy, weensy, little thing.
Superman, to the best of my knowledge, never came unhinged as Garrett did in the last seconds of the Browns’ victory over Pittsburgh last season in Cleveland. The story is old, but this week it is new again, with the Browns going to Pittsburgh for a matchup of teams riding four-game winning streaks, the Steelers 4-0, Cleveland 4-1.
Though Heinz Field could become the stage for a morality play, Steeler Coach Mike Tomlin is having none of it. “We’re not looking for that low-hanging fruit or that reality TV storyline,” he said when he spoke during a video conference this week. Tomlin was referring to the good-vs-evil scenario that could occur, though it can be difficult to sort out who’s who. Conflicting tales emerged in the aftermath of the horror scene that got Garrett suspended the final six games of 2019, and made mush of the Browns’ season and coaching and management careers in Cleveland.
Garrett snatched the helmet from the head of quarterback Mason Rudolph and bashed injured Ben Roethlisberger’s stand-in with it. Fortunately for Rudolph the helmet’s open side and not its crown came down on the very same head from which it had been ripped. Though Garrett accepted responsibility for this dangerous moment and acknowledged to ESPN’s Mina Kimes in a February interview that he “had let down a lot of people—my teammates, my family, my friends,” he also accused Rudolph of calling him “a stupid N-word.” Rudolph has repeatedly denied that he used a racial slur, and his coach, who is Black, supported him, which, to me, made the denial even more credible.
Coaches are supposed to back their players, but Tomlin has never struck me as the type who would do so recklessly and at the cost of his own substantial integrity. He exemplifies what a Black coach can become in the NFL (145-80-1 in his 14th year), if given the opportunity. Now comes Garrett’s moment to face Tomlin’s Steelers and their throng, reduced in size by pandemic limitations but perhaps not in strength of will.
Browns-Steelers struggles are physical by nature of these old once industrial cities proximity and a long-stranding rivalry that has been diminished by the ineptitude of the New (Reconstituted) Browns (the Steelers have won 11 in a row and 18 of 21 since 1999; they lead the series 76-59-1, with the Browns dominating during the Paul Brown Browns era.) The Browns, including running back Kareem Hunt, have made it clear that in Pittsburgh they will “have Myles’ back no matter what . . .”
Hunt may know more about the emotions Garrett will be experiencing as he continues to face the consequences of his act of violence against Rudolph. Hunt spent the first part of the 2019 season on suspension for two off-field acts of violence, including pushing and kicking a woman in a Cleveland hotel. That prompted the Kansas City Chiefs to cut their NFL rushing leader on the strength of a video of the incident. Cleveland General Manager John Dorsey, who drafted Hunt out of Toledo when he was Kansas City general manager in 2017, gave him a second chance with the Browns. But Dorsey, along with first-year coach Freddie Kitchens were victims of the team’s collapse after the Garrett suspension, as well as mistakes of their own making.
It is consequential when teammates support one another. Few acts mean more. Almost 60 years later, my high school teammates still support one another, if not in the conspicuous way Hunt and running buddies went to Garrett’s aid. What is troubling, however, is the way they did this. All out. All in. Hardly a nod to the significance of Garrett’s lapse—not the first during 2019—and the costs, personal and for the team.
If a person has followed Garrett since he was drafted No.1 by the Browns, it is impossible not to like him, not to impressed by his kindnesses off the field, his unusual interests (dinosaurs, baby; he almost went to Ohio State to study paleontology), his gentle-giant image. All well. All good. None of this, however, should allow us to nod at, much less turn a blind eye to, what Garrett did and what could have been fatal consequences. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen on a football field. He could have killed Mason Rudolph, whose career at Oklahoma State impressed me because he tried so mightily to beat the Oklahoma Sooners and did so in 2014 as a true freshman, after being thrown into the fire because of injuries. He willingly burned a redshirt season.
But this is not about Rudolph. It is a plea to put what happened and the participants in context and not to hand out free passes to the one who did evil that day. Eight seconds remained when Garrett went berserk. The game was won. Instead of a rare Browns victory becoming the memory, it was Garrett’s meltdown. Do not misunderstand. Not for a moment should Garrett be considered evil. Too many people who know him suggest otherwise. And he has returned from his 40 days and 40 nights in the desert seemingly a better man, one I wish I could really know. He is playing like the NFL Defensive Player of Year he has said, unabashedly, that he wants to become. And he may, this season.
The best thing he could tell people if he earns that honor is that they should never forget what he did in 2019 and that no one should ever do such a thing again. Football is only a game, though it cannot feel that way to Garrett and sometimes it doesn’t feel that way to me. But football won’t be forever. Even Garrett’s admired dinosaurs are gone.
