The Browns’ Myles Garrett could face a lengthy suspension for an on-field fight during Thursday Night Football, when he removed the helmet of Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and then hit Rudolph over the head with the helmet.
Fans were outraged. Rudolph called it “bush league.” A lot of people were very upset.
Former NFL running back Arian Foster wasn’t comfortable with any of that, really. On Twitter, Foster called out NFL fans on their hypocrisy, saying they were totally fine with the violence of the sport, as long as it was within the confines of the rules. If violence occurs outside those rules, however, suddenly everyone gets very sanctimonious indeed.
He’s got a good point. Fans lament the days when safeties could head hunt defenseless receivers over the middle, but are ready to suspend Garrett indefinitely because he swung a helmet at a guy. Neither is good, of course, but you can’t really have it both ways.
Because it’s Twitter, a lot of people didn’t seem to understand the point Foster was trying to make, and got furious about it. This only sort of reinforced his point.
We need these lines of demarcation about what is appropriate/inappropriate on a football field, because if we don’t, then we’re just left with the realization that these players are crushing each other’s brains on every play.
Foster went on to talk about how fights like this happen all the time in training camp, and how no one seems to make as big a deal as this when baseball pitchers throw a hard object 100 mph at an opponent’s head. All good points!
The rest of his tweets have some pretty NSFW language, and rather them edit them all out, you can check them out at his Twitter feed.
