As the Hail Mary attempt fell harmlessly to the turf last Thursday night in a blizzard on the shores of Lake Erie in Cleveland, the attention shifted to the scuffle between Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens and Cleveland Browns cornerback Greg Newsome II in the back of the end zone right in front of the stands.
Pickens and Newsome were wrestling and both lost their helmets and had to be restrained, a moment that is reportedly under investigation from the NFL.
Pickens wasn’t even supposed to be in that situation though, according to head coach Mike Tomlin.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon ahead of the Week 13 matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals, Tomlin stated that Pickens was supposed to be the “point man” for the Hail Mary from quarterback Russell Wilson. Instead he was run out of the end zone on what looked to be pass interference, leading to the scuffle.
“I didn’t see the video, but I certainly heard about it. Certainly he was involved in the Hail Mary as the point man,” Tomlin said of Pickens during his weekly press conference, according to video via the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “I think their actions had something to do with him not being in position to do that.”
Tomlin added that he has not heard from the league regarding any investigation into Pickens and the scuffle, but it was pretty clear that Tomlin felt, based on his comments, that Pickens was interfered with all the way down the field. That led to him getting run out of the back of the end zone, taking him out of the play entirely.
All that left was Calvin Austin III, Mike Williams and Pat Freiermuth in the end zone attempting to make a play on the Hail Mary.
You can see in the All-22 footage that Newsome clearly ran Pickens out of bounds, preventing him from getting into position to even attempt to be the high-point man on the football. In the process of being run out of bounds, Pickens trief to throw Newsome, which set off the scuffle, leading to both losing their helmets and needing to be restrained.
That scuffle led to a handful of Browns playing talking trash after the game, chirping about Pickens through the media and on social media.
Newsome called him a fake tough guy.
“He was just trying to do WrestleMania with me the whole time,” Newsome said via Cleveland.com’s Mary Cabot. “So that’s what happened at the end.”
Safety Grant Delpit accused Pickens of tripping him after a play earlier in the game on social media. Delpit responded by ripping out his mouthguard, which led to a flag, putting the Steelers closer to the end zone.
“I let my intrusive thoughts win, but it looked like we won the battle,” Delpit said via Cabot. “We won the battle. So eff it, we ball.”
The Browns won the battle, without a doubt. We’ll see if Pickens faces any form of discipline, which would likely be a larger fine for the scuffle. But based on what Tomlin saw on tape, he feels it’s clear that the Browns got away with interference on Pickens on the final play of the game, which had a major impact on the Hail Mary.
