Over the weekend, Cleveland.com’s Mary Kay Cabot reported that the NFL was reviewing WR George Pickens’ actions at the end of the Thursday Night Football game between the Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers. He was involved in a fight with CB Greg Newsome II. It started before the final whistle on the hail mary attempt by the Steelers. It continued for a few seconds after the final whistle, with multiple stadium security guards restraining Pickens.
Cabot further elaborated on her report via Cleveland.com’s YouTube.
“I found out over the weekend that the NFL is reviewing George Pickens for this play. He’s a repeat offender. He’s done some things like this in the past,” Cabot said. “I do think he’s going to get fined for this. I don’t think it will rise to the level of a suspension because it wasn’t egregious, and Greg Newsome wouldn’t even want that to happen, he said. Now Greg, he hopes that he doesn’t get fined for his role. He was just trying to defend himself.”
There wasn’t much suspension speculation to begin with, and it didn’t necessarily sound like Cabot had inside information into the league’s discussions on this topic. What we do know is that Pickens was fined $10,230 for unnecessary roughness for ripping Dallas Cowboys CB Jourdan Lewis down by his face mask at the end of a game earlier in the season. The discipline system does escalate, but it should just be an increase in the fine amount. If this were to happen a couple more times, perhaps they could possibly consider a suspension.
Per the above video, it does look like Pickens was the aggressor. Newsome wasn’t exactly playing clean football as he ran Pickens out of bounds, but it seemed that Pickens started the fight. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if Newsome was also fined, but we will find out for sure by Saturday afternoon when the weekly fines from the previous weekend of games are released.
Either way, it should be interesting in two weeks when the two teams face off once again. I would imagine the referees are briefed on the previous happenings and maybe throw a few more flags than Thursday when they largely let the two teams play.
