More than a year after they were involved in a dramatic on-the-field brawl, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett seemed to make amends following a game this weekend.
Rudolph and Garrett shook hands after the Steelers beat the Browns 24-22 on Sunday night. According to Jake Trotter of ESPN, Garrett said he told Rudolph, "Good game. Hell of a game. And we’ll see ya’ll next week."
The interaction between the two players came nearly 14 months after Garrett tackled Rudolph and threw him onto the ground in the closing minutes of their game in November 2019.
Footage of the incident showed Garrett ripping off Rudolph’s helmet and hitting him with it, provoking other players to join in the fight. After the brawl, Garrett and two other players were ejected from the game.
Rudolph was later fined $50,000 for his part in the fight, and Garrett was fined $45,000 and suspended the rest of the season, CBS Sports reported.
Later Sunday night, Rudolph posted a picture of the handshake between himself and Garrett to Instagram with the caption, "Onward and Upward."
"Myles came over and said 'Good game' in the postgame," Rudolph said of the interaction after the game. "That's all it was. I told him 'Good luck,' and have a lot of respect for him."
The Browns and the Steelers will meet again on Sunday in a Wild Card matchup to start the first weekend of the NFL playoffs.
Following their interaction in 2019, Rudolph apologized for the incident and complimented Garrett for his talents as a player.
"There’s no acceptable excuse,” Rudolph said at the time, according to CNN. “The bottom line is that I should have done a better job keeping my composure in that situation, and [I] fell short of what I believe it means to be a Pittsburgh Steeler and a member of the NFL.”
“I have no ill will towards Myles Garrett. Great respect for his ability as a player, and I know that if Myles could go back, he would handle the situation differently,” he added.
Garrett — who had accused Rudolph of directing a racial slur at him — also expressed his regret after their brawl.
“I made a mistake, I lost my cool and I regret it,” Garrett told reporters at the time, according to Cleveland.com. “It’s going to come back to hurt our team. The guys who jumped into the scrum, I appreciate my team having my back, but it should have never gotten to that point. That’s on me.”
Rudolph denied calling Garrett a racial slur, and after an investigation, the NFL said they had no evidence that he did, ESPN reported a few days following the game.
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