Reporter: “Does any of this go back to the preseason in Indianapolis when fights were, I don’t want to say ‘encouraged’, but were OK’d??”
Freddie Kitchens: “I never OK’d fights. Did I want them to get after their a**? Yes I did, but that’s not fighting and that’s not after the whistle. Between the whistles, yes. I never condone fighting on a football field because that’s penalties. I don’t coach penalties."
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Colin Cowherd: “There was a lot of foreshadowing in that game last night. Five or six helmet-on-helmet hits by the Browns. That was very much Buddy Ryan and Gregg Williams-like, and very much a message and a plan going into that game by Cleveland. You wondered if all those helmet-to-helmet hits were premeditated, then you watch THAT with Mason Rudolph?? This was a game plan… Coaches can send messages and there was clearly one last night. Freddie, nobody thinks you went in there and said ‘GRAB A HELMET AND HIT MASON RUDOLPH’… You don’t have to, but there is a culpability and a responsibility as a head coach to, as an older man, teaching younger men that words matter. The messaging was clear last night from the opening kickoff – BE DIRTY AND CHEAP.” (Full Audio at Bottom of Page)
Listen to Colin Cowherd discuss the extra-curricular horror show last night on Thursday Night Football that saw Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph get into a scrum on the field that resulted in Garrett yanking Rudolph’s helmet and brutally swinging and striking Rudolph in the head, in one of the dirtiest plays in the history of sports.
Colin is already on record saying the heinous cheap shot was 100% on Myles Garrett, but also says that Garrett’s antics, and the entire Thursday Night Football antics of a game filled with some of the most brutal illegal hits in recent memory, comes directly back to Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens, who was called out by media members after the game for seeming to endorse the violent brand of football that Cleveland has played all season.
It stemmed from an ugly brawl during an inter-squad practice with the Indianapolis Colts in August, when after a violent melee between the two teams, Kitchens’ seemed to brush off the goonery, saying after the incident "We’re not going to get penalties against our own team when we’re in Berea [the team’s training facility], but we’re not going to come in here and takeanything either.”
Colin says Kitchens’ didn’t literally tell Garrett to club the guy in the head with his own helmet, but says the message Kitchens was sending before the game was clearly ‘BE DIRTY AND CHEAP.’
Check out the full audio below: