Did we honestly expect anything less from Myles Garrett?

In an interview with ESPN’s Mina Kimes, recently reinstated Cleveland Browns’ defensive end Myles Garrett doubles— or even triples— down on the events which sparked his attack on Steelers’ quarterback Mason Rudolph.

Following the interview, I have to ask myself, “Did we really expect anything less?”

My son had a recitation for school he needed to practice. When he was asked to go over it, he claimed he couldn’t because he had a sore throat. I knew it wasn’t true, but it was the story he decided to go with. Therefore, everything else he did for the rest of the day had to back up his sore throat story. He got to a point where he either needed to continue with the same story or admit it wasn’t true. Luckily, when confronted with it, my son admitted he just didn’t want to practice.

Myles Garrett is in a very similar situation right now. He’s either got to go with the story he concocted, or admit that he lied about it. Those are his two options. The second one makes him look like an even worse individual who used a helmet as a weapon against a defenseless player on the field of play. Since there are holes in the story and it doesn’t seem to add up, he’s even gone as far to say the NFL is covering up audio they have of the incident. That’s a pretty bold move.

As you can see, I’m not buying Garrett’s story. There are several that are not buying the story because in the immediate aftermath of the horrific incident when the court of public opinion was against him the most (including his teammates), Garrett made no such claim. It was even mentioned again recently by a local Cleveland reporter as to why Garrett would not offer the explanation when he was made out to be the monster he was the night it happened.

It’s because he hadn’t figured out his excuse yet, Noah.

With Garrett waiting until his hearing to bring up the issue, it has become very suspicious. First, by not mentioning the reasoning until he was there, no one in the hearing could get any information to confirm what was said or not. Another issue is Garrett said he believed that the hearing was closed and nothing he said would get out. Doubling down on his story, he said it was because he did not want the explanation to get out because it wasn’t justification for what he did. Really? Then why use it as a justification? Or was it really that he did not want what was said in the hearing to get out so people could realize he tried to lie his way out of it? Or, now that his justification is out, keeping up with his story has become much harder to keep up, much like my son having to act like he had a sore throat all day.

But what if Myles Garrett was telling the truth? While I don’t personally think it makes sense, especially since there’s really no evidence to back up his claim and his behavior immediately following the incident does not match what he claims happened. But even if it was said, does it justify his actions?

In an article by Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, he used a quote from Tony Dungy immediately following the incident to explain why Garrett’s justification is insufficient.

“I don’t have sympathy with Myles Garrett if in fact that is what happened,” Tony Dungy said. “If we’re in the bottom of the pile and Mason Rudolph is kneeing you in the groin or he’s trying to poke your eye out or he’s twisting your knee, something that’s going to affect your ability to do your work and your career, then, yeah, you can go off. But you can’t go off because somebody said something to you. All kinds of things get said out there on the field. There’s four-letter words. In this case it may have been a six-letter word, a multi-syllable word. All of that happens. I can’t go off and jeopardize my team’s chances to go to the playoffs, my career, my ability to make money because somebody called me a name. I don’t care what name he said, that is not an excuse to me.”

So whether or not you believe what Myles Garrett is continuing to say about Mason Rudolph in the aftermath of his season ending suspension, trying to justify removing a players helmet and hitting their exposed head with said helmet just doesn’t cut it. But since Garrett has decided this is the route he’s going to take, he has no choice but to continue with the story he settled on giving. As much as I would like to see evidence come out proving he fabricated the whole thing, I would much rather just see the entire incident go away.