George Pickens Continued The Steelers-Browns Tradition Of Throwing Punches On TNF

Some things just always come in pairs: lightning and thunder, pizza and beer, and fights between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns on Thursday Night Football (TNF).

There’s just something about playing on a short week against each other that really gets these guys in rage monster mode. Five years ago, Myles Garrett decided to play Whack-a-Mole with Mason Rudolph’s helmet, and the unfortunate mole Garrett hunted was Rudolph himself.

Is that great content? Absolutely. Is it behavior you want to see at any point in the future? Absolutely not. This isn’t street fighting, this is football. Let helmets be used to protect heads, not damage them.

Last night, the two AFC North rivals met on TNF for just the second time since that brawl took place. To make this rivalry game better, snow began to fall relentlessly from the Ohio evening sky that made this game a phenomenal spectacle to watch.

With just a few seconds left in the game, the Browns held a 24-19 lead, but the Steelers were in position to launch a Hail Mary that had a fairly reasonable chance of actually working. With time winding down, quarterback Russell Wilson heaved the ball downfield, but Cleveland batted it down to seal the win.

What happened during the play was actually more eye-catching than the play itself. Pittsburgh wide receiver George Pickens was apparently focused on fighting Browns defensive back Greg Newsome instead of trying to catch the ball.

Could it have been hard to cut in that snow? Yes. Could Pickens have also made more of an effort to actually, ya know, catch the ball? Also yes.

Instead, he grabbed a faceful of Newsome’s mask…

And then throw punches at the defender.

It’s nowhere near as close to what Garrett did a few years ago, but it's still pretty bad.

After the game, Pickens didn’t really have much to say about the fight itself. Instead, he played the role of sore loser and said the Browns only won because of the snow.

"The conditions played a huge, huge part in today’s game. I don’t really think the Cleveland Browns are a good team at all," Pickens said.

For his part, Newsome simply posted this tweet in response to what Pickens did.

Should we expect more of this the next time these two sides face off on a Thursday night? Based on recent trends, its safe to say that anything is possible.