Cleveland Browns: Myles Garrett loses appeal, remains indefinitely suspended
The appeal decision for Myles Garrett is out, and Cleveland Browns fans won’t be happy. The appeals officers decided to uphold the original decision and keep Garrett suspended indefinitely.
It took a little more than 24 hours for appeals officers Derrick Brooks and James Thrash to come to their decision on Cleveland Browns defensive end Myles Garrett‘s suspension. Garrett’s indefinite suspension was upheld, and he will be out for at least the rest of this season and post season.
That is a big hit for this Cleveland Browns team and for Garrett. Most thought he and the NFLPA put together a strong argument in his defense that would at least get the suspension reduced to a finite number of games.
Even if that meant he was out the remainder of this season, having a clear timeline for his return was the intended outcome for this appeal.
Garrett’s main argument in his case was that a similar incident in 2013 between Antonio Smith and Richie Incognito resulted in only a three game suspension for Smith, who took Incognito’s helmet off and swung it at him. The fact that two of those games were preseason games made it seem even more likely for an outcome in Garrett’s favor, but that was not the case.
News also broke Thursday afternoon soon before the decision that Garrett stated during his hearing that Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph said a racial slurs towards Garrett that made him angry and lose his cool. Both of these seemed like good arguments for Garrett to at least get his suspension sentence reduced.
Instead, the NFL won out and their initial ruling was upheld. Cleveland will now have to look for possible free agents to bring in to provide much needed depth to an already weakened defensive end unit. It may be a while before Garrett sees the field again, but it appears the NFL has no care for precedent in any matter of suspensions or fines.