Steelers' Week 2 Opponent Deshaun Watson Made Despicable Contact With An NFL Official; Once Again The NFL Chooses Not To Adequately Punish Him

The Pittsburgh Steelers defense made life hard on Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson on Monday Night Football. Watson had a rough game which included throwing an interception on the first play from scrimmage that was returned for a touchdown by Alex Highsmith. Watson also had a rough game due to some decisions he made on the field as he had two personal foul penalties which were both face masks. It's rare a quarterback gets called for a face mask penalty, especially two in one night. Watson also seemed to shove a referee, which is a big no-no in the NFL. 

Watson was sacked six times on Monday night, including one strip sack which was picked up and ran back for a touchdown by TJ Watt. Watson not being able to find a way to have any success against the Steelers defense is ultimately what led to Cleveland losing the game, as the Steelers defense outscored the Steelers offense. Watson was clearly frustrated and rattled throughout the game, and he took it out on both Kwon Alexander and Nick Herbig, as they were the two victims of his personal fouls. 

Steelers Defense Forces Watson To Make Many Mistakes

In addition to the free 30 yards given to the Steelers defense by Watson on both of his personal fouls, Watson was also involved in a post-play scrum that led to him shoving an official. This came after the play in which Watson had his first personal foul where he yanked Alexander out of bounds and into the sideline bench by his face mask. This play happened on the Steelers sideline, so obviously Alexander and some of his teammates got into Watson's face, which led to some pushing and shoving. During the scrum, it seems Watson blatantly shoved an NFL official. 

Typically, any non-welcomed contact with an official would result in an additional personal foul and an automatic ejection for the player that made the contact. We've seen this happen before for contact between a player and an official that is far less than a shove. The NFL looked into the Watson's play from Monday, both the face mask penalties and his contact with the official and released the following statement. 

"Officials are called upon to maintain order on the field, and sometimes while performing those duties, there is inadvertent contact between players and officials. In this instance, in their judgement, the contact did not rise to the level of a foul."

Blatantly shoving an NFL official is not large enough contact to warrant a foul, or even a fine. It's understandable if an official misses the call on the field in real time, all officials miss some calls. However, the league should at least be issuing a fine to Watson. The NFL should be embarrassed for allowing a player to act the way Watson did on Monday night and then face zero repercussions. Not a good look for the league and not a good precedent to set going forward.  

Face mask penalties are extremely dangerous because of the way it can turn a players head, and if you get two of them at the college level, you are ejected for the remainder of the game. The NFL still may issue a fine for the personal foul penalties committed by Watson, but if this trend continues of him using defenders face masks to his advantage while running the ball, the league will have some investigating to do. 

Despite the many things that happened throughout the game on Monday night, Pittsburgh was able to escape with a victory mainly due to the way they were able to bottle up Watson. He completed just 22 out of 40 passes and committed three turnovers, while not being able to escape from six sacks. Thanks to the defense, the Steelers now sit at second place in the AFC North. The Steelers head to Las Vegas for a Sunday Night Football match up with the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 3. 

What did you think of Watson's actions on Monday night? Let us know in the comments below!

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