CLEVELAND — Well, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. may have dismissed the choking incident with Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey, but first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens is not quite there yet.
Kitchens was irate over the situation when it happened, and he was still upset by Humphrey’s decision to respond to a punch by tackling Beckham Jr. to the ground by the neck and holding his hands against the wide receiver’s neck until being forcibly removed by Jarvis Landry.
“I know what I saw on the field,” Kitchens said in a conference call Monday. “That is all I have to say about it right now. I do think that Shawn (Hochuli) and those guys did an excellent job of maintaining control of the football game. They did do that. They did an excellent job of that.
“My hat is off to them in that scenario because that can get out of hand in a hurry. I will compliment our players on maintaining their composure in that situation. Again, one of their teammates was on the ground, too. We just need to decide what direction we want to go with that. I do not like seeing our guys on the ground getting choked.”
On first-and-20 from the Baltimore 48-yard line with just over three minutes remaining in the third quarter, quarterback Baker Mayfield completed a 19-yard pass to running back Dontrell Hilliard, but as the ball carrier headed up the field, a melee ensued between several Browns and Ravens players.
The most egregious part of the incident occurred when Beckham Jr. appeared throw a punch and Humphrey wrestled him down to the field, but the Ravens defender was far from finished. With Beckham Jr. flat against the ground, Humphrey appeared to choke him for several seconds.
It was only after Landry pulled Humphrey off of Beckham Jr. that the incident simmered down, but not before Mayfield confronted a couple Ravens players and more personal foul unnecessary roughness penalties were called.
Following the game, referee Shawn Hochuli addressed the incident with a pool reporter from The Baltimore Sun and said neither he nor officials monitoring the game from league offices saw “anything on the field that rose to the level of a disqualifying foul.”
Before leaving Baltimore, Kitchens said he would call the NFL’s senior vice president of officiating, Al Riveron, from the team bus to express his frustration. However, per NFL rules, Kitchens was prohibited from making such a call until Monday morning.
“I did not call last night,” Kitchens said. “We are still in the process of talking through some things with that.”
Regardless of the punishments handed out for the incident in Sunday’s 40-25 Browns win in Baltimore, what Kitchens really wants to see is each team and every player being treated fairly when it comes to administering the rules.
“Here is my big deal with that: I just want to have consistency with how we are going to deal with things,” Kitchens said. “That is all I am looking for.
“I do not like seeing our player on the field and somebody’s hands around his throat. I do not like that. I do not think that needs to be in our game, and I would be the first to say that if it was our guy doing it. I want everybody held to the same standard. That is all I want.”