CLEVELAND — Cleveland Browns center JC Tretter is going to have the backs of his teammates, and he showed that loyalty in Sunday’s 40-25 victory over the Baltimore Ravens in an AFC North Division game at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.
When Ravens defensive back Marlon Humphrey attempted to choke wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Tretter did not hesitate to stop the melee by helping forcibly remove the cornerback from his wide receiver. Then, after throwing Humphrey to the ground, Tretter had several shoving matches with Ravens players, including linebackers Pernell McPhee and Kenny Young, which drew offsetting unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
“I did not really get an explanation,” Tretter said. “Obviously, whenever a scrum like that kind of happens, you almost expect one. It is almost like a ‘calm everyone down’ flag of just get everyone separated, throw a couple flags to get everyone to calm down and break up the scrum. There really was no explanation, but that is just what happened.”
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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.
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.”
Regardless of the punishments, Tretter is not going to let that kind of action stand against one of his teammates.
“I would not change anything I did,” Tretter said. “Seeing a teammate pinned down like that, I am not just going to stand there and let that go on. I went over and pulled the guy off Odell, and then, obviously the scrum happened. That is part of football where that 15-yard penalty is just kind of the ending of it.”
Although Humphrey felt Beckham Jr. should have been thrown out of the game for throwing a punch, Tretter sees the response as over the top and something that does not belong on an NFL field, ever.
“I looked back and saw the guy on top of Odell,” Tretter said. “I did not see what was exactly going on. I just knew that Odell was on his back and the guy was on top of him so I ran over. Obviously, that is up to the officials to make the call on that.
“Sometimes, tempers flare and stuff happens, but that is really up to the officials on the field and the league office to make determinations on that. Obviously, it is not something that should be in our game, but that is really up to them on what they want to do with it.”