If you’ve been avoiding the internet for the past 12 hours, you might have missed one of the most controversial incidents of the NFL season.
In Thursday night’s game between the Browns and Steelers, a physical game ended in an ugly fashion when, after a hit on Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph, Browns defensive end Myles Garrett responded to Rudolph charging the 6-foot-4, 271-pound lineman by swinging and hitting Rudolph in the head with his own helmet.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan hopes his team can learn from this situation, which has resulted in Garrett being suspended indefinitely through at least the rest of the season and playoffs if Cleveland qualifies.
"The main thing is you cannot lose your cool,” Shanahan said on KNBR’s “Murph and Mac” show Friday morning. “It's a very physical game and stuff. To play in the physicality like that, guys go to some dark places, but you have to control that, and obviously, he didn't there, and it looked like he had no idea where he was.
"That's going to cost their team. They've got a really easy schedule going forward. He's one of the best players in this league. That was one of the complete, most unacceptable things that I've ever seen on tape."
Several 49ers players reacted on social media to the fracas at the end of Thursday night’s game, including a strong take from fullback Kyle Juszcyzk.
"Yeah, I think that bothered a lot of players," Shanahan said. "I mean, this is a very dangerous game, and it's dangerous enough just playing in the rules. For someone to do that, that's completely unacceptable, and I think anybody who was watching that, player, fan, anybody, I'd be very surprised if they don't feel that exact same way."
[RELATED: Why Myles Garrett's suspension is good news for Raiders]
San Francisco 49ers
It's highly unlikely we'll be seeing helmet swinging from any NFL players going forward, and especially not anyone wearing a 49ers uniform.