In a showdown against the Cowboys last Sunday, the Browns guard Joel Bitonio found himself on the turf. As quarterback Deshaun Watson approached to lend a helping hand, Bitonio uncharacteristically swatted it away, sparking a viral video moment that had everyone talking.
Bitonio, however, sought to downplay the incident on Thursday. “Truthfully, I didn’t even know Deshaun was there,” Bitonio explained to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “I was just trying to roll over. I think when I went to bring my hands up, I ended up swatting his hand away. I didn’t know it was a thing honestly until after the game. A few people texted me about it.”
The Browns guard made sure to have a conversation with Watson about the situation. “I talked to Deshaun,” Bitonio confirmed. “We’re all good. There’s none of that here. I’m a big dude. It’s hard for me to get helped up anyway, so I was trying to flip over to push myself up anyway. If you watch the rest of the game, there’s times where I’m helping Deshaun up. When we scored a touchdown, I celebrated with Deshaun. There’s no animosity there. I just was too big to get helped up, and I truly didn’t even know it was him there. I was just trying to roll up and ended up slapping his hand.”
Despite the momentary drama, Bitonio’s main concern remains the performance of the offensive line in protecting their resilient quarterback. “He’s tough, he took a lot of hits,” Bitonio expressed. “He wants to be out with us and I hate seeing him get hit like that. We don’t want him to get hit like that, but he kept getting up and he kept going and he kept working. I’m sure he’s beat [to] crap right now, which we don’t want to see, but he kept getting up. He kept fighting and that’s all you can ask of your quarterback.”
In the heat of a tense game, emotions can sometimes run high. But for Bitonio and Watson, it’s clear that their focus remains on supporting each other and rallying as a team to overcome challenges on the field.
