The New York Jets beat the Cleveland Browns 17-12 at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, but the lasting image from the rain-soaked afternoon wasn't the final score. It was Browns tackle Dawand Jones squaring off with Jets safety Minkah Fitzpatrick after Fitzpatrick leveled rookie receiver KC Concepcion with a helmet-to-helmet hit that knocked him out of the game.
The hit came on first-and-10 from the Jets' 25-yard line with 4:59 left in the first quarter, when quarterback Deshaun Watson threw to Concepcion, who was met by Fitzpatrick at the 8-yard line with a shot to the head, according to Cleveland.com. Officials flagged Fitzpatrick for a personal foul for unnecessary roughness on the play. Jones, who had subbed in at right tackle for an injured Tytus Howard, rushed over and confronted Fitzpatrick before Jets players stepped in to separate the two. “That's not football,” Jones said afterward, per the same outlet.
Concepcion walked off the field under his own power but was ruled out almost immediately with a head injury. He later posted on Instagram that he was feeling good, Cleveland.com reported, though any return to the field still hinges on the league's formal process. Under NFL Football Operations protocol, players must clear a mandatory five-phase evaluation and be cleared by both a team physician and an Independent Neurological Consultant before rejoining the lineup.
A Rookie's Hot Start Interrupted
Concepcion entered Sunday's game as one of Cleveland's breakout performers, having caught 17 passes for 144 yards across his first four NFL contests, according to 930 WFMD. The Browns had invested heavily in him, selecting the Texas A&M product with the 24th overall pick in the 2026 draft after he won the 2025 Paul Hornung Award as college football's most versatile player, the team noted. Cleveland paired that first-round pick with a second-round selection of Washington's Denzel Boston, a draft strategy Hoodline detailed back in April.
Browns head coach Todd Monken took a notably different tone than his tackle after the game, calling the hit a “bang-bang play” and saying he did not consider Fitzpatrick a dirty player, per Cleveland.com's report. Teammates Denzel Boston, Maliek Collins and Grant Delpit each said they had not seen the hit themselves, while Delpit added that he personally tries to lower his target to avoid hitting players in the head.
Echoes Of The Nick Chubb Hit
Jones' frustration traces back further than Sunday. He said he disliked what had happened the last time Fitzpatrick faced Cleveland, a reference to September 2023, when Fitzpatrick, then with the Pittsburgh Steelers, hit running back Nick Chubb low during a Week 2 Monday Night Football game. Jones was starting at right tackle that night as well. Chubb was knocked out for the rest of that season with a torn ACL, MCL, medial capsule and damaged meniscus, returning in Week 7 of 2024 before a broken foot ended that season after eight games. He played for Houston in 2025 and announced his retirement from the NFL over the summer.
Despite the severity of that injury, the NFL did not fine or suspend Fitzpatrick, ruling the low hit a legal play, according to a report cited by WPXI. The outcome fueled years of league debate over defensive tackling rules near the goal line. Fitzpatrick joined the Jets this year after New York acquired him from the Miami Dolphins in March 2026 for a seventh-round pick, then signed him to a three-year, $40 million extension through 2029, according to SNY.
What Comes Next For Fitzpatrick
Whether Sunday's hit on Concepcion brings any league discipline remains to be seen. League guidelines set a standard baseline fine of $23,882 for a first-time offense of impermissible use of the helmet in 2026, according to Heavy Sports. Updated player safety rules agreed to by the NFL and NFLPA this year also created a three-strike system for helmet-contact infractions, under which a third violation can trigger a mandatory one-game suspension, the outlet reported separately.
Jones, a 2023 fourth-round pick out of Ohio State, had just accepted a restructured 2026 contract worth $1.5 million with $1.145 million guaranteed after finishing each of his first three seasons on injured reserve, according to The Chronicle-Telegram. He had registered 20 starts for Cleveland before this season and was the one who stepped in Sunday after Howard went down with a knee injury.
On the field, the loss dropped Cleveland to 3-2 and snapped its three-game winning streak, while New York improved to 2-3, according to the Cleveland Browns. Rain hampered both offenses, holding Cleveland to a season-low 198 net yards, and New York's defense sacked Watson eight times, with rookie edge rusher David Bailey recording three of them, the New York Jets noted in their own recap.
