Authorities are not investigating the late-game melee during Thursday’s Steelers game against the Cleveland Browns, and legal experts say the bar is high for criminal charges to be filed against the Browns’ Myles Garrett.

In the brawl, Garrett took the helmet of Steelers quarterback Mason Rudolph and used it to bash Rudolph’s unprotected head.

The standard NFL helmet weighs between 4 and 6 pounds.

Danny Cavellos, an attorney and NBC legal analyst, said sports essentially exist in a bubble where contact and conduct that would otherwise be criminal is just accepted as part of the sport.

“We have this world where athletes consent to all the contact that’s part of the sport … and also consent to contact that’s not part of the game, but is just accepted as part of the game,” he said.

“Fighting is absolutely outside the rules of the game,” he continued. “It’s a fight just like outside on the street, and it doesn’t advance the play at all.”

A Cleveland police spokeswoman said Rudolph has not indicated he wishes to pursue charges.

“There are no charges filed as there was no police report filed by the person hit with the helmet,” Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said Friday morning.

Rudolph’s agent, Timothy Younger, acknowledged on social media that “there are many risks an NFL (quarterback) assumes” when playing the game. “Being hit on your uncovered head by a helmet … is not one of them.”

In terms of legal action, he said only that “the matter will be reviewed thoroughly.”

The Ohio crimes code has four levels of assault: felonious assault, aggravated assault, assault and negligent assault. All involve the idea that it is criminal to knowingly or recklessly cause or attempt to cause “physical harm to another.”

Aggravated assault is defined in Ohio as assault committed “while under the influence of sudden passion or in a sudden fit of rage …”

Tyler Sinclair, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office, said he is unaware of any investigation into the incident.

“If there were to be an investigation, it would be initiated at the city-level,” Sinclair said.

There is little precedent for criminal charges on sports injuries, Cevallos said, pointing to one of the more egregious incidents to go criminally unpunished.

In 1977, Los Angeles Lakers forward Kermit Washington threw a punch that left Houston forward Rudy Tomjanovich with life-threatening injuries. Tomjanovich spent 15 days in the hospital; Washington was fined $10,000 and suspended for 60 days.

“It seems that we have an imaginary line that no one’s really fully defined where we say, ‘Even that is outside the understood incidental contact,’ ” Cavellos said.

There are, however, exceptions.

In 1988, Dino Ciccarelli of the Minnesota North Stars was charged with assault for swinging his stick at a Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman. Toronto police cited the stick as a weapon in an interview with the Los Angeles Times at the time the charges were filed.

In 2000, the Boston Bruins’ Marty McSorley was found guilty of assault with a weapon for swinging his stick at the head of Vancouver Canuck Donald Brashear. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation, after which the charge was removed from his record.

In 2004, five fans and five Indiana Pacers were charged with misdemeanors after an on-court brawl spilled into the stands when a fan threw a drink at the Pacers’ Ron Artest.

That same year, the Canucks’ Todd Bertuzzi was charged with assault for his sucker-punch that ultimately left Steve Moore of the Colorado Avalanche with a broken neck. Bertuzzi pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 80 hours of community service plus a year of probation.

“I think (charges) are more likely than you think,” said Alan Fanger, a Boston-based attorney and sports legal analyst.

He said while he couldn’t recall an incident on the football field, he pointed to those NHL examples as possible precedent, particularly those in which a hockey stick was used in the assault.

“Once the helmet is in (Garrett’s) hand, it’s really gone from an ordinary adrenaline rush into something far more insidious,” Fanger said. “The play is over, time has elapsed … and he decides to go after the helmet as a weapon.”

He said the fact that the league has suspended Garrett indefinitely leads him to believe officials are looking at the incident as “more than someone simply getting carried away.”

Garrett, he said, made a conscious decision to grab Rudolph’s helmet and use it to hit him.

“There was forethought,” Fanger said. “He had time to consider what he was doing.”

Maybe one of the ugliest moments in pro sports at #BrownsVsSteelers game as #Steelers QB #RUDOLPH got pummeled on his head by his own helmet by #browns #Garrett. #NFL #QB #BakerMayfield, in his post-game interview, says teammate #MylesGarrett's actions are "inexcusable". pic.twitter.com/fYP9KplA4c

— Doug Z. Goodstein (@dougzgoodstein) November 15, 2019

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