Football has taken a backseat this week at Patriots camp, where the Carolina Panthers are in town for joint practices ahead of Friday’s preseason game. For the second consecutive day, fights between the Pats and the Panthers have been the major storyline on the practice fields outside Gillette Stadium.
Second straight day of brawling
Why can’t we all just get along? After tempers flared during Monday’s practice session, I expected cooler heads to prevail during Day Two. Seemingly, joint practices provide valuable opportunities for teams to get reps against a new opponent, and allow for coaches to iron out issues that have persisted during the early stages of camp. Fighting isn’t conducive to productive practices. Receiver Kendrick Bourne was among the group of players ejected from Monday’s sessions.
On Tuesday, Panthers running back Christin McCaffrey took exception to a tackle during 11-on-11 sessions to begin practice. He threw the ball in the direction of the Patriots defense, leading to the days first fight. Patriots tackle Deatrich Wise was ejected, as was Panthers running back Chubba Hubbard.
On another practice field, Patriots return man Christian Wilkerson went down with a reported non-contact injury. On the ensuing play, another fight broke out involving Panther safety Kenny Robinson. He was ejected from practice for the second consecutive day.
The video from Tuesday’s fight can be found here.
For two teams that rarely play one another, there sure seems to be some bad blood between Carolina and New England.
Bottom Line
A fight breaking out during joint practices is not uncommon. Guys are just getting back into the swing of football after 7+ months off. The first few weeks of camp are spent practicing against your own team, and joint practices provide (typically) just the second opportunity to go against another teams guys during camp. It’s natural for tempers to flare and for practice to become contentious. However, you just can’t have this kind of behavior persist across multiple practices. Training camp is too valuable in terms of players getting reps for the focus to be on anything other than football. I’m surprised that a Bill Belichick coached team has been this undisciplined on back to back days. I’m even more surprised that he’s allowed this to continue for a second straight day.
