Brandon Marshall was seen taking a swing at Darrelle Revis on Friday during New York Jets training camp practice, but he’s not taking the blame.
Speaking with reporters following the scuffle, Marshall pointed the finger at Revis, saying he took the first swing and “baited” him into swinging back.
So what happened between them to escalate the situation where punches were flying?
“I beat him two times in a row, and then on the third one, he swung and hit me in the face,” Marshall said, per Darryl Slater of NJ.com. “Ever since then, it got really competitive. That came back up in that moment. I just told him, ‘Don’t ever put your hands in my face again like that.’ And he kind of baited me to do it, and I did it. I kind of went too far. There’s a thin line between football and being a man.”
The two had been chippy with one another for over an hour before punches were thrown.
Darrelle Revis and Brandon Marshall going at it pretty good. Some contact off the line and a little trash talking. Fun matchup.
— Darryl Slater (@DarrylSlater) August 5, 2016
And at one point, Marshall appeared to, at least temporarily, lose respect for his teammate.
https://twitter.com/BartHubbuch/status/761649378255859712
But he expects the two of them will mend fences at some point in the near future, regardless of their competitive spat.
“We’re both pros,” he said. “We’re both competitors. We come from the same neighborhood [in the Pittsburgh area], cut from the same cloth. We understand that what happens on the field stays on the field. Revis and I, we are actually really close. Last year, we got really close to that line [during practice] of super duper competitiveness. Today, we crossed that line. That’s part of camp.”
Marshall might want to tone it down a couple notches in the coming weeks. Things only get tougher as camp wears on and players grow weary of seeing each other on the same practice field every single day. He and Revis are both leaders for the Jets.
And while some fiery competition is always welcome, punches being thrown can lead to some devastating results that could potentially hurt the team in a major way.