The Baltimore Ravens and Washington Commanders were victims of the summer heat on the east coast and some tempers as they took part in joint practices ahead of their matchup on Monday night.
Multiple fights broke out during the joint session with punches being thrown throughout.
The first spat came when Ravens wide receiver Tylan Wallace and Commanders rookie first-round pick Emmanuel Forbes exchanged punches.
Punching opponents with helmets on can be a dangerous game. We saw this unfold during joint practices between the Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals last summer, mere months after they met in the Super Bowl.
While joint practices are great and get teams prepared for the regular season, these are the unintended consequences. That continued when Baltimore Ravens star Mark Andrews slammed Commanders corner Danny Johnson to the turf. The two then had to be separated.
A short while later, and yet another scrum took place.
Following Tuesday’s joint practice, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh told reporters that he’s not happy about what unfolded, but thought fights ended in relatively short fashion.
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“Joint practices are a challenge, always, obviously, because you’ve got two teams out here and there’s a lot of pride,” Harbaugh said. “I thought it was a really good practice. We had a couple dust ups which you don’t want to see but it’s not really unexpected. I thought they got handled pretty quickly.”
Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera took a bit more of a hardline approach on what happened Tuesday afternoon.
“It can’t be chippy. It can’t be about yourself. It’s not personal, you get beat, you get beat. Let’s just move to the next thing and focus on what’s happening, what’s important,” Rivera told reporters. “Everybody’s trying to get better, but the chippiness you just can’t have because it just doesn’t make sense.”