A 20 Player Pile-Up At Jets Camp
By Brian Miller
In New England, Bill Belichick stays out of the fights that occur on the practice field. He insists that if he were to get involved, he’d get decked. That doesn’t mean that he approves of the melee’s. Let’s face it, when you put pads on grown men with big ego’s, tempers are bound to flare up and pushing and shoving will ensue. It’s the same thing that happens when you put a line of people crammed together for a ride at Disney World in 100 plus degree weather. There is bound to be some back and forth.
Then, there are the New York Jets.
For the last couple of seasons, the Jets locker room has been described by some as atrocious. A living hell where the players inside divided into quarters and internal little clicks. Those locker room issues spilled occasionally onto the Sunday field. This year, the Jets proclaimed a unified locker room. A more mature team who would become one. Oh, those NY Jets. It’s hard to imagine any team gleefully brushing aside the loud foul-mouthed brevity of their head coach when that head coach is Rex Ryan. In fact, it’s almost impossible to imagine any team under Ryan being able to play nice. Even with the mild mannered addition of Tony Sparano.
Today the Jets let the rest of the world know exactly how unified they really are. With a 20 player pile-up at practice.
It started with a push when defensive player D’Anton Lynn shoved Joe McKnight out of bounds and into the sideline screens in front of the fans. McKnight turned around and threw the football at Lynn. Lynn and McKnight started arguing and McKnight threw an overhand punch into Lynn. That started the two going. If on queue, the defensive side of the ball and the offensive side of the ball ran and they themselves began to fight.
Players were tossed into the sideline barrier advertisement signs and head coach Rex Ryan had to run over…insert smile, snicker, or laugh here…and pull players off the pile. All in front of the Jets fans who were watching practice. Literally in front of them as the fans were lined along the barricade. The event was later addressed by Mark Sanchez who said there was “no excuse for that behavior” and that the Jets needed to be “smarter” out there. Talk about an impossibility.
The kicker to all of this is that the cornerback involved in this fight is actually the son of Jets running back coach, McKnights coach, Anthony Lynn. We understand that fights happen all the time during training camp and when this likely simmers down, it will be nothing more than another camp fight. Just with a lot more people and Rex Ryan running to break it up.
You can view a video of the tail end of the fight here.