The NFL fined the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints $500,000 apiece following multiple fights at their joint practice session on Tuesday in Oxnard, Calif., the league announced.
“The competition committee has made sportsmanship — including at joint practices — a point of emphasis over the past several years,” the NFL said in a statement on Thursday. “All clubs were reminded by memo prior to training camp of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behavior at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury.”
Team fines can be appealed, which Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said the club will do.
“(The fine) does make the point that it’s a serious matter and it starts with everybody at all levels of a club — and the clubs in this case where two are practicing together,” Jones said Thursday, per ESPN. “It really emphasizes the league’s intent to control it from the very top, which when they start dealing out those kinds of fines, they get your attention.”
Multiple skirmishes throughout the day led Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer and his counterpart Kellen Moore of New Orleans to discuss ending Tuesday’s session early before allowing the players to settle down and finish on time. Schottenheimer said after Tuesday’s practice that “if a couple other things happened, we would cancel it.”
“Nobody wants this,” Schottenheimer said. “We want to get the work in. I thought it settled down, but it was very chippy early on, and it’s unfortunate.”
Fights broke out after the teams’ opposing offenses and defenses matched up on two fields, with players from one field joining in on the other. Punches were thrown, one player threw a helmet and another player was slammed to the ground in separate incidents.
“Obviously, there was a lot of non-football stuff in that joint practice, unfortunately,” Moore said on Thursday, per ESPN.
“Not the way we like to do business,” Schottenheimer said on Tuesday. “Got to be better, but I’ve got to look at the film. We’re certainly not going to take s– from anybody, but again, it was chippy on both sides. Like I’ve said, I want our guys to play on the edge without going over the edge. One guy sounds like he might’ve thrown a punch, and that’s why he left practice early.”
The coach was referring to Cowboys second-year linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku, who was ejected for the second time during the team’s camp in Southern California for throwing a punch.
“We’ll have a long conversation,” Schottenheimer said of Ezeiruaku. “Donovan is a very bright young man. He understands that he can’t hurt the football team. Unfortunately for him, there’s two officiating crews that know he lost his composure. But it’s part of a growth mindset for him. We’ve got to get him better, and we’ve got the right type of leaders on this football team, myself included, (defensive coordinator) Christian Parker, (defensive lineman) Quinnen Williams, guys like that, that will help him do that.”
Jones said the Cowboys would fine individual players involved in the fighting.