LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints have been fined $500,000 apiece by the NFL after\u00a0their brawl-filled joint practice\u00a0Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The league announced the fines Thursday after requesting video of the tumultuous workout at\u00a0the Cowboys\u00a0‘ training camp base in Oxnard, California.<\/p>\n
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said his team will appeal the \u201cpretty stiff\u201d fine, even though he understood why the NFL issued such a hefty penalty. The Cowboys also plan to fine their own players who were involved in the fracases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Competition Committee has made sportsmanship \u2014 including at joint practices \u2014 a point of emphasis over the past several years,\u201d the league said in a statement. \u201cAll clubs were reminded by memo prior to training camp of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behaviour at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players from the Cowboys and the Saints threw punches during several skirmishes throughout the joint practice, which was conducted in uncommonly hot, humid weather in the coastal town.<\/p>\n
A lowlight of the brouhaha was Saints tight end Brock Rechsteiner\u2019s body slam of Cowboys safety Jalen Thompson in a move worthy of Rechsteiner\u2019s father, pro wrestler Scott Steiner. Saints center Erik McCoy threw a Cowboys helmet high in the air during one scrap, while McCoy and Cowboys linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku threw punches at each other in an ugly sequence that ended with Ezeiruaku getting thrown out of practice for the second time in camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of that makes it a real focal point of the league to stay within good sport, and the taking of helmets off and swinging and hitting and that type of thing is not good for anybody, and it\u2019s certainly not what we want to represent to our fans as a league or as a team,\u201d Jones said Thursday in Oxnard. \u201cAnd so it\u2019s understandable how they\u2019re coming with real severe fines.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said the size of the NFL’s financial penalty \u201cdoes make the point that it\u2019s a serious matter. \u2026 It really emphasizes the league\u2019s intent to control it from the very top, which when they start dealing out those kinds of fines, they get your attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saints coach Kellen Moore and Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer nearly called off the practice early after repeated post-whistle scuffles. Schottenheimer called the workout \u201ca little chippy. Not the way we like to do business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously there was non-football stuff in that joint practice, unfortunately,\u201d Moore said Thursday before the fines were announced.<\/p>\n
Jones indicated Ezeiruaku, who started nine games and had two sacks last season as a rookie, is one of the Cowboys players who will be fined.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I think that you have to have consequences, and that needs to register,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIn other words, whether you\u2019re playing a game or out here in society, if you aren\u2019t sensitive about consequences of your behaviour, then you\u2019ll be brought to your knees pretty quick.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Saints have left Louisiana for California this week, conducting a few practices on the coast before a preseason game against\u00a0the Los Angeles Rams\u00a0on Saturday at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n
New Orleans had no scuffles or disciplinary issues Thursday during\u00a0another joint practice with the Rams\u00a0at Los Angeles’ training complex in Woodland Hills. The teams still wrapped up their workout earlier than scheduled because the Saints had already done extensive work this week before a handful of players left this practice early with injuries that currently appear minor.<\/p>\n
Moore said he spoke to his players about professionalism before they visited the Rams. New Orleans also had no issues last week when it\u00a0hosted the Jacksonville Jaguars\u00a0for a joint practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe acknowledged some of the things that happened on Tuesday,\u201d Moore said. \u201cThought our guys were focused, Rams were focused, and it was a really good, clean practice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints have been fined $500,000 apiece by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-865565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}