The New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers started their two-day joint practice session with a bang. During Tuesday's first joint practice leading up to their preseason exhibition on Friday, the two clubs ended up in an all-out brawl on the practice field that resulted in multiple players being booted and sent to the locker room.
According to reporters on the scene at the Patriots' practice field outside of Gillette Stadium, the spat started with New England wideout Kristian Wilkerson near the Carolina sideline after he finished a catch. There was some jawing between the two parties, which the Panthers took offense to, and things escalated from there. As the fight started, New England's offense came across the field to join in and chaos ensued.
HUGE fight taking place, started with shoving and ended with a lot of punches being thrown. Both fields were cleared. Chaos in Foxboro. pic.twitter.com/BU2YrzEVAE
— Ethan Hurwitz (@HurwitzSports) August 16, 2022
Fellow receiver Kendrick Bourne was spotted exchanging punches with one player and ended up having two Panthers throw punches at him. Wilkerson and Bourne were kicked out of practice along with Panthers defensive back Kenny Robinson.
Things continued to remain spicy between the two teams, as there was another scuffle that resulted in Patriots offensive lineman James Ferentz and Panthers defensive tackle Phil Hoskins being kicked out. Naturally, Bill Belichick was less than pleased with these fights getting in the way of practice and called a team meeting likely to tell his club to calm things down in order to have a more productive session.
"We came here not to fight, but to practice," said Panthers head coach Matt Rhule after Tuesday's session.
The Patriots and Panthers will have one more joint practice Wednesday before going head-to-head in Week 2 of the preseason Friday night.
