Training camp fights often happen in the NFL, but rarely does a team’s starting quarterback get involved, and that is what we saw with Giants starting quarterback Daniel Jones on Tuesday.
The third-year quarterback was at the bottom of the pile after tight end Evan Engram came to running back Corey Clement’s defense following a late hit. Ultimately, S Logan Ryan hit Engram from behind, which led to a significant brawl, with Jones involved.
“I’m part of the team,” Jones said. “Part of the team and part of the offense, and we’re competing, so I don’t see myself separated from that.”
Ryan added on the brawl: “We had a competitive practice. Guys getting after it. First day of pads, it gets physical; it gets chippy. Obviously, can’t have penalties. It’s unfortunate, but I think everybody’s protecting their sides and just trying to establish physicality the first day, but we’ve got to keep it within the rules.”
Following the skirmish, Giants head coach Joe Judge was angry and addressed the team. Giants’ players had to run laps and do pushups after the big fight.
“Yeah, he’s a pretty – he can get excited,” Jones said about Judge. “And I think the guys respond to it, and I think we certainly got the message today.”
Ryan does not believe there will be an issues within the team because of the brawl, and he thinks these types of things build toughness, which Ryan believes is needed to win a Super Bowl.
“We’re all Giants, and whoever comes in here this year, hopefully, we have a home-field advantage with the fans, and we’re going to be a chippy, grimy group,” he said. “If I learned anything from those veterans who came in yesterday and spoke about winning Super Bowls, you need a tough locker room, and I’ve been in a couple tough locker rooms, and I’ve won a couple of Super Bowls, and I know what it takes, and I know what those training camps were like, so, like I said, it wasn’t my first time as part of a training camp fight. It wasn’t my first lap. It wasn’t my first f-bomb, my first pushup. I’ve been in this for quite some time. It’s not necessary all the time but understand there was a lot of passion out there, and I’ll take passion.
This is really not a big deal. Training camp fights happen, but they might want to keep the starting quarterback out of it in the future.
Watch below as Ryan addresses the media after practice on Tuesday.
