The New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers started their joint two-day workout with a bang. In Tuesday’s first joint training session ahead of their pre-season exhibition on Friday, the two clubs found themselves in an all-out brawl on the training ground which saw several players leave and sent to the dressing room.
According journalists on site at the Patriots training ground outside Gillette Stadium, the spat began with New England wide Kristian Wilkerson near the Carolina sideline after completing a catch. There were talks between the two sides, which offended the Panthers, and things escalated from there. Early in the fight, the New England offense swept across the field to join them and chaos ensued.
His fellow receiver Kendrick Bourne was spotted exchanging punches with a player and ended up having two Panthers throwing punches at him. Wilkerson and Bourne were kicked out of practice with Panthers defensive back Kenny Robinson.
Things continued to stay spicy between the two teams as there was another brawl that resulted in the ejection of Patriots offensive lineman James Ferentz and Panthers defensive tackle Phil Hoskins. Understandably, Bill Belichick was less than happy with these fights interfering with training and called a team meeting likely to tell his club to calm things down in order to have a more productive session.
“We didn’t come here to fight, we came here to train,” Panthers head coach Matt Rhule said after Tuesday’s session.
The Patriots and Panthers will have another joint practice on Wednesday before facing off in Week 2 of the preseason on Friday night.