The Tennessee Titans had their first big fight of training camp on Tuesday, which came on the same day the team put the pads on. You probably won't be shocked to know that defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons had a big part in starting it.
According to ESPN's Turron Davenport, things began getting heated when Simmons and left tackle JC Latham got "locked up for a few minutes" following one rep. Per AtoZ Sports' Buck Reising, Simmons actually threw a punch at the rookie.
Then, per Davenport, Simmons "bull rushed" left guard Peter Skoronski on the next play and a full-on dog pile broke out. Unfortunately, punches were thrown by outside linebacker Arden Key and offensive lineman Leroy Watson.
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Safe to say, head coach Brian Callahan was not happy about the situation and let his team have it on the practice field. After practice, Callahan addressed the fight.
"It was the first day of pads, guys are cranked up," Callahan said, per AtoZ Sports. "They understand what it is. We reined it back in and we had no problems after that. I don't anticipate it being an issue. Fighting is not something we want to accept, it's not part of the rules of the game. I've explained that before and I'll explain it again. It's training camp, the first day of pads, (Jeffery Simmons) is trying to set a tone. Those things don't bother me so much as long as we know we've got to play within the rules and we've got to protect our teammates, and I think we've got it figured out after that."
"It is what it is, it's football," Callahan added. "I don't mind guys setting the tone with the intensity ramped-up and we've just got to understand that we can play to the edge and we can still play within the rules. And fighting is a penalty, it's usually an ejection, it hurts our team, we can't have that."
Fights are going to happen at training camp, so this is nothing new. However, it no doubt would have been wise to kick Simmons out of practice after he clearly was the instigator on multiple occasions. Chances are his leash will be short moving forward.
