Jarvis Landry ejected from Saints-Packers joint practice after fight with Eric Stokes

Football is a sport that demands passionate players, but it’s important to keep a cool head and avoid hurting your team. Even seasoned veterans like Jarvis Landry can get caught up in the moment — which led to the New Orleans Saints slot receiver being thrown out of Wednesday’s joint practice with the Green Bay Packers. Saints coach Dennis Allen spoke of the incident during his latest media availability session.

“They come out with a bit more fire the next day,” Allen said after their second practice in Green Bay. “You don’t like seeing it, but it’s part of what happens in these practices when you’re going against another team. We dealt with it, we moved on from it, I thought we had a good few days of work.”

So what led to the dustup? Landry exchanged words and shoves with Packers cornerback Eric Stokes, who told the Green Bay Press-Gazette’s Ryan Wood that Landry “tried to big boy” him after a play, and that, “At the end of the day, I don’t care who are, what you do. I’m not going to be little boy’d. I’m a grown man. I’m not going to be disrespected.” Stokes’ teammates rallied around him, leading to a brief skirmish, and Landry was tossed out of practice. The session continued on from there without much incident.

There haven’t been many fights in Saints practices this summer, with a clear message sent to rookie left tackle Trevor Penning early on. Penning’s aggressive play style caused friction with his teammates, and after a few scraps in training camp he was ejected to teach him a lesson. There haven’t been any problems since.

Landry is a tone-setter. His play style is defined by physical battles at the catch point and booming hits afterwards to knock down opponents and fight for more yardage. He’s going to flex after the play and step over defenders, and some of them are going to take an issue with that. It is what it is. It’s important to have players who have bought in to what’s being taught and are eager to assert themselves and their teammates, but it’s a fine line to tread.

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Story originally appeared on Saints Wire