Live from Patriots training camp: Another fight breaks out, injures fan and Pats player

FOXBORO — The second day of joint practices between the Patriots and Carolina Panthers resulted in more fighting and a threat from both coaches to cancel practice.

After Tuesday’s session saw two fights and five player ejections, Wednesday’s session saw Patriots players and coaches up in arms over a hit to Kristian Wilkerson, which sent the receiver to a local hospital. Soon after that, a fight broke out near the crowd. When it was all over, three players (Patriots defensive lineman Deatrich Wise and two Panthers, Chuba Hubbard and Kenny Robinson) were kicked out of practice.

The problem started in a full-contact kickoff return drill. It was clear that both sides were getting aggressive with one another as it became common to see players pull their teammates away from potential fights after the whistle was blown. Tempers erupted when Robinson hit Wilkerson so hard that it looked like the Patriots receiver was knocked unconscious.

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The day before saw Robinson and Wilkerson both ejected from practice due to fighting.

Although some Patriots said they were unhappy with the hit, Robison ticked off the Patriots sideline by standing over and taunting Wilkerson, who looked seriously injured. Patriots special teams coach Cam Achord immediately ran on the field and confronted Robinson, grabbing him by the jersey. Patriots players Matthew Slater and Ronnie Perkins also went after Robinson, but no punches were thrown.

Wilkerson was carted off the field and eventually sent to a local hospital to be evaluated.

“When you see a teammate down on the field, I’ve been around this game for a long time, anyone who plays at this level understands that when a guy is out, they know what that looks like and I don’t think that’s the time to celebrate. I really don’t,” Slater said. “I don’t have a problem with the hit, I didn’t see it… but we should never celebrate when someone is down and clearly in a dire situation. I personally take issue with that.

“… That was my issue with it and why I responded as strongly the way I did.”

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Both coaches put an end to that kickoff drill and immediately went to 11-on-11s. That’s when a brawl broke out. The first rep saw Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey take a hand off and run to the left side line. Wise, the Patriots 6-foot-5 defensive lineman, hit McCaffrey hard near that sideline and when the running back popped up, he threw the ball at Wise.

At that point, multiple Panthers players began to fight with Wise, who was sent flying into the front row of the bleachers. According to a Patriots team official, a female in the front row was injured when a player’s helmet landed on her foot. A medical team was sent to check on her and offered her wheelchair assistance, but the fan said that wasn’t necessary. Her foot was swollen and she was given ice to help. The Patriots offered her tickets to a game of her choice this season.

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While that was happening, more fighting broke out around the scrum. Patriots safety Jabrill Peppers could be seen throwing punches at a Panthers player (it looked like tackle Taylor Moton). This was happening while Wilkerson was still on the ground, being attended to by the Patriots medical staff. He was carted off the field. Slater said Wilkerson was being evaluated “off site” by doctors.

Eventually, Wise, Hubbard and Robinson were kicked out of practice. This marked the second day in a row that Robinson was ejected.

When the coaches broke up this scrum, they held quick team meetings on the field. After practice, Panthers quarterback Baker Mayfield said coach Matt Rhule said they that if one more fight broke out, they would cancel practice and just practice against each other.

“My thoughts are with the woman that was hurt over there. I hope she's ok," said Rhule. "We sent Kenny off the field. I didn't see the hit, but I did see him standing over the player. That's not how we want to practice. Things happen in football. There were good clean hits, but we don't stand over them and taunt them - it could affect their livelihood so we sent him off. The officials sent Chuba off… They said he threw a punch."

On the Wilkerson play, Rhulde said, "They said their coach grabbed Kenny and was talking about he hit him from the side.”

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The Patriots and Panthers didn’t fight after that, but were clearly agitated with each other. Patriots defensive lineman Henry Anderson and Moton locked up with each other after one drill later in practice. The Patriots sideline was also upset with an unidentified Panthers defensive back for something he did while covering receiver Josh Hammond. Patriots rookie safety Brenden Schooler also hit Panthers tight end Derek Wright so hard, he needed to be helped off the field.

“Everyone is competitive. That’s how it gets out here. The big thing is it’s football. We’re here to practice and try to have a good day,” said Mac Jones. “The coaches handled it properly by just calling up the team and coach Belichick obviously gave us good advice about playing the next play and playing football and not worrying about fighting other people. Come together and get the good work we need to get in against a good team.”

“We’re not MMA fighters. We’re not Mike Tyson,” added Slater. “We need to come out here and play football.”

The Patriots and Panthers will play each other this Friday in their second preseason game.

Mac Jones and Patriots offense finish strong

After the fighting subsided, the Patriots finished Tuesday’s practice with the Panthers on a strong note.

The reps for Mac Jones were scaled back, but the starting offense had another solid day against a talented Panthers defense. Jones finished practice by completing 11-of-15 passes in 11-on-11 drills and 5-of-7 passes in 7-on-7 drills. It wasn’t always perfect, but the offense finished the day with a touchdown and 2-point conversion during a 2-minute drill.

Jones was 5-of-6 in full-team working leading up to that last period. This drill has the offense simulate a clock expiring without any timeouts. Jones’ group needed a touchdown to ‘win.’ The Patriots starting quarterback started hot by hitting Nelson Agholor for back-to-back gains. He then completed a pass to Jakobi Meyers before throwing the next one away and then hitting DeVante Parker.

This is where things went awry. Jones’ next two passes were incomplete as rookie Tyquan Thornton apparently ran the wrong route and then Jones had to throw another pass away due to the Panthers pass rush.

Just when it looked like the offense would end on a sour note, Jones hit Parker for a touchdown. The cherry on top was the 2-point conversion to Ty Montgomery to give the Patriots the ‘win.’ It was a better ending than Tuesday’s practice that saw Jones intercepted on a ‘Hail Mary’ type play during that 2-minute drill.

Agholor continued to have a fantastic camp. He looked like the Patriots best receiver on Tuesday, hauling in four of Jones’ 11 completions in full-teams. Agholor also had a highlight-reel touchdown when he jumped over two players (Jaycee Horn and Myles Hartsfield) to make a great catch on a 20-yard Jones pass.

While Agholor is ascending, Kendrick Bourne appeared to be demoted on Wednesday. The day before, Bourne was kicked out of a drill in 11-on-11s when an official said something was wrong with his uniform. That drew the ire of Bill Belichick. The point seemed to be – if you’re not ready to play, don’t go on the field. Bourne was then kicked out of practice for fighting Panthers players.

When Wednesday’s practice started, it was noteworthy that Bourne was working with Brian Hoyer and the second-team offense. He caught two passes from Hoyer in the first 11-on-11 drill. When 7-on-7s started, Bourne took the field with rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe, where he caught two more passes.

Bourne was back with Jones’ group at the end of practice, but he didn’t register a reception with the starting offense.

After not throwing on Tuesday, Zappe had a rough day on Wednesday. The rookie completed just 8-of-19 passes with an interception during the 2-minute drill.

Hoyer didn’t throw any passes in full-team drills on Wednesday.

Jalen Mills stands out, again

The Patriots defense had another solid outing on Wednesday. Jalen Mills made the play of the day when he intercepted Sam Darnold during the 2-minute drill. Mills was covering star receiver D.J. Moore on the play. After making the pick, Mills punted the ball into the air – much to the chagrin of the Panthers players on the sideline.

Mills has looked like a No. 1 cornerback this summer. That was certainly the case this week against the Panthers.

Rookie Marcus Jones also had a solid day, registering an interception and pass breakup. Jonathan Jones and Brenden Schooler also had pass deflections.

Schooler registered two of the biggest hits on Wednesday. The undrafted rookie laid out Keith Kirkwood during a kickoff return drill. He ended practice by landing an even bigger hit on Panthers tight end Derek Wright, who was shaken up on the play. Schooler looks like a potential core special teamer and on Wednesday, showed he could be one of the hardest hitters on the Patriots defense.

… The Patriots were missing six players on Thursday – Hunter Henry, Isaiah Wynn, Justin Herron, Yasir Durant, Bill Murray and Andrew Stueber (NFI list).

This marked Henry’s first time being absent in training camp. The tight end, however, didn’t participate in team drills on Tuesday.

The Patriots are off on Thursday before their preseason game with the Panthers on Friday. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Gillette Stadium.

What to know about the final day of joint practice

Welcome to Day 14 of Patriots training camp. This marks the final public practice in New England for the Pats until next summer.

Wednesday is also the final day of joint practices between the Patriots and Carolina Panthers. Yesterday’s session was eventful. We saw one big brawl that resulted in two Patriots (Kristian Wilkerson and Kendrick Bourne) and one Panthers player (Kenny Robinson) ejected. Soon after that, another fight broke out with two more players ejected (James Ferentz and Phil Hoskins).

Other than the fights, the Patriots looked good on Tuesday. Mac Jones completed 70% of his passes going 21/30 in full-team drills. The defense dominated Baker Mayfield and his offense with the Panthers quarterback completing 54% of his passes (13/24) in full-team drills.

The Patriots hope to finish on a strong note on Wednesday before their preseason game at Gillette Stadium on Thursday. Bill Belichick said he sometimes gets more out of joint practice sessions than preseason games.

“Well, we can set up a lot more situations that will come up that aren’t going to come up in preseason games with the players who are most likely going to be playing them,” Belichick said. “That would be a good place to start. Certainly, in a preseason game you don’t get individual one-on-ones or two-on-twos or those kind of individual matchups that show up in a practice session. There’s a lot of difference between practice and games, I mean, we’d be here all day talking about that.”

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Stay tuned as we’ll have you updated with everything that happens in Wednesday’s practice.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: New England Patriots, Panther get into another fight at joint practice