A joint practice between the Eagles and Colts got a bit out of hand Tuesday at the NovaCare Complex in South Philadelphia.
A massive brawl broke out following a pair of skirmishes, according to on-site reporters.
Tensions first flared up after a hard hit by Eagles defensive end Derek Barnett on rookie Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, the No. 4 pick overall in the 2023 NFL Draft and the anointed QB1 for Indianapolis.
WIP Eagles reporter Eliot Shorr-Parks tweeted, “FIGHT! Looked like Barnett might have hit Richardson to get the ball out. Colts didn’t like it.
“Barnett gets into a fight, tons of #Eagles run over, including Jalen Carter, who had to be held back. Practice getting feisty.”
Minutes later, things got even uglier when Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin returned the favor to Eagles running back Kenneth Gainwell.
Eagles center Jason Kelce took exception to the hit, trucking Franklin to the ground and triggering the massive skirmish.
At that point, the Indianapolis Star’s Nate Atkins said on X, formerly known as Twitter, “We have a fight!
“Jalen Hurts hit Kenneth Gainwell in a dump-off and Zaire Franklin cracked him to the ground. Then Jason Kelce sprinted over to crack Zaire to the ground and both teams ran out into a 150-player scrum. We’ll end on that note.”
The joint practice was called off after the incident.
Kelce said after the practice that he was “not happy” with how he reacted to the hit.
“That was not OK,” Kelce said, per John Clark of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “That was unacceptable from me.”
However Gainwell struck a different tone with his post-practice comments.
“We’re a team. We aren’t gonna let anybody come into our house and take over. We’ll continue to work hard each and every day. We whooped their ass though.”
The Eagles and Colts will share the football field again Thursday night at Lincoln Financial Field.
It will be third and final preseason game for both teams.
Tuesday’s melee is the latest in a string of joint-practice meltdowns this summer, including Packers-Bengals, Patriots-Panthers and Jets-Buccaneers, which saw Jets cornerbacks coach Tony Oden taken to the hospital for evaluation as a precaution after falling to the ground.