Washington Redskins, Houston Texans brawl at joint practice

A full-on-brawl broke out Saturday morning between the Washington Redskins and Houston Texans at their joint practice in Richmond, Va.

According to the Washington Post, this forced the teams to separate and have intrasquad play instead of facing each other for the final time. The brawl began when the Redskins offense and Texans defense took the field to face off 11 vs. 11 and two players had to be separated after Redskins fullback Darrel Young thought Texans defender Chris Thompson took a dirty shot.

Things seemed to settle down until what was considered a violent tackle during practice resulted in the main eruption.

Redskins wide receiver Andre Roberts said, “It was our last day [of joint practice], and we all wanted to set the tempo, and it got a little too physical for practice out there, and so people got frustrated.” His teammates, however, disagreed saying the fights were not planned.

Another large brawl began when Ben Jones of the Texans sucker-punched the Redskins Chris Baker which led to nearly all 180 players engaged in some way. Either physical or verbal jabs, along with coaches and other teammates who were looking to separate the chief offenders of the brawl.

CBS Sports, who has video of the fight, says the brawl may have began because the Texans are too intense or because the Redskins were not. “The [Redskins are] wondering why the Texans are going so intensely,” said ESPN.com’s Tania Ganguli. “Part of that is J.J. Watt. He brings it on every play, even if it’s practice.”

The coaches, however, say they are unsure of how or why the brawl began in the first place.

“Tempers flared. I don’t know what started what,” said Redskins coach Jay Gruden. “We tried as a staff -- coach [Bill] O’Brien and myself -- tried to make it clear that wasn’t acceptable behavior. Unfortunately it wasn’t two people. It was a group of men that was escalated very quickly. For whatever reason, it escalated into a nasty brawl, so we separated the teams and just finished practice on our own.”