In case you haven’t noticed, NFL Training Camp season is officially underway. And like having a tailgate before the game on Sunday afternoon; it’s tradition for there to be fights amongst teammates.
- Dez Bryant set the tone for future training camp fights all around the NFL.
- Then there was two relatively unknowns trying to liven things up at the Miami Dolphins training camp; why they were fighting to Macklemore has yet to be determined.
- We even saw a QUARTERBACK get into it with a fellow teammate. If the Quarterback fights in training camp (the one position in all of American sports that receives no contact during training camp.) then you know that nobody is safe.
Despite all the attention these scuffles get from the media & the internet; these things inevitably happen every year & 99% of the time, nothing terrible happens. Partly because these confrontations usually end fairly quickly because they are in the midst of practice, there are eyes on everyone involved so inevitably people will rush to separate the individuals in order for business to resume as usual. Every now & then things will get a little out of hand but even in those more egregious situations, players still come out of it unscathed. For example here is what went down when the Houston Texans & Washington Redskins had a joint practice.
You see that? Even when it’s two opposing teams having a joint practice that turns into Wrestlemania, nothing severe happens to the players involved. Only time wasted for teams to improve & get ready for the upcoming football season. So as you can see, fights in NFL training camps always happen, and more often times than not nobody gets hurt……except if your New York Jets Quarterback Geno Smith of course. The former second round pick from West Virginia just had his jaw fractured in two places from former teammate IK Enemkpali over a $600 Plane Ticket. Enemkpali, a second year player out of Louisiana Tech arranged for Smith to visit his football camp in Texas. However, Geno Smith apparently never showed because of a family emergency & this money dispute is ultimately what led Enemkpali to steal off on poor Geno….over a $600 plane ticket. Given the fact that Enemkpali was already on the fringes of making the team, it’s safe to say that the New York Jets released him probably faster than he threw that punch to Smith’s jaw. Now an NFL players career is abruptly over, & a quarterback (that doesn’t even get touched in practice ever) is now going to effectively lose the starting QB job by default to Ryan Fitzpatrick, because he got in an argument with a player of little importance to the Jets team.
This is one of the most absurd stories to come out of an NFL camp in a longtime, & for it to end in a player actually getting significantly hurt makes it even more unfortunate. The last time a training camp altercation ended this badly was when Steve Smith Sr. & Ken Lucas were both playing for the Carolina Panthers. Even in that situation the only player to miss any games was Smith being suspended. But for the New York Jets they have now lost there young QB for at least the first couple of games into the season. This is a huge blow to Geno Smith’s career as he is heading into his third season with the need to prove to the Jets whether he deserves to be a starting QB in this league or not. Now he’s going to have to wait until he can get healthy & hope that Ryan Fitzpatrick plays terrible enough to force the coaching staff into benching him. Well like the kids in school used to say…..
*Reports Per ESPN
Product Of Society 