FOXBOROUGH — Scuffles at joint practices may be commonplace, but it’s not often that a head coach winds up bloodied at the bottom of the pile.
That’s exactly what happened on the backfields at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday morning, however.
Tensions boiled over in an 11-on-11 period between the Patriots and Commanders. As Drake Maye dropped back to pass, Washington sent a blitzer and running back TreVeyon Henderson was tasked with picking him up. The second-rounder was notorious for his violent blitz pickups at Ohio State and this was no exception.
Henderson took the Commanders defender to the ground, and the two began rolling around tussling on the grass. Seeing this and trying to diffuse the situation, Mike Vrabel sprinted off the sideline and ran into the fracas, trying to separate the two.
Things intensified when Will Campbell saw what was happening.
The first-round tackle jumped on the Commanders defender with Vrabel still in the mix and then a whole melee broke out. When the players were pulled apart, Vrabel was at the bottom of the pile, and rose with blood running down his cheek.
His quarterback liked what he saw.
“That’s what we’re trying to build,” Maye said. “It starts with the head coach, the intensity, bringing it every day. Taking no crap when we’re out there on the field… it’s physical. It’s a physical game. It’s a man’s game. Things happen out there.
“There’s a time where obviously you don’t want to come out here and fight and get in trouble, but at the same time you don’t want to back down from nobody.”
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