Things started to get a little chippy at Sunday’s Jets practice at Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park when offensive lineman Alex Lewis got into a mild skirmish with linebackers Blake Cashman and Neville Hewitt during 11-on-11 team drills .
Minutes later, that skirmish turned into a full-fledged fight.
Linebacker Jordan Jenkins was mixed with Lewis and fellow offensive lineman Greg Van Roten, and Jenkins threw some punches when a sea of players swung in the middle of the field.
When things finally got going, Jenkins was still raging from the sidelines, though he was not involved in the next play. He kept crying after it ended.
After some special teams work, those two units were back on the field together, but there would be no round two. Safety Marcus Maye and running Le’Veon Bell spoke prior to the start of those plays with Jenkins, and tempers remained in control on both sides.
The Jets had a heavy focus on the running game during Sunday practice, and that led to an extra dose of physicality and contract on the line of scrimmage.
Jets coach Adam Gase said a few quick words to the team after practice.
“For me, I looked at it because you don’t want anyone to hurt,” Gase said. ‘A lot of times they’ve been a bit upset. You usually do not see too many stun shots thrown because it is pointless – you wear pads and helmets – so you do not want anyone to break his hand with something that does not hurt.
“As long as it’s not every day, every period, every now and then things go down and we have to be smart with what’s going on, but at the same time it’s just good to see our boys with the fire they have.”
Other exercise notes:
• Broad receiver Breshad Perriman missed the practice with a bad knee, adding his name to a long list of injured Jets. However, he is expected to attend Monday when the team holds a walkthrough. Perriman rode a bike in the field’s coach area on Sunday.
• Wide receiver Denzel Mims (hamstring) and cornerback Pierre Desir (hamstring) both remained sidelined.
• Cornerback Brian Poole was back on the field to practice on Sunday as he continues to recover from an extreme reaction to dehydration. A person with knowledge of the situation said that Poole’s reaction was caused by an underlying medical condition, so the Jets should be as careful as possible in terms of getting him to join the practice.
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