Fitzgerald Cecilio

A fight broke out between Joe McKnight and D'Anton Lynn at Jets practice escalating quickly to include about 20 team members, Tim Tebow among them.

The New York Jets got into a little "extracurricular" action when a brawl involving about 20 players erupted on the sideline during practice.

The brawl started when safety D'Anton Lynn, son of running backs coach Anthony Lynn, shoved running back Joe McKnight out of bounds after a screen pass. McKnight retaliated by firing the ball at Lynn before immediately started fighting. Witnesses said McKnight charged at Lynn and threw the first punch.

Within seconds, the offensive and defensive units ran over advertisement placards as they joined the pile-up. Coach Rex Ryan came over immediately and started pulling players out of the pile, which was close to the fans in attendance. Order was restored in about a minute.

"I lost my temper after McKnight threw the football at me. That was a first," Lynn said after the brawl.

"It's football. Ain't nothing out of line," McKnight said, adding that he was not out of line for throwing the football at Lynn.

"It was something just happened at the spur of the moment," McKnight said. "I'm over it now. We're teammates. I love him, just like I love his dad, so we're moving on."

McKnight said Ryan spoke to him afterward and told him to just keep playing hard.

But while starting quarterback Mark Sanchez understands that tempers flare, brawls between teammates should not happen as they should be taking care of each other on and off the field to not risk injuries.

"There's no excuse for it. There's no throwing a ball at a teammate. There's no shoving a guy out of bounds into the signs. One, it doesn't look good. And two, it sends the wrong message to our team. We want to take care of our guys," Sanchez said.

"We saw what happened there with Joe at the end," he added. "That stuff doesn't help. You get too physical out there and hurt a guy on your team. We're playing together. Yeah, we're competing against each other, but we've got to play together on Friday. So that doesn't help."

Fight breaks out at Jets practice

 

Twenty New York Jets Players Involved in Practice Brawl