A couple years ago, the Los Angeles market didn’t have any NFL teams in it. Today, it has both the Rams and the Chargers—but it doesn’t appear as though those two teams like each other very much.
The St. Louis Los Angeles Rams and the San Diego Los Angeles Chargers are set to share a stadium in a few years. But until then, they’re sharing a practice field this week with the two teams taking part in joint practices at the Rams’ training facility located in Irvine, California. And on Wednesday afternoon, players from both teams were involved in a really wild brawl that reportedly got bloody by the end.
It all started when Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson reportedly threw a punch at Chargers receiver Dontrelle Inman as tempers flared during a drill. That led to Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman stepping in and pushing Inman down. And when Inman’s fellow Chargers receiver Keenan Allen saw what happened, he responded by taking Robey-Coleman and slamming him to the ground. Players from both teams then engaged in some spirited pushing and shoving before the two sides were eventually separated.
Johnson—who appeared to have started the whole thing—spoke about the incident later. “Where I’m from, if somebody’s going to initiate it, we’re going to finish it—especially myself," he said. "But it was fun, man. It was friendly competition."
And that wasn’t the end of the fighting! A few minutes after the initial brawl took place, Chargers receiver Jamaal Jones and Rams cornerback E.J. Gaines got into it and forced the two teams to go toe-to-toe on the field again. Gaines then followed that up by going at it with Chargers defensive end Chris McCain during a drill a short time later.
At that point, Gaines, who was bloodied up at some point during one of the altercations he was involved in, and McCain were both kicked off the practice field for the day by their respective coaches.
You can check out all of the action from the first fight in the clip above. You can also get a closer look at what went down in this clip from the Los Angeles Times:
Safe to say these two teams don’t like sharing the spotlight in L.A., eh?
