Cowboys Vow to Fight ‘Stiff’ NFL Punishment After Saints Brawl

It wasn’t a pretty scene between the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints in Oxnard this week, as their joint practice devolved into a series of skirmishes, kerfuffles and outright brawls in a session that saw Donovan Ezeiruaku sent off the field for throwing punches. The NFL got hold of tapes from the practice and on Thursday, announced it had issued some hefty fines to the teams.

In addition to the Ezeiruaku punch, there was a punch thrown by cornerback Caelen Carson, there was a Cowboys helmet thrown and there was New Orleans’ Brock Rechsteiner, son of famed WWE wrestler Scott Steiner, throwing down Jalen Thompson with a textbook body slam.

From the league office: “The Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints have each been fined $500,000 for the actions that took place at the joint practice between the teams earlier this week.  The Competition Committee has made sportsmanship — including at joint practices — a point of emphasis over the past several years. All clubs were reminded by memo prior to training camp of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behavior at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury.”

Little doubt that the fights in joint practice–media accounts of the session counted between six and eight altogether–qualified as unsportsmanlike. Even Cowboys owner Jerry Jones agreed with that.

But Jones, in assessing just how much the league doled out in fines, felt the Cowboys were hit too hard. He agreed that punishment was warranted, but not a half-a-million’s worth.

“That’s pretty harsh, I mean, pretty stiff, not harsh, but stiff,” Jones said. “But it does make the point that it’s a serious matter, and it starts with everybody at all levels of a club, and the clubs in this case who are practicing together, it really emphasizes the league’s intent to control it from the very top, which when they start dealing out those kinds of fines, they get your attention.”

Specifically, the Cowboys were most concerned about Ezeiruaku, the second-year pass-rusher whom the team wants to play with a fierce edge. But Ezeiruaku has gotten into the habit of making that edge a bit too fierce–he was ejected from a Cowboys practice earlier this month.

Coach Brian Schottenheimer said that Ezeiruaku has been given a talking-to.

Asked about Ezeiruaku, Jones said: “I think that you have to have consequences and that needs to register. In other words, we all know whether you’re playing a game or out here in society, if you aren’t sensitive about the consequences of your behavior, then you’ll get brought to your knees pretty quick. And so this is something that I, knowing him, I think he has the capability of being sensitive to consequences.”

The Cowboys are hopeful on Ezeiruaku this season, a big one for the second-year man who was adequate as a rookie but finished with only 2.0 sacks. Ezeiruaku, who led the ACC with 16.5 sacks in 12 games at Boston College in 2024, has vowed to get to the quarterback more.

As he said: “They don’t draft edge rushers to not get any sacks … Especially for me the way I take pride in what I do and what I want to do to help this football team.”

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