NFL announces punishments for Cowboys, Saints after fight-filled joint practice

Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer revealed Thursday that the NFL had requested film footage of this week's joint practice with the Saints after multiple fights broke out among players during the scrimmage session.

It didn't take long for the league to review the evidence and drop a noticeable punitive hammer.

The Cowboys and Saints organizations will be fined $500,000 each in the wake of the brawls, as first reported by NFL insider Ian Rapoport. The league's competition committee had sent a memo earlier in the summer reminding teams "of their responsibility in preventing unsportsmanlike behavior at joint practices that has the potential to result in injury."

Joint practices are becoming more common and more frequent in today's NFL; the Cowboys had two this offseason. A previous workout with the Rams was incident-free (though cameras were not allowed); Tuesday's practice with the Saints was punctuated by as many as a dozen fights by some counts and was nearly halted early by coaches for both sides.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already said he will appeal the league's fine but remarked to reporters that the fights were "a serious matter" worthy of punishment.

"It needs to be taken that way by everybody at the club level right up through the top," Jones said Thursday in Oxnard as the Cowboys wrapped up their annual training camp stay.

Not sure how much longer this practice will go. Another fight between the Cowboys and Saints. pic.twitter.com/hJ2sMVGeOv

"This game is physical and it's easy to get involved with aggressive temperaments," Jones said per ESPN. "All of that makes it a real focal point in the league to stay within good sport. And taking of helmets off and swinging and hitting and that type of thing is not good for anybody and it's certainly not what we want to represent to our fans as a league or as a team. So it's understandable how they're coming down with real severe fines."

Jones added that, independent of the team's appeal, the Cowboys would be imposing fines on the individual players they deem responsible for drawing the league's ire.

"The players that are involved in it [who] have the kind of infractions that they're fining the club for," Jones explained, "certainly will receive fines."

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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: NFL announces punishments for Cowboys, Saints after fight-filled joint practice