Beachum, Mauldin brawl, mates pay

The first true fight of Jets training camp happened Monday afternoon in Florham Park, and Todd Bowles was not pleased. In the fourth series of 11-on11 drills, Christian Hackenberg faked a handoff and ran to his right. Seeing no one open, the second-year quarterback tucked the ball and jogged ahead. The referees blew their whistle, signaling the end of the play.

Tackle Kelvin Beachum and linebacker Lorenzo Mauldin then began shoving each other near the line of scrimmage and eventually wrestled each other to the ground. Amid the scuffle, Mauldin punched Beachum in the back of the helmet.

As the fight escalated, players and coaches rushed to the two players and broke up the altercation. Bowles made the team run three sprints from sideline to sideline and afterward brought his players together for a fiveminute meeting at the middle of the field. At his news conference, Bowles said part of the reason he made the team run was because practice was “a little sluggish, a little sloppy.”

“They need to know why they’re running,” Bowles said of the meeting. “They need to take onus on themselves. If they got energy to scuffle, they got energy to run. If you got energy to scuffle and run, you should have energy to practice.”

When asked where he draws the line when it comes to training camp fights, Bowles said, “It all varies.”

“If it’s a clean hit and they go on and push each other and shove, that’s fine,” Bowles said. “But if it goes past the point where people are shoving each other in the back and it turns into a melee, then it’s a problem.”

The only other scuffle this summer that approached the Beachum-Mauldin altercation was a brief spar between receiver Robby Anderson and cornerback Juston Burris in the early days of camp.

“Got a little frustrated,” he said, “and we paid for it by running gassers.”