A day after Philadelphia Eagles teammates Riley Cooper and Cary Williams fought during practice, coach Chip Kelly downplayed the incident.
“No fallout whatever,” Kelly said Friday. “You’ve got two competitive guys. It was squashed pretty quickly.”
Kelly spoke about the fight for the first time Friday. News of the incident quickly spread, even though Thursday’s practice was closed to the media.
Quarterback Michael Vick stepped in and restrained Williams during the altercation, which occurred after Vick threw a deep pass to Cooper, a wide receiver. Williams, a cornerback, was covering Cooper on the play.
Kelly said he did not hear what the players said to each other during the altercation because of the loud music being played. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Williams used the same racial slur that Cooper used in an infamous video that surfaced in August that got national attention and resulted in Cooper having to take a brief leave of absence from the team.
“Do I think that was connected to what happened yesterday?” Kelly said. “No, not at all. No, I don’t.”
The Eagles are preparing for Monday night’s season opener against the Washington Redskins.
“Fighting isn’t going to win us a game on Monday night,” wide receiver DeSean Jackson said. “That happened over a month ago. If individual people still have issues, that’s for themselves to talk about. But inside this locker room, everybody’s on one page.”
Williams has a history of anger-related confrontations. The former Baltimore Raven drew multiple fines last season and shoved an official during the Super Bowl. He was also ejected from a joint practice with the New England Patriots last month after scrapping with an opposing wide receiver.
“That was just an agreement I had with Coach Belichick that we weren’t going to put up with it when the two teams were practicing because of what we had to get accomplished,” Kelly said. “We’ve talked about it and hopefully (Williams) understands the ramifications. It’s a team game. Our whole deal that we talk about all the time is that you have to play with emotion and not let emotion play with you.”