The temperature at Denver Broncos training camp boiled over Monday and tempers flared.
Emmanuel Sanders and Courtland Sutton, the Broncos top two receivers, got into a dustup in the middle of practice.
According to Nicki Jhabvala of The Athletic, the two went at it, barking at each other with water bottles being thrown. Teammates separated the two, and quarterback Joe Flacco spoke to each separately. Jhabvala relayed that Sanders said he was "trying to get them right," referring to the young receivers, and argued Sutton and others hadn't proven themselves in the league yet.
Coach Vic Fangio later huddled the team after the dustup and poor play in practice.
"I don't know all the details of it, it kind of happened 10 minutes before I even found out about it, so I was on the other side of the field," Fangio said. "Obviously, it's not good. Can't happen. Shouldn't happen. But you've got to be able to react to these things and handle them the right way."
Asked by former Broncos receiver Brandon Stokley, who now works for 104.3 The Fan in Denver, if he worried about the situation between Sanders and Sutton lingering, Fangio replied:
It's not unheard of for teammates to scuffle during pressure-filled camp practices.
Pass rusher Bradley Chubb dismissed the heat between the receivers is anything that would loiter into the season.
"You got a brother? All y'all got brothers? Y'all got brothers," Chubb said. "I got an older brother. I used to bug the hell out of him. He used to hit me. I used to hit him. We used to fight back and forth. It's just what brothers do. We've been around each other for what 15, 20 days now. I'd probably get tired of seeing somebody's face. It's all about that brotherhood. At the end of the day, we still love each other. We're still going to come together and do things for the greater good of the team."
With Sanders coming off injury and trying to get back to his WR1 ways, and Sutton looking to make a leap to the top of the food chain, the competition for targets in Denver could be fierce. But training camp fights between teammates are usually quickly forgotten when games become meaningful.
