Two Washington football players threw their best punches at each other as the team was being run off the field by their hated division rival Dallas Cowboys in the nationally televised prime time game Sunday.
Defensive lineman Jonathan Allen took a swing at his teammate Daron Payne as the players huddled on the bench after the Cowboys scored their fourth touchdown in a little more than a quarter.
Payne appeared to prod at Allen’s head as the linemen discussed what was happening on the field. Allen responded by throwing a punch at Payne, which didn’t connect. The two quarreling teammates had to be pulled apart from one another, with line coach Sam Mills Jr. getting in between the two.
‘I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist,’ Allen said about why the fight started.
‘If you look at how that game went, emotions are high, things are high, things happen.’
He said that he would take ‘full responsibility’ for his actions, as would Payne.
‘When something happens on the field you never let it carry into the locker room,’ Allen said. ‘Things get heated, we fix them, we sit down as grown me and we move on.’
Washington was down 28-7 at the time of the fracas and would go on to lose 56-14 to fall to 6-9 on the year, clinching their fourth-straight losing season. It was also the once-proud franchise’s 21st non-winning record in the last 29 seasons.
The loss all but eliminated Washington from playoff contention, while the Cowboys improved to 11-4 and clinched the NFC East title.