The Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals met for the first time this week in joint practices since Super Bowl 56 and things took a turn for the worst on Thursday.
A full-out brawl broke out between the two teams, with Aaron Donald at the center of it.
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While there is no video of the melee, numerous reporters gave a breakdown of what happened:
Huge fight now. Rams D-Bengals O going at it again. Appeared Aaron Donald had a Bengals helmet in his hand and was swinging it repeatedly.
It had a second wave with more action.
I’m going melee on that one. (8 of 10)
— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) August 25, 2022
Here's a picture of the Rams star swinging around a couple of Bengals helmets:
#Rams Aaron Donald swinging two #Bengals helmets in the mix. pic.twitter.com/y92A0gNskd
— Sam Greene (@SGdoesit) August 25, 2022
And a now-deleted video:
Deleted video of Aaron Donald swinging a helmet at bengals players. pic.twitter.com/dHCAGN8Bby
— Not Jake 🥷🏻 (@CincyHub) August 25, 2022
Massive fight. Punches thrown, helmets ripped off, people all over the place.
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) August 25, 2022
Here they go again. Full on roundhouse punches being swung, helmets being slammed on other peoples heads, multiple players joining in. Full on melee
— Jay Morrison (@JayMorrisonATH) August 25, 2022
Absolutely insane. AD was clearly the focal point it seems and he gave a pretty good swing with the helmets before falling down. La’el Collins and Leonard Floyd were also reportedly involved in a scuffle. This is just one of several joint practice fights that have occurred in recent weeks. The Rams and Bengals also face off on Saturday in preseason action. That should be interesting.
Cincinnati certainly has a bad taste in their mouth after LA beat them 23-20 at SoFi Stadium in February, with Donald playing hero in the final minutes. Let's just hope there are no serious injuries or anything from this brouhaha. To be honest, it was actually surprising to see the Rams and Bengals have a clean practice on Wednesday. You simply knew something was going to happen eventually as emotions boil over between the Super Bowl foes.
Wouldn't it be something if they met again on the big stage? Evidently, there is no shortage of bad blood between the two organizations. That's for sure.