Michael Penix Jr. Discusses Being Involved in Falcons-Titans Fight at Joint Practice

Joint practices in the NFL typically produce testy moments between teams, but quarterbacks usually stay out of the fracas.

Atlanta Falcons signal-caller Michael Penix Jr. took the opposite approach and was in the middle of the brouhaha when a fight broke out between his team and the Tennessee Titans during joint practice on Wednesday.

"I don't know where I was at in it," Penix said afterward, per ESPN's Marc Raimondi. "It was a lot of people. I knew I was down there somewhere. I wasn't the only one, though."

Raimondi explained that after Penix completed a long pass to Ray-Ray McCloud III, the second-year quarterback and Titans defenders "were talking trash with each other, and things boiled over and got physical." As players from both teams ran in from the sidelines, Penix reportedly "ended up in the middle of a pile and seemed to be thrown down to the grass."

McCloud and other Falcons players rushed to help Penix, and wide receiver Drake London had to be dragged away from the skirmish by his teammates.

"I'm glad they did, because obviously that's not something that we want to be doing in practice," Penix said of the players coming to his aid. "We want to get all reps in, get that good work in. But it went how it went. But to see the team have my back and they were there, make sure they protect me. A lot of guys asked me if I was good, and it was good to know that those guys had my back."

It wasn't the last fiery moment between the Falcons and Titans on Wednesday. Falcons offensive linemen Kaleb McGary and Chris Lindstrom reportedly got into it with Titans defenders, and another scuffle went down on the adjacent field where the Atlanta defense was practicing against the Tennessee offense.

While Penix definitely raised some eyebrows for his involvement in the first brawl, he made it clear that he won't back down from any disrespect on the football field.

"I don't really do too much talking until somebody say something to me and maybe I'll want to, 'OK, I threw a touchdown, now what y'all talking about,'" Penix said. "And then I guess not everybody takes that the right way. I think that's all it was. They probably looked at me as just the quarterback, [that] I wasn't that type of person. But I'm from Tampa. I'm from Dade City. … There's a respect part about it. We're all playing, we're all competing at a high level, but when disrespect comes in, it's like, 'All right, this ain't football no more.'"