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Brian Schottenheimer on brawls in Cowboys-Saints joint practice: 'I'm in charge of fight club'

Dallas Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer discusses the team's brawl-prone joint practice with the Saints, acknowledging a delicate balance between player aggression and discipline.

First seen Aug 19, 2026 · 1:03 PM UTC · last updated Aug 20 5:32 AM

Scoring Zone's Take

The only mild takeaway is a very soft team-culture data point: joint practices turning physical can occasionally foreshadow roster battles getting testy, which is worth filing away if you're tracking Cowboys camp competition storylines (offensive line pecking order, secondary depth battles) as August rolls on. But with zero direct player performance, snap-count, or health information in these sources, there's nothing actionable for start/sit, waiver adds, or drops right now.

Action: hold pat on all named players in this cluster for draft prep purposes. Don't bump Moore's stock, don't touch anything with Thompson's rookie-camp trajectory, and don't let brawl headlines color Cowboys skill-position rankings—none of that is supported by what's here. Confidence in this "take" is high in the sense that there's genuinely nothing to overreact to; the confidence in the underlying reporting itself is moderate (80%) but the content is inherently low fantasy-relevance. Keep an eye out for follow-up reports that actually name injured or benched players from this practice—that's when this storyline would become draft-relevant.

Brian Schottenheimer on brawls in Cowboys-Saints joint practice: 'I'm in charge of fight club'

Dallas Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer couldn’t focus on how his club fared during Tuesday’s joint practice with the New Orleans Saints due to the repeated scuffles that pockmarked the session.

“Right now, I’m in charge of fight club,” Schottenheimer quipped, via the Dallas Morning News.

There were reportedly at least a handful of fights in Tuesday’s practice, enough that reporters couldn’t keep track of everything happening in the melees.

Helmets were pitched, punches tossed; at one point, Saints wide receiver Brock Rechsteiner, son of WWE Hall of Famer Scott Steiner, grabbed Cowboys safety Jalen Thompson and suplexed him to the turf.

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The repeated donnybrooks led Schottenheimer and Saints coach Kellen Moore to discuss whether to call practice.

"We kind of had agreed that if a couple of other things happened, we would cancel it, but they worked through it," Schottenheimer said. "Again, they settled into it, but again, there's a discipline element to playing this football game, and unfortunately we didn't handle that very well today."

It’s a delicate balance for coaches, who want to see fire from players, but don’t need that many scuffles getting in the way of work being done.

“We’re going to play on the edge and we’re not going to take s--- from anybody,” Schottenheimer said. “But at the same time, I don’t think [the Saints] were the only ones stirring up the s---. I think we might’ve been stirring it up as well. It was a sloppy practice all and all and it’s got to be better.”

The Saints will take part in another joint practice against the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday, Aug. 20, before Saturday’s preseason tilt in L.A. The Cowboys take on the Cardinals in Arizona on Saturday night.

Coverage from Nfl Dot Com News · by Kevin Patra · Aug 19, 2026 · read original