Bears-Bengals Joint Practice Gets Heated With Fights, Punch Thrown

Multiple fights broke out during the Chicago Bears and Cincinnati Bengals joint practice on Thursday and at least one punch was thrown.

Chicago Bears linebacker T.J. Edwards (53) runs during training camp at Halas Hall. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Things got more than a little heated during joint practice between the Chicago Bears and Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday.

The biggest fight of the day came late in practice, when Bears wide receiver Ray-Ray McCloud threw a punch at a Bengals defensive back after a play.

Unfortunately for McCloud, he got into the skirmish before his teammates could get over there to help him and found himself surrounded by other Bengals defensive backs.

It would appear the Bengals took advantage of their numbers.

"Bears WR Ray-Ray McCloud throws a punch at a Bengals DB. McCloud was surrounded by Bengals DBs with no backup, he chose to take a swing anyway," the Chicago Tribune's Sean Hammond reported. "Skirmish ensued. Bengals piled onto McCloud."

There were more scuffles throughout the practice.

The beef kicked off with a brief scuffle between Bears right tackle Darnell Wright and some Bengals defenders, who got into a back-and-forth after one rep, Sean Hammond reported.

"Darnell Wright gets into a minor shoving match with some Bengals defenders," Hammond wrote.

After that, Bears safety Dillon Thieneman picked off a pass from Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow off a deflection, which led to another minor scuffle.

"Joe Burrow tries to thread the ball to Mike Gesicki. Ball gets deflected, picked off by Bears S Dillon Thieneman," ESPN's Ben Baby wrote. "Small scuffle breaks out."

All in all, it seems to have been a pretty tame practice as far as fights go.

We have the one punch, but that pails in comparison to what we saw during the wild Dallas Cowboys-New Orleans Saints joint practice from Tuesday, when the number of fights were in the double-digits and we saw punches and body slams.

With a little extra heat in their blood from this joint session, the Bengals and Bears will square off in a preseason contest on Saturday at Paycor Stadium, with kickoff set for 6 p.m. CT.