CHICAGO — After Miami Dolphins linebackers Jordyn Brooks and Tyrel Dodson had a physical altercation on a sideline at the team’s joint practice with the Chicago Bears on Friday, they squashed it publicly following Sunday’s preseason opener at Soldier Field.
“Wasn’t no disagreement,” Brooks said in the locker room. “That’s my dog right here, man. Brothers fight all the time. That’s all that was, man — brotherly love, man.”
Dodson chimed in next to Brooks in the locker room: “Anybody got kids, they fight all the time.”
Coach Mike McDaniel’s take Sunday on the matter backed what his players said.
“They’re like brothers. It was very much a brotherly fight,” McDaniel said. “Family business that families go through, and we’re stronger because of it.”
By Sunday’s opener to the exhibition season, Brooks was celebrating with Dodson, his fellow starter at inside linebacker on the defense, when Dodson was among defenders in on the third-down stop on the initial series for the unit.
Brooks knows the caliber of linebacker Dodson is and he said he had to approach him during the joint practice with the Bears because he wasn’t upholding his usual standard in a team period.
“That was part of what the scuffle was about, knowing his abilities to do everything out there on the football field,” Brooks said. “Iron sharpening iron, trying to get the best out of each other.”
While McDaniel would’ve preferred his players don’t fight each other, he appreciated how they quickly pulled together.
“I’m not pumped about the front part of it, but I also knew that the people that were engaged in it, they came up to me and explained what happened,” McDaniel said. “They took the time to apologize to the team. Things happen in life and in football, but when you have people that, on their own accord, want to talk to the team and explain what happened, it brings your team closer.”
Brooks was known to be involved in the team’s in-fighting since Friday, but it was unknown which teammate it was he came after until retired tackle Terron Armstead revealed it was Dodson on his podcast.
Throughout Friday’s joint session, the Bears were hitting and tackling to the ground much more while those weren’t the agreed-upon practice regulations. It eventually led to scuffling between teams.
The Dolphins defense kept its composure and didn’t start tackling Bears offensive players once the Bears were delivering blows.
“It’s practice. It’s a thud tempo, so we can’t worry about what others do,” Dodson said. “We have our own discipline and stuff like that. So we can only have our standard, which is our standard. If it’s thud, it’s thud. It’s no tackling. So that’s what it is.”
McDaniel took the high road Sunday when asked how the Bears went about the practice Friday.
“I’m worried about one team. That’s Miami Dolphins,” he said. “I think they presented some good challenges, and there’s a lot to be learned in joint practices and you have your standards of play and how you want to do things and whatever the opponent does can either be noise or irrelevant.
“I think that’s very good for football teams in general because you have to do things between the whistle and not after them. So those competitive moments are great, and it was certainly competitive against the Bears. I’m expecting it to be competitive against Detroit.”
The Dolphins now travel to face the Lions for a pair of joint practices before their next preseason game Saturday.
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