Thirteen seconds. That’s how long it took for the Philadelphia Eagles to lose a linebacker in London. After Philadelphia won the coin toss and deferred, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ rookie wide receiver fielded the opening kickoff and took it 90 yards to the house for an apparent touchdown. But offsetting penalties wiped it out, with the Eagles flagged for illegal formation, while the Jaguars’ linebacker Branson Combs got flagged for offensive holding.

While Cameron was sprinting into the end zone, a brawl erupted back at midfield. Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Jaguars’ rookie defensive end Bryan Thomas Jr. got tangled up on a block, with Trotter driving Thomas into the turf. Thomas responded by kicking up at Trotter from the ground, sparking a melee that pulled players from both sidelines onto the field. By the time the officiating crew separated the pile, both players were ejected from the Week 5 matchup at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“Eagles LB Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and #Jaguars LB Bryan Thomas Jr. got into it at midfield on the opening kickoff — and both players have been ejected,” NFL insider Ari Meirov captioned a post on X with a video of the brawl.

The skirmish escalated so fast that multiple officials lost their caps in the scrum after already tossing their penalty flags to break up the fight. When the dust settled, the crew had thrown five separate flags on the opening play before sorting through four distinct penalties at midfield.

Following the lengthy conference on the field to sort through the chaos, referee Ronald Torbert’s crew announced that both Trotter Jr. and Thomas Jr. would be ejected, and Cameron’s 90-yard touchdown would be wiped off the board. The teams were then ordered to re-kick from scratch.

In an odd twist, the ejection came 21 years after Trotter’s father, Pro Bowl linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Sr., was tossed from a 2005 Eagles game after a pregame fight with the Atlanta Falcons.

After the game, Torbert told Associated Press pool reporter Mark Long that neither player threw punches. Instead, the crew ejected them for “continuous, non-football actions” after they refused to stop wrestling on the ground, long after the whistle was blown.

Now, losing Trotter was a sudden blow to Philly’s defense. The second-year linebacker had just broken out with a career-high 15 tackles against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 4 to lock down a starting role in Vic Fangio’s defense. Without him, the Eagles had to run Zack Baun and Jihaad Campbell for the rest of the game.

For Jacksonville, losing Thomas was primarily a hit to kickoff coverage and depth. An UDFA rookie out of South Carolina, he had earned a spot on the 53-man roster as a developmental reserve trying to carve out snaps on special teams.

The incident is now in the hands of the NFL league office. That said, this isn’t the only incident that involved brawling this year around the NFL teams.

On August 18, 2026, the Dallas Cowboys and the New Orleans Saints met for a joint practice session. Instead, the collaborative effort turned into a brawl between the two teams, with roughly eight to ten separate fights breaking out.

As a result, the league office slapped the Cowboys and the Saints with $500,000 organizational fines each.

Apart from that, the NFL has been very active in punishing post-play taunting and unsportsmanlike gestures on the field. For instance, just this month, the league issued identical $14,926 fines to Cleveland Browns players Deshaun Watson and Quinshon Judkins for an explicit “smoking” celebration gesture during their game.

Under the NFL’s 2026 fine schedule, a first offense for fighting carries a $41,907 penalty, while kicking an opponent runs $12,537. With the fight breaking out on an international broadcast and stopping the game before a single offensive play, the league’s decision could range anywhere between hefty fines to suspensions without pay before Week 6. When the NFL’s Week 5 gameday accountability list drops, it’s almost guaranteed that Jeremiah Trotter Jr. and Bryan Thomas Jr. will find their names alongside a five figure fine.