'Zombieland' celebration triggers skirmish between Cameron Ward, Jeffery Simmons at Titans training camp

Training camp fights are not particularly rare, but it is not every year the No. 1 overall pick gets involved in a scuffle with his teammates. Yet that was the case Monday when Titans quarterback Cameron Ward picked a skirmish with defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons.

Numerous media members in attendance watched as Ward threw a touchdown pass to Calvin Ridley, shoved Simmons in the back and hit his signature "Zombieland" celebration in front of the veteran defender. Simmons retaliated and pushed Ward in the facemask, and a scrum ensued as the Titans' offensive line came to its quarterback's defense. Simmons lost his helmet in the fracas.

"lol yea y'all doing way too much!" Simmons said on social media. "It's practice, it's football! Shit happens between the lines! But y'all letting these reporters blow up something that happened at practice says a lot! Trust me, me and 1 is good!"

Simmons did not return to the field for the final two reps of practice, but Ward was back under center to close out the drill. Coach Brian Callahan disciplined the team at the conclusion of practice and made them run because of the incident.

"You never want to see your quarterback in the middle of those type of things, but when it do happen, it just shows you the level of dawg he got in him," cornerback Jarvis Brownlee Jr. said after practice. "He's gonna take nothing. It shows you how much he cares about his offense, how much he cares about winning. Same goes for both sides of the ball with Jeff and him. You get that same attitude, that same confidence, that same edge each and every day out of those two guys."

ESPN's Turron Davenport noted that Simmons had been engaging in trash talk with the offense throughout the team portion of practice, particularly with Ward and offensive lineman JC Latham.

Training camp skirmishes are not always an indication of poor team culture. In fact, it can sometimes reflect the opposite. The more passion and competitiveness there is in a locker room, the more tensions can build up. Scuffles often occur between close teammates who are already comfortable with each other, too.

"When you got a great team, brothers fight," said Brownlee. "At the end of the day, as long as we all got each other's back, we all connected, we all got that bond and we all got that same connection where we gonna fight for one another, then that's the most important thing."

Camp has otherwise been productive for Ward, who displayed his upside in Friday's preseason game against the Falcons. It was a mixed bag of an individual performance as he completed just two of his seven passes, but the ability to make plays outside of the pocket and to place the ball on the money with high velocity transcended the subpar stat line.