August 18, 2026
Colleen Claggett/For PhillyVoice
Moro Ojomo apologized for starting a fight in camp last Thursday and looks forward to hitting Patriots instead.
Moro Ojomo on Monday took accountability for his role in the fight that ended last Thursday's training camp practice about 15 minutes early, after he and offensive tackle Fred Johnson twice needed to be separated by teammates, and after Ojomo's dive-bomb into Johnson's knees following the second dust-up forced Nick Sirianni to truncate the session.
"It's football. Emotions, you kind of fight with your brothers. It got a little heated," Ojomo said after a far less spirited practice Monday, in shorts and shells. "It was wrong. It was not a standard that we set out here. It was a mistake, and I messed up."
The fights broke out during an 11-on-11 session in the red zone. Ojomo took exception with how Johnson blocked him, words were exchanged, a punch was thrown, and teammates intervened.
On the very next snap, with both linemen still heated and lined up directly across each other, Johnson blocked Ojomo all the way to the ground, even after the play was over, then used the flattened Ojomo as leverage to get back to his feet, further driving Ojomo into the ground. He was sending a message.
Ojomo had a response. He shot right up, went after Johnson again, more punches were thrown, and teammates once again needed to restrain them. But Ojomo fought off the restraint, snuck around a pile in between he and Johnson, and then launched himself into the veteran tackle's lower body.
By that point, chirping between the offense and defense had grown louder, and Sirianni stopped practice to gather the entire team in the middle of the field to talk.
Sirianni then ended practice, Ojomo and Johnson were sent to opposite areas of the fields, and both Ojomo and Johnson had chats with Sirianni and Howie Roseman.
"Nick is a leader," Ojomo said. "He set the standard straight. That's not acceptable, and not something we do in this organization."
Ojomo said he has since apologized to Johnson and chalked up the incident to the one-sided nature of training camp – teammates spend three weeks competing against each other, in the hot sun and smothering humidity, nearly every day. Tempers are bound to flare.
Which is why this week's two-day round of joint practices against the Patriots, starting Wednesday and leading up to Saturday's preseason game, will be a welcome deviation for the Eagles, especially the starters.
For the first time since camp opened, the first-teamers on offense and defense won't be hitting their teammates. They'll be fine-tuning and honing against last year's AFC representatives in the Super Bowl.
How significant will that be, just from a team morale perspective?
Before a reporter could even finish her question about being excited to just compete against another team, Ojomo interrupted with his excitement. She got to, "Are you excited to ..."
"See somebody else? Yeah, 100 percent," he said. "At this point you've been hitting each other so much you want try to create that camaraderie and go versus someone. Ultimately, we want to get the train rolling. We're trying to have a great season and we start it off with a great joint practice versus Boston."
Cam Jurgens shared that sentiment, calling the joint practices "a breath of fresh air."
"Honestly, it's just nice not going against your team every single day," he said. "You get to go and see another team and kind of work all your stuff. It's always fun when you're going on the road with the team for a week, kind of bonding, coming together as a team. So that's the best part.
"We're all there together, staying in a hotel and enjoying it. I kind of wish I had it like 20 years ago, where they travel elsewhere and everyone is staying in some old dorms together, so this is as close as we get to it."
Eagles center Willie Lampkin (61) is dwarfed by almost all of his teammates, including rookie guard Micah Morris (76), making him a true underdog story at this year's camp.
Jurgens was reminded that when the Eagles held camp at Lehigh University for almost 20 seasons, starting in the late 1990s, and players stayed overnight there for three-plus weeks, there was no air conditioning in the dorms.
"I don't think I would have made it," he joked.
Guys like Ojomo, Jurgens and other starters know that joint sessions are their best chance to get in good reps against another team's starters because Sirianni won't play them in the preseason.
"I think Nick kind of harps on that, and it's a controlled environment, to see a different picture," Ojomo said. "At the end of the day that's a Super Bowl team from last year. You're not going to get much better competition than that, right? So we're very excited and were gonna try to give them our best shot and then I feel like likewise from them, from their part."
Not only could the trip up I-95 help the team bonding and overall development, it could prove to be financially beneficial in the long term for any individual on either side.
The Eagles and Patriots scrimmaged together in Foxborough in 2024, and Eagles defensive tackle Milton Williams ended up parlaying his breakout season and the team's Super Bowl run into a blockbuster contract the next offseason with the Patriots.
Ojomo, like Williams in 2024, enters the last year of his four-year rookie deal and comes off an impressive 2025 season in which he broke out for 6.0 sacks and 12 QB hits.
On the flip side, former Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown, a record-setting wideout for the Eagles who spent the past four seasons in Philly, is now on the other side, after the Patriots surrendered a future first-round pick to land him.
Joint practices allow teams to get a bird's-eye view – no pun intended – of players who could become available at some point down the road. In 2017, the Eagles traded with Miami for running back Jay Ajayi, a key late-season addition for the team's run to its first Super Bowl win.
The Eagles and Dolphins had scrimmaged each other in South Philly that preseason, and after the trade Howie Roseman mentioned those sessions as an early opportunity to evaluate Ajayi.
"I know we went there two years ago and I think that's why Milt ended up getting paid; great practices up there," Ojomo said. "I think that we're confident. We want to go out and dominate. They want to go versus us. We're good competition as well."
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