A fight started on Monday night after Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss drilled Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart near the sideline. Ellis said after the game that he was surprised by how the Giants reacted.
Ellis’s hit was hard, but it was clean and legal. Giants tight end Theo Johnson took exception to the hit and laid his own hit on Ellis, which led to a fight breaking out. In the end, Johnson was the only player who got a penalty for the altercation, and Ellis said after the game that there was nothing he would have done differently.
“I saw the scramble, I started chasing him down. He started tiptoeing on the sideline. I thought he was just going to go out of bounds, but then I saw him tiptoeing,” Ellis said. “So I was like, He’s staying in bounds — what am I supposed to do? We play hard on defense. We try to bring life to this team. I was just doing my job and hit anything in the whites.”
Ellis is right and Johnson was wrong. If Dart doesn’t want to take hard hits, then Dart needs to get out of bounds before the defense can get to him. Ellis hit Dart in bounds and was just doing his job.
