ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — After Sunday’s 21-14 loss to the Oakland Raiders—otherwise known around the country as Aqib Talib and Michael Crabtree’s fight—Denver Broncos’ head coach Vance Joseph made it clear he was not okay with Talib’s participation in Sunday’s brawl.
“I don’t like it, and it’s unacceptable,” Joseph said immediately after the game during his postgame press conference.
Monday afternoon, after having nearly 24 hours to process it, Joseph doubled down.
“It’s unacceptable. We can’t do it. I’m not going to speak for the Raiders. I’m not going to speak for their intent, but we can’t do it,” Joseph said as he held his ground. “We can’t lose our best corner in a game like that. Obviously, it hurt us down the stretch, and I told our guys ‘If we can defuse those things, we have to defuse them. We can’t fall into the trap of getting to a fight that means us losing one of our best players. We can’t do it. It’s unacceptable. We can’t do it.”
Even as Joseph remained firm in his belief that Talib’s actions were unacceptable, though, he left the door open for his star cornerback to not take all of the heat.
“I’ll say this. I’m not sure how it all started,” Joseph said in talking about the brawl in the first quarter of Sunday’s game that saw Talib, and the Raiders’ receiver Crabtree both ejected after throwing punches. “When those things start, it’s a fine line between once it starts and not defending yourself… I told our guys I don’t want it.”
“But once it happens, how does a guy not defend himself? Punches are being thrown, helmets are off. I don’t want it to happen. But if it does happen, you can’t blame a man for defending himself. I want our guys to simply defuse and walk away. That’s what I want.”
Initially, it seemed as if the fight began when Crabtree blocked Talib too long on a play, pushing him far out of bounds. Then it appeared as if Talib “snatched” Crabtree’s chain off his neck—as he did in the season finale of 2016 between the two teams—before Crabtree pushed him to the sideline.
Then, it came to light that Crabtree actually punched Chris Harris Jr.—the corner opposite of Talib—in the gut the play before, seemingly sparking Talib to retaliate on the very next play, sparking the brawl.
“It’s okay to defend your teammate,” Joseph said on Monday, seemingly after finding out Crabtree punched Harris the play before. “But we can’t get thrown out of a football game when we have a chance to defuse it. If you have no chance, you defend yourself as a man. I’m okay with that. But if there’s any chance you can get out of it, you should for the betterment of the football team. That’s my point to our team. But him defending his teammate, I’m all for that. I’m all for that. But do it the right way.”
With the waters murky on who and how the fight started, Joseph said Talib will not face discipline from within the organization and said if the league takes their own disciplinary actions on the veteran cornerback, “That’s their decision.”
