Phillips Downplays Sideline Scrape

Probably the most entertaining aspect of Sunday's 7-6 sleeper between Washington and Dallas, at least until the final, game winning drive, was the sideline scuffle between cornerback Terence Newman and secondary coach Dave Campo. Campo yelled, Newman yelled, shoving ensued and it was over--still decidedly better television than Roy Williams dropping balls over the middle and referees struggling with might to grasp a replay call, but Balboa-Creed II it wasn't.

Wade Phillips was blase about the episode on Monday, saying that this sort of thing is to be expected over the course of a football season. "That's normal. It happens a lot, sure," Phillips said, yesterday. "And you're looking at it from one side where you don't know what's going on."

Granted; so what exactly is going on?

Well, Wade wouldn't go quite that far.

"There is, that's what I said," Phillips said. "I don't need to go into detail of who said what, what happened to who, all those things--he said, she said. There wasn't anything big that happened that made a difference. We worked out what we had to work out on the sideline, and that's what we normally do. And that's what happens with a lot of teams a lot of times."

While the voyeur in all of us would love to know the maybe-juicy details on this one, Wade is right on both counts. The fact is, these things do happen in the NFL with a fair regularity. Disclosing the details--airing the team's dirty laundry--would only prolong the potential distraction of a story.

In all likelihood, Newman's blown coverage on a long third down conversion was at the heart of the scrape; but with Phillips' refusal to indulge us, it appears we'll never know for sure.

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