PALMER PARK, Md. -- Police defended the use of pepper spray during Monday night's Washington Redskins-Philadelphia Eagles game, causing an eight-minute delay.

	“	If that had happened before last Sept. 11, you would have thought nothing of it because we've all been in stadiums where the crowd gets out of hand. ”
		— Redskins tackle Jon Jansen

The Prince George's County (Md.) Police Dept. issued a statement Tuesday saying officers and FedEx Field ushers responding to a report of a fight in the stands found a fan being kicked to the ground by other fans.

According to police, a sergeant tried to stop the fight, but there were too many people involved. So he used his department-issued pepper spray, which immediately stopped the brawl and sent the attackers fleeing.

"The officer made the decision to deploy the pepper spray to quickly control a potentially dangerous situation with the minimal force necessary to assist the spectator in trouble,'' police said. "The action was taken to safeguard the well being of all nearby spectators.''

The fight broke out with about 6½ minutes to play and the Redskins on their way to a 37-7 loss. By that time more than half the 84,982 fans had left.

"If that had happened before last Sept. 11, you would have thought nothing of it,'' Redskins tackle Jon Jansen said, "because we've all been in stadiums where the crowd gets out of hand. But, any more, you don't know what it is, especially in this area.''

Police said cooling fans on the field pulled the pepper spray residue behind the Eagles' bench. Philadelphia players scattered from their bench onto the field, and players and fans in the stands on that side of the stadium held their noses, as a national TV audience tuned to ABC's "Monday Night Football'' watched.

Greg Aiello, an NFL vice president, said Tuesday the league was reviewing the pepper-spray incident to see if any changes need to be made in how the situation was handled. Aiello said the use of pepper spray was made at the discretion of the police department and that the league would defer to the judgment of law enforcement on whether the use of the spray was warranted.

Aiello said it would not be fair to second-guess the way in which referee Bob McElwee announced that a foreign substance had been released and drifted to the sideline. Since McElwee did not know the nature of the substance, he could say no more than that, Aiello said.

"It was clearly a foreign substance," Aiello said. "Were it to have been something more serious, no one would have questioned him then."

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.