Fights, scraps and brawls happen at football practices. It's a reality of the NFL that once the pads go on the attitudes come out.
The Cleveland Browns had a doozy of a scuffle on Tuesday morning:
Coach Mike Pettine said Tuesday that to build the tough, hard-nosed team the Browns want, they need to practice with that edge that might lead to some skirmishes.
"When we talk about the kind of team we want to be, you have to practice that way and that is hard, that's difficult," he said. "I can't tell that lie that we can be a certain way on a practice field and carry it over on the game field. There are going to be times when it does boil over. And you don't want one side of the ball to get bullied by the other. There has to be some push back....You look at that and it's the price of doing business."
As far as safety Donte Whitner is concerned, the fight was a sign the Browns won't roll over this season.
"That was a big one," he said. "That's how we like it, really. We don't want any soft guys around here. We want guys going to bat for each other. ... You don't want nice guys on defense, you want nasty guys. You don't want nice guys on offense, on the offensive line, you want nasty guys. That's what winning football teams are built on, built in the trenches on nasty football and that's what we're trying to do."
The key for the Browns will be translating that aggression productively -- not haphazardly -- when we get to games that count.
The latest Around The League Podcast visits with former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and discusses the best of the early training-camp surprises.
