Players around the league are getting into shape during this week's organized team activities, but Josh Norman is already in midseason form.
Even though it's only May, the opinionated Redskins cornerback can't wait for the upcoming season, one that he anticipates will be full of intradivisional feuding. In a wide-ranging interview with Bleacher Report's Tyler Dunne, Norman explained in his own detailed fashion how he expects his team's battles with the Cowboys, Giants and Eagles -- and his own with Dez Bryant, Odell Beckham and Alshon Jeffery -- will transpire.
"Trust me when I tell you, it's going to be bad blood this year," Norman predicted. "You think the NFC East didn't like each other before? This year right here? There's going to be a lot of fines and maybe some suspensions. I'm going to be honest with you: This s--- is going to get really ugly. Because I do have a safety [D.J. Swearinger] that don't give a f--- and I definitely don't. And I know they don't have that many people on the offense who do on their side."
Norman's professional-wrestler hype parade didn't stop there. The corner also called out one of his NFC East nemeses, one that will likely not take kindly to the description bestowed upon him by Norman.
In a game of word association, Norman said of Bryant, "That's a guy. Just a guy. Dez was Dez in 2012, '13, '14. Maybe '14. Now? He's a guy.
"He doesn't 'wow' you. For me, he don't. For other guys, he probably will do the worst to them because he'll bully them. But you can't bully a bully. You know what I'm saying? That's why his game doesn't resonate to me."
If you recall, tensions between the Redskins corner and Cowboys wideout boiled over following their Thanksgiving tussle after which Bryant said he was "wearing Norman's] ass out" and that Washington needed ["to get their money back." Norman responded to NFL.com within a day of Dez's comments, saying, "It's not a competition when the other person don't show up."
And then there's Norman's relationship with Beckham. Neither Giants-'Skins contest from 2016 had quite the fireworks of the duo's clash in 2015 when Norman's Panthers brought bats on the field pregame, setting the tone for the mano-a-mano mayhem that ensued. But Norman isn't against ratcheting things up for next season.
"He tries to be a tough guy. He tries to put on this persona which he's not. Because he's always going to have his head on a swivel. Always. Always when we play each other," Norman told Dunne of OBJ. "He's scary like that. He does things that he normally wouldn't do because of all the pressure and added hype that he has to put on his whole persona. He's not this guy. If you go back and watch the games in which we play compared to the games we don't play each other, he's a totally different guy."
Norman continued to say that instead of playing against JAGs like Bryant and Beckham, he prefers matching up with Julio Jones, Antonio Brown and Jeffery, players with whom he can "actually get myself better."
Maybe Norman's all talk. Maybe he's creeping on Gronk's territory as "Professional Footballer Most Likely to Do WWE in a Second Life". Or maybe, just like the rest of us, he can't wait for the regular season to start.
Regardless of his intentions, we speak for most football fans when we say, regarding a hyper-competitive NFC East led by this corner and his receiving foes, can't wait.
