As the New England Patriots settle into the first week of training camp, some friendly competition is already brewing. Quarterback Mac Jones and linebacker Ronnie Perkins love to chirp back and forth with practices underway.
Perkins has a good reason for doing so — defensive players cannot hit the quarterback during practice. As a result, Perkins takes his energy out in a different way following a play.
This good-natured trash talk is not one-sided. Jones has also held his own in that regard. As the adrenaline kicks in and the competition heats up, Jones and Perkins are not afraid to dish it out to each other.
“I mean, really, it’s not bad (not being able to hit),” Perkins said. “It’s just kind of funny because you’ll be like ‘bro I could have laid you out in a game.’ We know it’s practice. We know we can’t really take a hit on them. But, you know, it’s just cool to talk stuff to them, like ‘bro I could have killed you’ and stuff like that.”
“Just messing with Mac sometimes, you know, (expletive), we talk stuff to each other all the time, but also we walking through, we also greet each other, I ask him ‘how you been doing, how you’ve been picking things up.’ So there’s building a relationship with him and also like messing around with him after that play that almost got him.”
Both figure to be a key part of the Patriots’ present and future. With the rookies getting their first taste of life in the NFL, this bond the pair is forming could work out well for players and organization alike.
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