A lot of trash talking and heated exchanges over two days of Raiders and Rams scrimmaging came to a hilt today. With still what was supposed to be a good 45 minutes of practice, a huge fight broke out. One that lasted a good five minutes with several waves.
After the fight finally began to disperse, head coach Jon Gruden had seen enough and ended practice abruptly.
“I thought we had great work today until the end of the special teams period,” Gruden said, speaking of the fight. “I have no idea what that was, but that’s enough of that crap. It’s not good for football, it’s not good for anything, so that was the end of that practice session.”
It was difficult to tell exactly what went down that sparked the brawl, but it caused Yannick Ngakoue and Maxx Crosby in particular to run out onto the field and come after Rams players to defend their teammates.
Neither were letting it go easily and other Raiders players were trying to hold them back. Crosby was really furious and it appeared as if his unwillingness to walk away and his choice words for some Rams players is what caused the fight to pick up again after it seemed like it might dissipate.
After Wednesday’s practice, which had quite a few squabbles as well, Crosby gave a pretty strong indication he was gonna be that dude.
“This is when you can get your punches out,” said Crosby. “You get away with a little bit extra. You know, tempers get flaring and it is what it is. It’s the first day going against somebody else, so things like that happen sometimes.”
Crosby was in good spirits after practice, even going over and giving GM Mike Mayock a big hug. His head coach was not nearly as happy.
“There’s no message, they know. They know better. Everybody knows better. And, again, it wasn’t everybody fighting, you’ll see it on TV, everybody’s screaming and yelling, but it was two guys in a special teams period and then it was a lot of trash talking that escalated. It’s just sickening really. It’s just stupidity. I’m done with that. It’s just child’s play to me.”
“Child’s play” is an interesting choice of words for the man they call ‘Chucky’.
It is a shame, though, because that ‘child’s play’ disrupted what was otherwise some good work being put in between starters for both teams.
“Emotions get a little bit higher when you introduce another team. But we got to try to overcome that,” said Kolton Miller. “Definitely we have each other’s backs, but it’s something we don’t want to get in the way of practice, you know, you want to be able to finish practice. So, obviously we could’ve ended better.”
The fights along the way and the big one that ended it not withstanding, there was a lot of good work put in. The starters got more reps in a full go session the past couple days than they will get all the rest of camp and preseason.
Next up is one of those preseason games this Saturday against these same Rams. Though with the officials on hand and the cameras on, the players should be a bit better behaved.