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Richmond – Wild day in Virginia.
Sorry I’m a little delayed on this story.
My notebook got drenched in rainy Richmond and I can’t read some of the notes – lol.
The Jets-Redskins practice today was cut short due to a torrential downpour.
And before the practice ended prematurely, there were several fights taking away time from the practice.
If these fights hadn’t delayed practice, the two teams would have been able to get a lot more work in before the rain started. A couple of these fights took several minutes to break up.
I’m not going to get into the fights too much because it was hard to see a lot of details – it was hard to see with the scrums surrounding the principles.
But to me, the reason you see these fights is because NFL teams want players to make good football plays, but not tackle or hurt anybody. Football practices are counter intuitive – you want toughness, but not too much toughness. It puts the players in a difficult spot. They want to shine, but they are always told to hold-up. So you often see two guys going at it, at different levels of intensity, and this leads to fights.
I will give you a perfect examaple – and this was the one fight I saw clearly. It was right in front of me.
In a one-on-one drill between pass rushers and offensive line, Jets OLB Brandon Copeland was going up against Redskins backup left tackle Ty Nsekhe, and after the play was over, they got into a tussle.
The journeyman Copeland is busting his butt trying to carve out a roster spot for himself. Nsekhe is basically a lock to the make the Redskins. He’s a very good backup left tackle, and while Trent Williams is a superb starter, he tends to get nicked up.
So Copeland is out there with his hair on fire and Nsekhe is trying to get his work in, but he’s a veteran probably looking to leave some gas in the tank for the season. Copeland’s overzealous approach got on Nsekhe’s nerves and they squared off . . .
Some observations from today’s practice in Richmond:
*The Jets had no answer for speedy Redskins wide receiver Paul Richardson. Nobody could cover him.
*The Jets had two outstanding defensed passes on deep balls – cornerback Mo Claiborne on a deep post down he middle and safety Kacy Rodgers II on a deep out – both were diving breakups. Rodgers II had been out for about a week. As I’ve said before, Rodgers isn’t with the Jets just because his father is defensive coordinator. He’s a good player.
*Trent Williams is an unbelievable left tackle. Jets rushers couldn’t get off his blocks.
*Jets defensive end Xavier Cooper is an underrated talent – Redskins offensive lineman had issues with his first step quickness into gaps.
*In the pass rush drill, Leonard Williams matched up with Brandon Scherff a couple of times, and on the second play he pushed the talented guard back on skates, which isn’t easy to do.
August 12, 2018
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