Fighting could be a sign of tough team

Players competing for jobs in summer heat a volatile mix, but part of the game

A lot has changed in 50 years in Baltimore’s NFL training camps.

The team has changed from the Colts to the Ravens. The site has moved from college campuses at Goucher and Western Maryland (now McDaniel) to the team’s Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills. The routine has been relaxed from grueling two-a-days to the leaguemandated one.

What haven’t changed are the fights between teammates and the reasons they occur. “You’ve got guys on edge competing for jobs and their pride and everything that is on the line, and that’s a lot of pressure,” former Colts offensive tackle Bob Vogel said. “And then you get to training camp, when it’s in the 90s in temperature and humidity, guys get a little testy. It’s a pregnant arena for that kind of stuff Preseason opener TV: INSIDE: PG7 to happen.”

There have been a number of memorable training camp fights, none more so than the legendary Westminster scuffle between massive offensive tackle Jim Parker and hard-hitting linebacker Mike Curtis in August 1967.

Curtis took a swing at Parker, who wrapped his arms around Curtis as both players fell to the ground. “It felt like a tree fell on me,” Curtis said. Curtis, who once knocked down a drunken fan who ran onto the field and tried to take the ball during a 1971 game, took over from safety Lenny Lyles as the Colt most likely to fight a teammate. After the Ravens were established, that reputation belonged to offensive tackle Orlando “Zeus” Brown.

A number of Ravens are gaining similar notice during this year’s camp, where scuffles and skirmishes have occurred on a near-daily basis. The half-dozen or so tussles in the first public workout at M&T Bank Stadium turned “Military Appreciation Night” into the team’s version of “Monday Night Raw.”

While most fights have been brief

confrontations of bravado and bluster, at least one caused a minor injury. Tight end Dennis Pitta sprained a finger Monday after taking on rookie linebacker Kamalei Correa, who also was involved in another scuffle and quickly dressed down by quarterback Joe Flacco.

Based on the subsequent practices in Owings Mills, it seemed likely cooler heads would prevail when the Ravens returned to Baltimore for their second public workout Saturday night. On what was being billed as “Fireworks Night,” coach John Harbaugh probably hoped most of the explosions would take place in the sky.

Not that he seemed to mind his players getting after it Monday night.

“This is what it’s all about,” Harbaugh said. “This is football, and we’ve got to build a football team. And we’ve got a bunch of young guys that like to play and want to get after it and have a lot of pride. It’s a tough game. I did like the spirit and physicality.”

‘It’s football’

Scuffles between teammates have been happening throughout NFL training camps this year. New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis and wide receiver Brandon Marshall took swings at each other Friday. Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett was ejected from practice Thursday.

Harbaugh showed some of that passion himself, chewing out outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith and offensive lineman Ryan Jensen, one of the team’s most active practice combatants, after they tangled Monday during a full-field 11-on-11 drill.

“The ability to be a tough, physical football player and a smart football player go hand in hand, so you have to know when to draw the line,” said Harbaugh, who banished both players to the sideline. “It’s between the lines, between the whistles and between your ears. That’s where the game is played.

“That’s where the physicality happens: between the whistles. You’ve got to know when to walk away, and you’ve got to be smart. You cannot give up a personal-foul penalty. That keeps the drive alive. That’s how you lose football games.”

Aside from Pitta, whose comeback after twice dislocating his hip had been going well until he clashed with Correa, most players involved in the flare-ups have been undrafted rookies such as outside linebackers Patrick Onwuasor and Victor Ochi.

Onwuasor, who goes by the nickname “Peanut,” got into it with running back Buck Allen and fullback Kyle Juszczyk after crunching tackles in the early days of camp.

Ochi, who has been in the middle of a few scuffles in recent practices, said that while he understands that nobody wants to hurt a teammate, “It’s football. People are going to fight. It’s a very emotional game. Things are going to happen. You’ve got to understand how to shake it off, shake hands and get ready for the next play.”

Given the rules governing training camp, players in Baltimore decades ago were predictably more ornery than those of the current generation.

“Not only were they two-a-days, but they were full-hitting two-a-days,” said Vogel, a five-time Pro Bowl selection who played for the Colts from 1963 to 1972. “When we went into training camp, we went down on the field to loosen up where we could start hitting, and it was live. It was more [of ] a combustible environment.”

Said Stan White, who played linebacker for the Colts from 1972 to 1979 and is now one of the Ravens’ radio analysts: “Hitting the same guys for three, four, five weeks in a row, it’s always little things that you remember. In games, you don’t play them again for a long time. It’s little things — ‘This guy pushed me the last time.’ Or you see something on film and say, ‘I’m going to get him for that.’ It’s a competitive situation between competitive guys.”

Talking trash

Vogel said that what’s different is the trash-talking that often precedes and follows the skirmishes.

“It’s disgusting to watch all the junk going on between guys, and I think that could perhaps trigger some mechanism of fighting,” Vogel said. “We didn’t do any trash-talking. It just didn’t happen. That’s stupid stuff.”

Some can’t seem to stop themselves from talking. After the defense held the offense in a goal-line drill Thursday, Ochi and tight end Nick Boyle had to be separated. As the units were getting back to their huddles, defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore was heard yelling at his offensive teammates.

“Check out the bleepin’ film,” LewisMoore said, loudly enough to be heard on the sideline. He laughed about it later.

“It’s football,” he said. “Especially in training camp days, it’s the dog days out here. There are going to be some times when you’re tired, you’re agitated a little bit, and everybody’s going to be on edge. Everybody’s fighting to make this team, so they want to do their best and show their best on how they can make this team better.”

It’s not just the players who get involved. After big hits or big plays in training camp, assistant coaches are known to run onto the field to congratulate players, much to the dismay of those who’ve been flattened or embarrassed.

During Monday’s workout in Baltimore, offensive line coach Juan Castillo appeared to get a little feisty with defensive coordinator Dean Pees. Though it seemed to be in good fun, a message had been sent.

“Your players are going to be like their coach,” Castillo said Wednesday. “If the coach is intense, the players are going to be intense. You are their leader. You represent your players in everything you do, so it is very important that I get in there and mix it up, because I’m asking them to mix it up.”

The good fight

While it’s rare for a team’s stars to be involved, it does happen.

One of the Colts’ more memorable fights came during a 1965 practice when Hall of Fame wide receiver Raymond Berry got tired of getting hit by Lyles, who was one of his closest friends. After getting bumped coming off the line and shoved to the ground, Berry went after Lyles. By the end of practice, it was all but forgotten.

After watching a couple of the Ravens’ scuffles at training camp, former Washington Redskins general manager and WJZ (105.7 FM) talk-show host Vinny Cerrato said any team with as many new players and rosters spots at stake as the Ravens could be prone to fighting.

Holding one of the first practices at M&T Bank Stadium doesn’t hurt, either.

“After a few days in pads, and then you go to a new environment in a stadium, everybody’s excited and they want to show [up]. That could get things going,” Cerrato said. “Then you got a lot of young guys getting into fights, knowing they’ve got to make an impression. Coaches like that — ‘That’s a tough guy that got into a fight.’ ”

What surprised Cerrato was the flurry of fights early in training camp.

“Usually, it happens in the middle or end of camp, when you’re hot and tired,” Cerrato said. “To have a bunch of fights at the beginning of camp is kind of strange.”

It also could be a positive sign. Cerrato recalled one such fight he witnessed while working for the San Francisco 49ers.

In 1994, rookie fullback William Floyd, the team’s first-round draft pick, reported to camp late after a contract dispute. On his first day of practice, Floyd got into a fight with veteran linebacker Gary Plummer, who had just joined the team after eight seasons with the San Diego Chargers.

“William Floyd just cleaned his clock,” Cerrato said. “[Coach] George Seifert hated fighting and said: ‘What did you bring me?’ ”

The 49ers won the last of the franchise’s five Super Bowls that season.

So maybe all this fighting is a good omen in Baltimore. Or maybe it’s just what training camp has always been about. Baltimore Sun reporter Mike Klingaman contributed to this article.