JOINT PRACTICES FULL OF BENEFITS
Still, some players value experience of preseason games
OWINGS MILLS, MD. There are myriad reasons to criticize NFL preseason games, the risk of injuries and a lower entertainment factor chief among them.
But before the Baltimore Ravens headed up I-95 for three days of joint practices with the Philadelphia Eagles — leading up to the teams’ preseason showdown Saturday — left tackle Eugene Monroe offered a convincing argument in support of exhibition contests.
“Game day experiences, they’re crucial — just from having that long offseason — to get back into it,” Monroe told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday.
“Practice is practice. It’s always different on game day.”
Still, the Ravens are one of 16 teams in 2015 participating in joint practices, which have become increasingly popular in recent years. This week, 10 NFL clubs are training together before Week 2 preseason meetings. Coaches and players throughout the league rattle off the benefits of joint practices.
The Washington Redskins, who hosted the New England Patriots in 2014, welcomed the Houston Texans to their training camp site in Richmond, Va., this month. Their three-day session ended in a headline-making brawl captured on HBO’s Hard Knocks.
But even though fights are commonplace between teams sparring in the heat of August — the Dallas Cowboys and St. Louis Rams locked horns Tuesday in Oxnard, Calif. — for Washington coach Jay Gruden, the benefits outweighed everything else.
“We got great work for a lot of young guys, situational work,” Gruden said after the team’s last practice with Houston. “We got (first-round pick Brandon) Scherff and Morgan Moses (against Texans all-pro defensive end) J.J. Watt. We got scheme; we got quarterbacks seeing a different scheme; we got a lot of great work for young defensive backs, young defensive linemen. So it’s another chance for them to get on tape and see what they have against other teams’ players.
“Sometimes when you’re going against each other all throughout training camp, you don’t really have a sense of how well they’re doing because they’re going against the same guy all the time. But when we go against different people, it’s a great measuring stick for both sides and for us to look at the young guys.”
It’s also a chance to pick your foe and establish ground rules.
Ravens coach John Harbaugh has a careful approach to joint practices, scheduling them against teams with which he has a level of familiarity. Last year, the Ravens hosted the San Francisco 49ers, then coached by Harbaugh’s brother, Jim. Those scrimmages went off without a hitch (or even a fight).
Now Harbaugh is visiting the Eagles, his previous employer. And though he worked for former Philadelphia coach Andy Reid, Harbaugh is comfortable with the safeguards in place against current coach Chip Kelly’s group.
“Really, when you practice together, you’re like a team,” Harbaugh said. “You have to function as a team in a sense, and that’s what we tried to do last year with San Francisco. We’ll try to accomplish that again.
“There’s no cut blocking; there’s no finishing blocks, taking guys to the ground. There’s no pulling, tugging, grabbing, twisting. Any of that kind of stuff that you would normally have at practice, I’m sure we’ll have with those guys.”
Said Kelly on Tuesday: “I think anytime you get a chance to compete against another team, when you have players like (Baltimore’s) Steve Smith out there at receiver and (quarterback) Joe Flacco, who is one of the best in the league, that’s always the great thing. When we got a chance to go against the Patriots, you got to play against Tom Brady. We get a chance to go play against Flacco.
“I think the competition part of it is what we are real excited about.”
Given such factors, joint practices have essentially become an alternative to preseason games. Facing off against unfamiliar players during the week can also provide a better barometer for progress as teams try to maximize opportunities to evaluate rosters under the practice limitations of the collective bargaining agreement. And the NFL has openly questioned the value of preseason, given the inherently subpar product on the field.
But that’s where Monroe and Ravens linebacker Courtney Upshaw want to pump the brakes.
Upshaw will test himself against Eagles perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters this week, an opportunity he might not get Saturday given the limited snaps starters typically receive in preseason games. Still, Upshaw values the repetitions in a game setting, even if he’s opposed by backups.
“Once you’re in the stadium and you have fans, it’s a different feel,” Upshaw told USA TODAY Sports.
Joint practices are “another opportunity to go against somebody else instead of beating up on each other,” he added.
But apparently they don’t beat playing under the lights.