The Atlanta Falcons could use a little fight in them. They seemed listless at times last season as they limped quietly to an 8-9 record and missed the playoffs…again
Maybe that “dog” that they need in their intensity has come in the form of first-round pick James Pearce, Jr. Pearce seemed to be at the center of the practice fights that went “a little too far” on Sunday.
Head coach Raheem Morris addressed the skirmishes on Tuesday before training camp practice.
“We got a little physical the other day, probably a little too physical for my liking, but I love the intent,” said Morris. “And it’s probably a perfect time to put on pads right now for us.”
Morris then talked about Pearce and his role in the dustups.
“I’m not going to say James was completely innocent in this here,” Morris said half-jokingly. “He has his ways of getting under people’s skin as well. And our offensive line have their way of dealing with it.”
Raheem Morris is happy to see physicality
It sounds like Pearce is probably a good pain in the rear end for the Falcons to have. As long as he colors within the lines and doesn’t go out there on game day pulling some Brandon Meriweather or Marshon Lattimore stuff.
“Really good physicality, but you’d like to avoid the little bit of skirmish that happened because you don’t want to waste time,” Morris explained. “The time is precious for these guys. It made us cancel our developmental period and those are things that, as a coach, that just drives you nuts.”
So, that’s not cool. It’s one thing to get involved with a little shovey-shovey, but not at the expense of practice time. It really makes you want to see video of what went down. Anyone else feel like it was worse than they are leading on? Inquiring minds!
Morris wants to keep the edge without going overboard
This seems like quite a camp fight that we’re talking about. Helmet grabbing and shoving happens all the time in training camp, but it doesn’t usually make news like this has.
“It’s easy for me to get up here and talk tough and tell you what we’re going to do, right? Reality happens out there,” Morris continued. “That’s where reality happens. The fight thing is something that you want to be able to avoid by getting that physicality ramped up to a different level, and that’s what I want to see happen today.”
For the record, there were no recorded Hagler-Hearns issues on Tuesday. While Morris doesn’t want the Foreman-Frazier stuff (too many boxing references?), he says that they intentionally drafted guys like Pearce to bring that edgy, aggressive mentality.
“It wasn’t just a part of practice, it wasn’t even a part of the people in the building, it was a part of our draft,” Morris continued. “We wanted to add a little edge to our football team, we wanted to add a little edge to our rush. All the really great ball players that I’ve been around, they got that edge.”
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