The second day of the joint practice between the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers saw three different physical incidents, which resulted in multiple early exits and ejections of a few players.
The first incident happened just a few minutes after the session started, resulting in Saints wide receiver Jarvis Landry being sent to the locker room.
“Everybody goes in and they get coached up a little bit, and so they come out with a little bit more fire the next day. You don’t like seeing it, but it’s part of what happens in these practices when you’re going against another team,” said Saints coach Dennis Allen.
“We dealt with it, we moved on from it and I thought we had a couple of good days of work.”
Eric Stokes of the Packers said Landry was very aggressive during the practice prior to his removal. Instead of looking to practice, Stokes said Landry was trying to land hits on players.
“It just seemed he came out and he’s looking just to hit. He didn’t care about catching. He didn’t care about nothing. He was just looking to try to hit us,” said Stokes.
Practice Benefits
The athlete did expect the second day to get more intense since the Packers performed well against the Saints in the practice day before. Nevertheless, Stokes was adamant that the practice sessions were productive. He said the joint practice sessions were more informative than exhibition matches due to the more focused and dedicated environment.
“I actually think joint practices are actually better than real (exhibition) games right now, especially for preseason,” Stokes said.
“You can run situations. You can do a lot of different things that you probably wouldn’t get in a real game. I actually love it. It shows who’s a competitor, who’s a dog, who’s this, who’s that.”
Packers receivers showed improvements in the session after Aaron Rodgers expressed concerns about the repeated mistakes on the first day. The Packers reportedly listened to the advice and ended up responding with better performance on the second day.
“It was just really giving us advice. Basically, letting us know that the Green Bay receiving corps has always been held to a super-high standard. All the legends who have been through here. It’s just about us carrying on that standard and stepping up,” said Packers rookie Samori Toure.
The Saints also recognized the benefits of the joint practice. Michael Thomas had the opportunity to catch up and continue a comeback after missing the last season due to an ankle injury.
“The program that the team’s had me on with coach DA and the training staff has really allowed me to like start slowly transitioning and getting back to my old self and getting a flow for the game,” said Thomas.
“Being out here in these joint practices allows me to compete against another guy, work on some technique and just get back to the real thing.”
The teams will be able to test the results of their training against each other at an exhibition match at Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wisconsin.