Packers, Ravens Avoid ‘Junior High’ Fighting at Joint Practice

The Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens are hoping for a fight-free joint practice in Green Bay on Thursday.

Packers coach Matt LaFleur at training camp on July 27. / Tork Mason / USA TODAY NETWORK

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The goal for the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens for Thursday’s joint practice was to get better at football and not fighting.

Mission accomplished.

While there was some jawing during a special teams period, when a Ravens double-team block put one of the Packers’ punt-team fliers on the ground, both teams kept their cool for a successful practice.

Keisean Nixon played peacemaker on the punt, using his hands to tell players to tone it down.

“I wasn't keeping them calm, but yeah, I was going to go help my brothers,” Nixon said. “I don't play that. They know that.”

From that perspective, the Packers went 2-0 during training camp. The Packers and Denver Broncos largely got through last week’s practice without incident, aside from pushing and shoving following a case of mistaken identity.

Joint practices have become a staple of training camps around the NFL. The Packers practiced against the Saints for two days in 2022, but the one-day practice has become the routine, at the urging of the league, in hopes of cutting down on the fisticuffs.

This year, 30 teams are taking part in a total of 22 joint practices. All of them were for one day.

“I think the big question nowadays,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said this week, “is do you want to go one day or two days together? And I think that you’re seeing a lot more teams are starting to do the one-day thing because generally, speaking, whoever gets the upper hand on Day 1, the other team’s out for blood on Day 2 and then it kind of turns into just a wrestling match.”

That’s Ravens coach John Harbaugh’s thinking, as well, entering his team’s only joint practice of the summer.

“I think you’re talking about some competitive human beings, and everybody wants to win all the time,” Harbaugh said this week. “So, that practice intensity gets to a level sometimes where, on the second day, it’s not as productive as it was on the first day.”

Not that one day of joint practices is a perfect solution. There were two fights during the Packers’ practice at Cincinnati last year; Elgton Jenkins got most of the day off for his role in both.

“I think he gave him the wrong pie recipe or something like that and he was pissed off,” former Packers left tackle David Bakhtiari said of Jenkins’ fight with D.J. Reader.

For the Ravens’ Harbaugh, the key to a well-run, productive practice is the “mindset” of the teams.

The Packers and Ravens are entering the 2024 season with Super Bowl aspirations. They aren’t the kid trying to prove something to the neighborhood bully. Thus, the expectation is for a clean, competitive practice.

But these are highly competitive men, and the best of intentions can disappear in a hurry.

“If both teams come in with the same idea, that they’re two good football teams that are trying to take advantage of opportunity to practice against another good football team and get a good football practice in, that’s what you want,” Harbaugh said.

“If a team is coming in like they’re trying to prove something – some junior high thing – then it’s usually not good. We’re excited to go against Green Bay. We think they’re that kind of a group – a good football team, right there almost in the NFC Championship Game, a proven team. So, we’re looking forward to that opportunity to go up and practice against those guys.”

Whatever happens, Thursday’s practice will be important for both teams.

LaFleur used last week’s practice as a substitute for game reps for his starters, and could again with the Week 1 showdown at the Philadelphia Eagles exactly two weeks away. It’s the same for Harbaugh, who stopped playing his starters in preseason games after running back JK Dobbins suffered a torn ACL in 2021.

“I think every situation’s a little bit different,” LaFleur said. “Every year is a little bit different. To me, there’s a lot of gut feel in regards to where you’re at, what are the benefits of going out there vs. maybe getting another hard practice in, whatever it may be. So, we’re kind of working through that right now.”

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