Five days ago, a locker-room two-hit fight resulted in Jets quarterback Geno Smith suffering a broken jaw. On Sunday, a pair of no-punch scuffles during practice drew the ire of coach Todd Bowles.
Via the Associated Press, Bowles made the team run wind sprints after the second skirmish.
“We understand that we can talk mess and we can jaw at each other,” Bowles said. “As long as the hits are clean, we’re fine. But we’ve got to take care of each other at the same time. There’s no cutting and there’s no hitting in the back and those types of things. There’s no cheap shots. If it’s good clean play, I don’t have a problem. They can talk all day.”
Bowles is trying to strike the balance between competition and confrontation.
“Testosterone,” Bowles said, explaining the dust-ups. “You get tired, guys are out there for a long time. It’s football. . . . [But w]e’re not trying to hurt each other. At the end of the day, we all need each other, but it’s a fine line. The mess-talking, the bravado and swagger and everything is fine, but you have to understand situational football at the same time. You can’t fight and be braggadocious and be loud if you don’t understand what’s going on in the game. That makes for a dumb player and we are not trying to have dumb players.”
They got rid of one “dumb player” after he broke Smith’s jaw. Any lingering dumb players could end up doing something during a game that costs the team 15 yards of field position.