As we see at just about every training camp at one point or another, things got heated at Packers practice on Wednesday.
The offense and defense were competing in a full pads practice and things boiled over between linebacker Jamari Lattimore and guard Josh Sitton in what Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com calls the biggest fight of Packers practice. Nothing unusual there, but things took a different turn when offensive line coach James Campen and linebackers coach Winston Moss got into a shouting match on the field a short time later.
Guard T.J. Lang said he’s never seen anything like that happen before, but the two coaches defused any lingering rancor during their meetings with the media after practice.
“I was admiring Winston’s beard,” Campen said. “He’s got a new beard this year, does he not? Yeah, It’s an impressive beard. I wanted to get a closer look and took the opportunity to do that. Hey, it’s an intense practice. Everything is fine. It’s no big deal. I like his beard. It’s nice.”
“He talked about my beard; I talked about how small his T-shirt was,” Moss said. “It kind of escalated from there. I don’t know what happened. It was high energy, high spirit. It was fun more than anything. You don’t see too many coaches get after it. But to me, it was just fun. I hope he’s fine. I hope he didn’t take it personal.”
Coach Mike McCarthy went on to call it “the practice we needed” while giving the usual boilerplate about controlling emotions, so it doesn’t seem like the sniping between coaches or players raised too much concern in Green Bay.