GREEN BAY, Wis. – Tempers flared at Green Bay Packers training camp on Tuesday, capped by coach Matt LaFleur kicking left tackle Rasheed Walker off the field and telling him to run a lap.
“I haven’t run a lap since probably like freshman year of high school,” Walker said.
Late in practice, defensive end Kingsley Enagbare appeared to get under Walker on a bull rush. Walker held him off and Jordan Love completed a pass to Romeo Doubs. Enagbare disengaged from Walker but Walker did not and pulled Enagbare to the turf.
Commotion ensued. Walker and the No. 1 offense walked off the field with LaFleur in pursuit and yelling at Walker to take a lap around the practice field.
Walker was stunned. Tight end Tucker Kraft had the rest of the offense join Walker. So, the offensive line that was on the field at the time – Walker, Jordan Morgan, Zach Tom, Elgton Jenkins and Sean Rhyan – along with Kraft and running back Josh Jacobs took a lap around the north practice field.
“It was good. It was good,” Walker said of having some running partners. “Just made me want to do it more because, at first, I didn’t want to do it. But I saw my teammates running with me, so I was, ‘I’m going to run.’ So, it helped my mood get better seeing my teammates running with me.”
For Kraft, it was equal parts solidarity and de-escalation.
“Really, I was just trying to separate my teammates from any further conflict as fast as I could,” Kraft said, “and it’s the best idea I had was, ‘Let’s just take a lap together.’”
Tom didn’t want Walker running by himself.
“That’s never happened before,” Tom said. “I haven’t seen something like that since high school. We didn’t want him to go around alone, so we’re just like, let’s join him. Obviously, we have his back.”
Added Jenkins: “I feel like he was just playing football, but we’re going to ride with him no matter what. It was just basically like, he do it, I do it.”
In the post-practice huddle, LaFleur continued to fume. The sanitized message was simple: practice smarter or there will be more laps.
“Man, sometimes, it just gets really competitive, especially O-line and D-line,” Walker said. “Everybody wants to be dominant. Stuff happens. You’ve just got to manage things.”
That last line is the important one. The 90 players on the roster aren’t just elite athletes; they’re elite competitors. Sometimes, things happen.
“I would say definitely need an edge, but it’s also you got to protect the guys in this building because we’re going to need everybody to win this time,” Jacobs said. “It’s going to take everybody, so I definitely say it’s a thin line between playing hard and being a little chippy and doing a little bit too much.”
Kraft, in noting the youth of the team, had a similar thought.
“There’s a certain level of maturity to it. If you get beat on a play, some people get maybe a little sensitive about it, holding on to jerseys for an extra couple seconds. It is what it is. We’re all extremely competitive individuals. We’re here playing professional football but, at a certain point, we just have to realize that we’re going to get tired of beating up on each other. We got to get more prepared to play other teams and the best way to do that is just to keep each other safe, keep each other up.”
Training camp fights aren’t exactly unusual. In fact, it would be an enormous stretch to call anything that transpired during the first two days of padded practices a “fight.” And the tempers that flared on Tuesday had nothing in common with the full-scale fights that used to break out during former coach Mike McCarthy’s night practices during two-a-days.
As for the trigger of Tuesday’s incident, Walker said he didn’t remember and Enagbare said he had to go to the training room for treatment.
“Offense is going hard, defense is going hard,” Walker said. “High intensity. Thick of camp, stuff happens.”
Walker said he’d probably meet Enagbare in the team cafeteria during lunch to patch up any hurt feelings.
“I’m cool. I’ll probably check his temperature later,” Walker said. “But I’m cool. It’s just practice. Leave it on the field. No hard feelings about nothing.”
