Excitement is high surrounding the New York Jets franchise. They have struggled for decades to find an elite, franchise quarterback, but they’ve finally landed the big fish by trading for Aaron Rodgers this off-season.
Fights Break Out At Physical Jets Training Camp Practice
And we’ve got our first fight of camp! Pads haven’t even come on yet. It was on the right side of the offensive line #Jets
— Connor Hughes (@Connor_J_Hughes) July 22, 2023
There are high hopes for what Rodgers will bring. The Jets had one of the youngest and most talented rosters in the NFL last season, and got off to an impressive and unexpected 5-2 start. But inconsistent quarterback play ultimately spelled doom for their playoff chances, as the Zach Wilson experiment came to a crashing halt and the team endured injuries from their other pass throwers.
But the pieces were in place. Quinnen Williams had a career year that earned him a hefty payday, and Sauce Gardner was the first rookie cornerback to be named to the First Team All-Pro since Ronnie Lott in 1981. They had young, play making wide receivers on the offensive side of the ball, and rookie Breece Hall showed tons of promise before suffering an unfortunate injury.
All they needed was the quarterback, and now they have one of the best of all-time in Rodgers to help them try to win the AFC East for the first time since 2002.
So there is plenty of hype surrounding the Jets as they gear up for the 2023 NFL season, and emotions and tensions are apparently running high early on.
Emotions Often Run High On Late July Days
Saturday marked the first day of Jets training camp that was open to the fans, and they were treated to a show if what they came for was chippiness and fights.
SNYtv reporter Connor Hughes was present at the practice, and was live tweeting some of the happenings on the field. He reported that there was a fight on the right side of the offensive line before the pads even came on, and tweeted about another scuffle just one minute later. The second apparently happened between a different group of players than the first. There were no names mentioned.
Very physical day for no pads. Lots of guys are hitting the ground — likely why the fighting. Wonder if coaches say something soon #Jets
— Connor Hughes (@Connor_J_Hughes) July 22, 2023
About a half-hour later, Hughes reported another fight, saying that Jermaine Johnson and Michael Clemons got in to it with some of the offensive linemen. There were a lot of players ending up on the ground due to the physical nature of the practice session, which is typically a no-no so early in the training camp process, and was pointed to by Hughes as a possible reason for the issues.
High emotions at NFL training camps is a regular thing. We saw a high-profile scuffle last season involving Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills, which was later attributed to men just being in the moment, and didn’t appear to affect the team in the slightest going forward.