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Marc Raimondi
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — The Atlanta Falcons’ offensive and defensive units got into several skirmishes Sunday during practice, including two involving rookie edge rusher James Pearce Jr.
On one series with the team’s first-team offense going up against the second-team defense, Pearce got into it with left guard Matthew Bergeron, whose helmet came off. There was pushing and shoving between multiple players on both units, and edge rusher Leonard Floyd came to Pearce’s defense.
Just one play later, tensions rose again. Pearce got into it with right tackle Kaleb McGary, who was screaming at Pearce with his helmet off. Once again, Floyd came in to try to separate things with more pushing and shoving all around.
“We’re trying to develop a culture, a style of play for sure, and part of that is the violence with which we play and aggression, the urgency and all that,” defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said. “Today, at times, it went a little too far and we’ve got to learn how to manage that.
“You’re going to get agitated and, especially when you’re playing really good defense, the offense is going to get very agitated, so you’ve got to anticipate punches being thrown, things being said, people getting pushed. In those moments, you got to thrive and not retaliate and so it’s a good lesson to be learned today.”
The key, Ulbrich said, is to stop before punches are thrown. And there were some of those Sunday in the big scrums.
Ulbrich said it’ll be a major learning experience for Pearce, who has been playing extremely hard from the jump in practice and seems to have a chip on his shoulder.
“He’s prideful as it gets,” Ulbrich said. “He loves this game. He’s got deep love for his teammates … and he wants to come out here and create a strong impression on everybody — and himself included — that he can do this. And you do this at a high level, and I think when you’re in that place of just every ounce of your body’s trying to prove who you are, sometimes it gets to that place where it can get a little wacky sometimes.
“His anger got the best of him a little bit and it is going to be a great learning experience for him.”
Ulbrich said what he liked about the scuffles is how Floyd came to the aid of his teammate and that Pearce had several good plays after them. Pearce later batted down a Kirk Cousins pass, and Cousins even complimented him on the field after practice for the play.
Offensive line coach Dwayne Ledford said these training camp practices are like “off-roading in a nice truck.” You want to put the pedal to the metal as much as you can — but not so much that a collision happens.
“Yeah, we had a couple of crashes today,” Ledford said. “But the thing about these guys — I know this, I know how our locker room, the culture that we have here in this locker room — those guys, they’re going to shake it up. They know they got to get to work together and it’s going to take both of us. It’s kind of like what we said, man, if both sides of the ball are playing hard like that, it’s just going to make us on both sides that much better.”
