We remember Pony league practice games always started with our biggest teammate talking smack to the other biggest teammate, and then someone threw a bat in an antagonistic manner, or hocked a wad of spit a little to close to the other team, and all hell would break lose. Well, there was a lot of “What punk? Do you know who my brother is? I have cousins, ese!” but it was still an altercation because if you get two opposing teams to practice together, then there’s going to be trouble. The Rams head coach doesn’t really understand that.

Rams receiver Reche Caldwell grabbed Titans cornerback Cortland Finnegan in a bear hug and took him to the ground.

St. Louis coach Scott Linehan was watching his defense with rookie end Chris Long going against the Tennessee offense and Vince Young when he heard some of the grumblings two fields over between his offense and the Titans defense.

“We’ve got to limit that,” Linehan said. “We can’t get to where we lose our cool out here. It’s that time of year. Guys aren’t in very good moods out here. We’ve just got to make sure we continue to get better. It’s good to see us compete and those things. We’ll get rid of the extracurricular stuff. It wasn’t anything big, a couple of little ones.”

We couldn’t disagree with him any more. Of course you want your players to maintain concentration throughout the season, but if a linebacker isn’t frothing at the mouth and contriving visions of ripping the quarterback’s head off via judo chop, then he should be cut immediately. /Raiders’ fans nod.

Titans-Rams joint practices start with skirmish [ESPN]
Image [Getty]