The New Orleans Saints have been on the field for seven days of training camp practice, the last three of which have featured full pads and real hitting. The results are as expected.
In each of the past three days we've seen dust-ups after four days without them, and that peaked during Wednesday's action with four separate instances of players needing to be separated. At one point head coach Dennis Allen had to step in and remind the defense not to hit the QB. That's all part of the process, as Deuce McAllister explains, as long as it's within reason.
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“They’re competitors and they all want to win," McAllister said, "they all want to win a rep, they all want to win a play and you know, when I get a chance to go out there and catch a ball I’m gonna talk a little noise and so when I have to go and block, maybe I’m a stronger defender, I’m gonna throw my weight around and you saw that a little bit."
On Wednesday it was star WR Chris Olave in the middle of the action multiple times, and that came after a good bit of jawing with Alontae Taylor during 1-on-1s. Olave took some exception to what he considered holding during those reps, three of which went for incompletions.
"Coach just has to make sure that guys have to understand hey, that’s still my teammate," McAllister continued. "We can go at it, but at the same time I have to keep my cool.”
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The Saints will get a day off on Thursday to re-establish that cool before another pair of padded practices on Friday and Saturday.
MORE FROM DEUCE
On Alontae Taylor's performance
“Just be consistent. I mean, he’s probably played outside a lot more this camp because Marshon [Lattimore] hasn’t been available and Marshon was out at practice today, not dressed, but he was out there and so just be consistent, the looks are gonna be a little bit different when you’re in the slot and when you’re outside and now the receiver type that I’m covering, whether he’s a small, quicker guy, whether he’s maybe a bigger receiver, they’re going to be a little bit different than what you will normally see in the slot, and so for Alontae it’s gonna come down to technique and being able to say hey look, this is what I’m expecting from this split, this is what I’m expecting from this type of motion and just go out and try to be consistent and so for him, if I can have those assignments down and I can be physical as far as tackling, that’s when he’s going to be able to make the most impact for this defense.”
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Pass rush keeps winning. Is that a concern for the OL?
“One of the things you have to remember today was another day of third down and so the looks that you’re normally going to get and so from a protection standpoint you’ve got to be on the same page and so like you just talked about, a number of guys rotating in, not having your regular center and so now the calls may be a little bit different and now I have a young guard in there, I’m working with a new left tackle who is still a rookie, and now I see three defensive ends and a D-tackle and now the other rush guy is going to be Willie Gay, who is a standup linebacker. Process all that. So it’s a lot and you’re still putting in a new system, new scheme. I don’t have a great concern with the offense as far as the pressures are concerned, particularly when they're in that type of look. ... I think you’ll see a better scheme-wise pickup as far as understanding on Friday, but the defense got after them, particularly in that third-down situation.”