In the Heat of Summer, Jets head coach Adam Gase Understands Training Camp Fights

It isn’t uncommon for training camp to feature a scuffle or two. For New York Jets head coach Adam Gase, as long as his players are smart about it, he doesn’t mind the extracurriculars.

So a little tussle here or there, as was the case on Sunday, isn’t a bad thing. He just wants that his players use some commonsense when it comes to mixing it up with a teammate.

“I mean, for me, I always look at it as, you don’t want anybody to get hurt. A lot of times it’s just, they’re kind of scrummed up,” Gase said on Sunday during his virtual press conference. “You don’t usually see too many punches thrown because it’s pointless, you’re wearing pads and helmets, so you don’t want anybody to break their hand doing something not very smart.”

The Jets do need to be smart about the situation of taking swipes at each other, especially given the number of players who are banged up and missing practice. While the Jets welcomed back linebacker Avery Williamson and tight end Ryan Griffin over the weekend, they still have quite a number of walking wounded on the roster.

A stupid injury in a fight is never welcome, especially at a time when healthy bodies on the roster are at a premium.

Players such as cornerback Brian Poole (dehydration), rookie wide receiver Denzel Mims (hamstring), wide receiver Breshad Perriman (knee), wide receiver Vyncint Smith (core), cornerback Pierre Desir (hamstring) and rookie defensive end Jabari Zuniga among others are among those sidelined so far.

On the field, Gase understands the frustration of his players. Sunday was hot and without the benefit of preseason games, they are tired of going up against each other. Irritation is never far away at this point in camp.

Scuffles will take place, inevitably.

“I do think, it kind of got to that back half of practice, it was getting a little hot, guys were a little irritated and the thing that I will say is, both sides had to go back, line back up, refocus on what they were trying to do and execute their defense and execute the offensive play,” Gase said. “You know that’s the big thing and as long as it doesn’t happen every day, every period, occasionally things go down and we have to be smart with what’s going on, but at the same time it’s just good to see our guys with fire they have.”