GREEN BAY — Mike McCarthy knew exactly where all the chippiness came from in practice Sunday.
"I'm sure it had something to do with the head coach's speech the other night," the Green Bay Packers coach said before rolling his eyes and making the kind of face he probably sees from his young daughters from time to time.
In reality, while McCarthy didn't sound worried and didn't read his players the riot act after practice, the coach was bothered by the number of times his guys crossed the line in the first padded practice of training camp — even though he knew some instances were unavoidable because of the increased intensity that comes with being in pads.
"The message I had for the team after practice was I thought the adrenaline was very high and I thought the discipline level was very low," McCarthy said, sharing with reporters what he'd told his team in the post-practice huddle 15 minutes earlier. "I think you get into that usually when you put the pads on for the first time. So it was great to get that competitive environment established.
"I thought they definitely practiced with an edge. We had too much extracurricular activities going on. That falls under your category of 'player safety.' We have to practice better together, something that you don't do every night. This is a normal progression you go through every year in training camp. But I thought our guys came out on the high side of playing with an edge and that's exactly what we want."
It started early on in the first 11-on-11 period, when rookie inside linebacker Sam Barrington came up and whacked wide receiver Jeremy Ross on a pass in the right flat, knocking Ross to the turf rather than wrapping him up and keeping him off the ground. That incurred the wrath of McCarthy, who gave Barrington an earful. Inside linebackers coach Winston Moss then played the good cop and put his arm around Barrington and spoke to him.
There were a number of other instances where players wound up on the ground, including when one of the defensive linemen walloped wide receiver Tyrone Walker from behind on a pass across the middle and a skirmish involving defensive end Johnny Jolly that escalated briefly. Jolly and guard Josh Sitton were then seen jawing at each other.
"That's the balance you look for every year, the balance I think you have to just really work at," McCarthy said. "We were definitely on the high end today, but we'll be all right."
Guard T.J. Lang said McCarthy made his position known without overdoing it.
"He said something after practice. It didn't sound like he was too upset with us," Lang said. "I think that's just what you've got to expect the first day of pads when you've got 90 guys out there competing for a few spots. That stuff's going to happen, guys are going to get hit and we just have to make sure that we're taking care of our guys.
"You love the physicality, you love the toughness, but at the same time you don't want to be tackling guys or pushing guys down. That could cause other injuries if a guy falls in to somebody else's legs. I'm sure we'll look at it tonight as a group and try to get it fixed and come back out on the field on Tuesday."
Jason Wilde wrote: