A lot about NFL training camps in Baltimore has changed in 50 years.
The team has changed, from the Colts to the Ravens. The location has moved, from college campuses at Goucher and Western Maryland (now McDaniel) to the team's Under Armour Performance Center in Owings Mills. The routine has been relaxed, from grueling two-a-days to the league-mandated one.
What haven't changed are the fights between teammates and the reasons they happen.
"You've got guys on edge competing for jobs, and their pride and everything that is on the line, and that's a lot of pressure," former Colts offensive tackle Bob Vogel said. "And then you get to training camp, when it's in the 90s in temperature and humidity, guys get a little testy. It's a pregnant arena for that kind of stuff to happen."
There have been a number of memorable training camp fights in Baltimore, none more than the legendary Westminster scuffle between massive offensive tackle Jim Parker and hard-hitting linebacker Mike Curtis in August 1967.
Curtis took a swing at Parker, who wrapped his arms around Curtis as both players fell to the ground.
"It felt like a tree fell on me," Curtis said that day.
Curtis, who might be best known for taking down a drunken fan who ran onto the field during a 1971 game while trying to swipe the ball, took over from safety Lenny Lyles as the Colt most likely to fight a teammate. After the Ravens were established in Baltimore, that reputation belonged to offensive tackle Orlando "Zeus" Brown.
A number of Ravens are receiving similar consideration during this year's training camp, where scuffles and skirmishes have occurred on a near-daily basis. The half-dozen or so tussles in the first public workout at M&T Bank Stadium turned "Military Appreciation Night" into the team's version of "Monday Night Raw."
While most fights have been harmless, only brief confrontations of bravado and bluster, at least one has caused a minor injury. Tight end Dennis Pitta sprained a finger Monday after taking on rookie linebacker Kamalei Correa, who also was involved in another scuffle and quickly dressed down by quarterback Joe Flacco.
Based on the subsequent practices in Owings Mills, it seemed likely cooler heads would prevail when the Ravens returned to Baltimore for their second public workout Saturday night. (The practice ended too late for this edition.) On what was being billed as "Fireworks Night," Ravens coach John Harbaugh probably hoped that most of the explosions took take place in the sky after the end of practice.
Not that he seemed to mind his players getting after it Monday night.
"This is what it's all about," Harbaugh said. "This is football, and we've got to build a football team, and we've got a bunch of young guys that like to play and want to get after it and have a lot of pride. It's a tough game. I did like the spirit and physicality."
'It's football'
Harbaugh showed some of that passion himself, chewing out outside linebacker Za'Darius Smith and offensive lineman Ryan Jensen, one of the team's most active practice combatants, after they tangled during one of the more important periods Monday, a full-field 11-on-11 drill.
"The ability to be a tough, physical football player and a smart football player go hand in hand, so you have to know when to draw the line," said Harbaugh, who banished both players to their respective sidelines. "It's between the lines, between the whistles and between your ears.
"That's where the game is played. That's where the physicality happens: between the whistles. You've got to know when to walk away, and you've got to be smart. You cannot give up a personal-foul penalty. … That keeps the drive alive. That's how you lose football games."
Aside from Pitta, whose comeback after twice dislocating his hip had been going well until he clashed with Correa, most of the players involved in the flare-ups have been undrafted rookies such as outside linebackers Patrick Onwuasor and Victor Ochi.
Onwuasor, who goes by the nickname "Peanut," got into it with both running back Buck Allen and fullback Kyle Juszczyk after high, crunching tackles in the first couple of days of camp.
Ochi, who has been in the middle of a few scuffles in recent practices, said that while he understands that nobody wants to hurt a teammate, "It's football. People are going to fight. It's a very emotional game. Things are going to happen. You've got to understand how to shake it off, shake hands and get ready for the next play."
Given the current rules governing training camp, players in Baltimore decades ago were predictably more ornery than those of the current generation.
"Not only were they two-a-days, but they were full-hitting two-a-days," said Vogel, a five-time Pro Bowl selection who played for the Colts from 1963 to 1972. "When we went into training camp, we went down on the field to loosen up where we could start hitting, and it was live. It was more [of] a combustible environment."
Said Stan White, who played linebacker for the Colts from 1972 to 1979 and is now one of the Ravens' radio analysts: "Hitting the same guys for three, four, five weeks in a row, it's always little things that you remember. In games, you don't play them again for a long time. It's little things — 'This guy pushed me the last time.' Or you see something on film and say, 'I'm going to get him for that.' It's a competitive situation between competitive guys."
Talking trash
Vogel said that what's different is the trash-talking that often precedes and follows the skirmishes.
"It's disgusting to watch all the junk going on between guys, and I think that could perhaps trigger some mechanism of fighting," Vogel said. "We didn't do any trash-talking. It just didn't happen. That's stupid stuff."
Some can't seem to stop themselves from talking. After the defense held the offense in a goal-line drill Thursday, Ochi and tight end Nick Boyle had to be separated. As the units were getting back to their huddles, defensive end Kapron Lewis-Moore was heard yelling at his offensive teammates.
"Check out the bleepin' film," Lewis-Moore said, loud enough to be heard on the sideline. He laughed about the incident later.
"It's football," he said. "Especially in training camp days, it's the dog days out here. There are going to be some times when you're tired, you're agitated a little bit, and everybody's going to be on edge. Everybody's fighting to make this team, so they want to do their best and show their best on how they can make this team better."
It's not just the players who get involved, especially verbally. After big hits or big plays in training camp, assistant coaches are known to run onto the field to congratulate players, much to the dismay of those who've been flattened or embarrassed.
During Monday's workout in Baltimore, Ravens offensive line coach Juan Castillo appeared to get a little feisty with defensive coordinator Dean Pees. Though it seemed to be in good fun, a message had been sent.
"Your players are going to be like their coach," Castillo said after practice Wednesday. "If the coach is intense the players are going to be intense. You are their leader. You represent your players in everything you do, so that is very important that I get in there and mix it up, because I'm asking them to mix it up."
The good fight
While it's rare for a team's stars to be involved, it does happen.
After watching a couple of the Ravens' scuffles at training camp, former Washington Redskins general manager and WJZ (105.7 FM) talk-show host Vinny Cerrato said that any team with as many new players and rosters spots at stake as the Ravens could lend itself to fighting.
Holding one of the first practices at M&T Bank Stadium doesn't hurt, either.
"After a few days in pads, and then you go to a new environment in a stadium, everybody's excited and they kind of want to show [up]. That could get things going," Cerrato said. "Then you got a lot of young guys getting into fights, them knowing they've got to make an impression. Coaches like that — 'That's a tough guy that got into a fight.' "
What surprised Cerrato was the flurry of fights early in training camp.
"Usually, it happens in the middle or end of camp, when you're hot and tired," Cerrato said. "To have a bunch of fights at the beginning of camp is kind of strange."
It also could be a positive sign. Cerrato recalled one such fight he witnessed while working for the San Francisco 49ers.
In 1994, rookie fullback William Floyd, the team's first-round NFL draft pick, reported to camp late after a contract dispute. On his first day of practice, Floyd got into a fight with veteran linebacker Gary Plummer, who had just joined the team after eight seasons with the San Diego Chargers.
"William Floyd just cleaned his clock," Cerrato said. "[Coach] George Seifert hated fighting and said: 'What did you bring me?' "
The 49ers would win the last of the franchise's five Super Bowls that season.
So maybe all this fighting is a good omen in Baltimore. Or maybe it's just what training camp has been about going on 50 years.
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Baltimore Sun reporter Mike Klingaman contributed to this article.