New Cincinnati Bengals safety Nick Scott was a member of the Los Angeles Rams when that infamous practice fight featuring Aaron Donald swinging helmets occurred.
Ahead of his Bengals hosting a joint practice with the Green Bay Packers on Wednesday before the Week 1 preseason showdown on Friday, Scott said he doesn’t anticipate anything like that happening.
After all, this upcoming joint practice isn’t a rehash of a Super Bowl.
“It’s life over limb at that point,” Scott said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “(The Super Bowl) has a huge part in it. So much emotion in this game, so it’s natural for it to spill over a little bit. I don’t expect anything like that.”
Scott also says that one practice is more than enough (it helps being a defensive back tasked with stopping Bengals wideouts every day): “I think one practice is enough. Especially a program like this. We’ve got guys who have been here for a while and we’ve got pros who know how to practice. I think going up against another team has its value, but I think you get just as good work practicing against each other. Especially being a DB going against this wide receivers corps.”
Nothing really came of Donald’s helmet-swinging incident, largely because the NFL leaves practice discipline to individual teams.
While Scott’s thought process that nothing will happen with the Packers is a positive one, reps against another team tend to create proverbial powder kegs. The Zac Taylor-Sean McVay connection didn’t exactly stop the last one from erupting.
Still, we’ll see how things progress as cross-conference teams get together for practice ahead of an exhibition.
