The Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers joined the NFL trend this week, by hosting a two-day joint practice at Everbank Field in Jacksonville. The practices, taking place Wednesday and Thursday morning, precede this Saturday’s preseason match-up, also in Jacksonville.
Eighteen NFL teams are participating in some form of a joint practice this pre-season, with players seeing the benefit.
“It’s good to mix it up with another team, we’ve been practicing against each other all camp and it’s awesome, it’s good to get out there against another team,” said Bucs running back Doug Martin.
“It’s great just because we are getting a different quarterback look. You get to see different things from an offensive line perspective, and how their backs look compared to our backs,” said Jags linebacker Telvin Smith. “It’s just a whole different type scheme that you get schemed up with.”
The relative youth of both quarterbacks also adds to the importance of the competition, with Bucs Coach Dirk Koetter getting to evaluate Jameis Winston as he heads into his second season .
“That was really good work. They gave us some looks we hadn’t seen, especially at the end of the third down period there, they gave us some tricky looks,” said Koetter. “We’ll go back and look at them on tape this afternoon, and that’s always good to learn from.”
One of the biggest problems with joint practices in the past has been fighting breaking out amongst the squads, but it was strictly professional between the Bucs and Jags.
“Is it ok if I say I was disappointed?” joked Smith. “I definitely thought it was going to be a lot more intense, but it was cool, everyone kept it professional. We had a little bit of jawing but I think that is good for competition, it brings the best out of you...So hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more – no fights, just a little more intense.”