Day two of Packers-Texans joint practice might get extremely testy after what happened on Monday.
Rookie cornerback Lonnie Johnson Jr., who clearly wants to make a name for himself, absolutely leveled Green Bay tight end Jace Sternberger to the ground and then flexed on him. A small scuffle soon broke between the teams.
Bill O’Brien was forced to remove him after he later drilled Packers returner Trevor Davis during special teams work.
The Texans head coach described it as “not a big deal.”
Packers players did not agree with that assessment.
“That was unnecessary,” Packers wide receiver Davante Adams said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “You’ve got plenty of time for that. You can do it in the games and you get fined. Be a coward when you do stuff like that in practice, it’s not a good look. We take care of each other up here. I don’t know how they practice, I don’t know what they do over there, but there’s consequences for stuff like that. . . .
“It’s a brotherhood across the league, period. I had plenty of times where I could take somebody out but I decided not to because I felt like that’s not the appropriate thing to do when we’re trying to get better and look out for one another.”
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Sternberger was checked for a concussion, but ultimately returned to practice.
Johnson made things even worse when he took his antics to Instagram and posted a photo of his hit on Sternberger.
Packers coach Matt LaFleur talked to his players about what happened and made several things clear.
“He was clear with us, and we were clear with him: If they started taking shots on our players, then we’re not just going to stand there,” guard Billy Turner said. “We’re not punks by any means, and that’s what happened. So we were men of our word, just like he was a man of his word.”
