Bob Condotta Seattle Times
GREEN BAY, Wis. — The day began with Seahawks players taking part in one of the NFL’s unique traditions, riding bikes from the locker room at Lambeau Field to the practice fields a quarter-mile or so away.
It ended with an often unfortunate reality of joint practices — some jawing between Seahawks and Packers players and coaches having to get in the middle to try to cool everyone down.
In the middle was a lot of physical play between the Packers and Seahawks, which on at least five occasions morphed into some extracurricular activity that led to the lingering hard feelings after practice
None of it seemed to rise to the level of being serious, but for about five minutes or so midway through practice, matters appeared moving dangerously close to being out of control.
On one end of the field, the Seahawks offense was working in a red-zone drill against the Packers defense. As running back Kenneth Walker III burst through a wide open hole for about a 5-yard touchdown, he collided with Green Bay linebacker Quay Walker, which kicked off some finger pointing that morphed into pushing and shoving and benches on each side racing in.
Quarterback Sam Darnold joked that he turned to get out of the way and took 10 steps back and when he turned around noticed that, “Oh man, that pile has really grown a little. Must be a serious scrum.”
Almost the second that tiff died down, a scuffle broke out on the other end of the field between the Seattle defense and Green Bay offense — a few players in that fracas stopped their own yelling to turn and see what was happening on that end.
In the most serious of the two, as captured in a video by a fan after media were no longer allowed to record, Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV and cornerback Devon Witherspoon squared off with Green Bay offensive lineman Zach Tom and a few punches were thrown before the inevitable rush of bodies from both sides.
When that drill ended, coaches from both teams got their players in a huddle, and there were no more fights for the final 45 minutes or so.
But hard feelings persisted.
After practice ended, all coaches and players gathered for a final huddle and some handshakes and Seahawks players headed to their sideline and off the field and Packers players to their side.
A little bit of talking continued — Kenneth Walker III appeared at the center of it — as a few Packers players approached the Seahawks sidelines.
Seahawks defensive lineman Leonard Williams spotted one Green Bay player no longer in pads and yelled derisively, “Who are you?”
“I didn’t appreciate in general them coming to our sideline while practice was over,” Williams said. “We’ve already broke the huddle, our guys are on our side their guys are on their side and people are coming over. It’s hard with these joint practices, because stuff like that always happens. You don’t want it to happen, but it just happens.”
Eventually, heads cooled and everyone left the field and it all seemed like no harm, no foul.
Macdonald said he was “somewhere in the middle” of being concerned about the scuffles and feeling as if they are just part of what happens in joint practices, noting he was glad to see the Seahawks “stay composed” and calmed down and executed well the second half of practice.
“It’s hard to tell like what happened, who said what,” he said. “You want your guys to defend their guys. There’s a line, whether we go past the line — I don’t think we did, which is good.“
As for the practice, Macdonald spent all day with the defense and only saw the offense during a final 11-on-11 two-minute drill.
That ended poorly for the Seahawks as an apparent holding penalty forced them back into a third-and-long and a desperate deep pass from Darnold, intended for Jaxon Smith-Njigba, was picked off by Green Bay safety Evan Williams.
“Would have been good to go down and score,” Macdonald said. “I don’t think we went down and scored. So let’s go see (on film) what happened and go improve on it.”
Darnold hit Smith-Njigba on at least three touchdown passes during earlier drills, continuing a strong connection throughout camp.
Darnold figured in one of the highlight plays when he threw high to rookie tight end Elijah Arroyo in the back of the end zone during a seven-on-seven red-zone drill.
Arroyo reached up with just his left hand over Quay Walker and came down with the catch.
“When he went up there with one hand, that big mitt, I knew that it was over a 50% chance of catching it,” Darnold said. “But it was an incredible catch.”
On the next play, Darnold hit Marquez Valdes-Scantling for another short TD which was followed by Walker’s run and the spate of scuffling.
More important for the Seahawks was the sight of Kenneth Walker III running hard and participating. He has had his workload managed heavily early in camp as he deals with a lingering sore foot.
Thursday marked his third straight practice participating fully and with starters likely done with any full-contact work, he appears on track for the opener Sept. 7 against the 49ers.
“It felt like there was some great stuff that happened, especially in the run game,” Macdonald said.
As for the Seahawks’ defense, Williams said he felt it was a little “sluggish” early, in part because of traveling the day before. It didn’t help that the grass surface was a little slippery.
The defense rebounded with a strong performance during a seven-on-seven session with Green Bay’s No. 1 offense.
Packers starting QB Jordan Love was unofficially just 3 of 12, which included four pass breakups by the Seahawks.
“That was a great period for us,” Macdonald said. “You’re running your stuff and seeing how you guys execute and make calls in real time, which is great to see.”
Love, who is recovering from a thumb injury, did not take part in any other team sessions with backup Malik Willis running the starting offense.
“We did some good stuff,” Macdonald said. “You’re going against a team that you haven’t seen and haven’t really prepared for, so our guys reacted to their formations and movements well.”
Macdonald said starters will not play in Saturday’s preseason game (which kicks off at 1 p.m.) with rookie Jalen Milroe starting at quarterback and going the entire game.