There's clearly no love lost between the Green Bay Packers and Houston Texans following the teams' pair of heated joint practices. But after DeShaun Watson, the Texans' injury-plagued franchise quarterback wearing the no-contact red jersey, went down during a “non-tackling” drill during Tuesday's session, he did his best to diffuse the situation.
Asked if he was bothered by being knocked to the ground by a Packers pass-rusher, Watson answered succinctly.
“No,” he said, per Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio. “I was not.”
Texans coach Bill O'Brien offered a similarly tempered take on Green Bay's accidental violation of the red-jersey and non-tackling rules, alluding to Watson's toughness.
“He’s a tough kid,” O'Brien said of Watson. “He’s a tough guy. He bounced right back up. He’s fine.”
Green Bay and Houston came to blows on the practice field over the weekend following an initial instance of practice guidelines being broken. Texans rookie cornerback Lonnie Johnson Jr. laid out the Packers' Jace Sternberger on a crossing route, causing the first-year tight end to lose his helmet. Green Bay took exception to the rookie’s hit en masse, continuing to express displeasure with Johnson after the practice was over.
Packers guard Billy Turner had a message for him before Tuesday’s practice against the Texans, too, warning Johnson to “keep your head on a swivel,” per Yahoo’s Jason Owens. Aaron Rodgers, meanwhile, decried the concept of joint practices altogether, publicly lamenting the additional chance for injury – especially for special-teams – as a result of teams going head-to-head in training camp.
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