Arizona Cardinals’ Bruce Arians runs physical camp despite CBA restrictions
Aug 22, 2013, 4:44 PM | Updated: 4:44 pm
Some eyebrows were raised Tuesday at Arizona Cardinals training camp in Glendale when receiver Charles Hawkins and defensive back Bryan McCann got into a bit of a skirmish.
Not because that they were fighting, those types of things happen in camps all over the league. But because new head coach Bruce Arians implemented a “no-fighting” policy in his first training camp with the team.
“We’ve really only had one scuffle, and they were bantamweights,” Arians said with a chuckle on Doug and Wolf Thursday on Arizona Sports 620. “That’s the funniest thing about scuffles in football camp, they swing and nobody hits.”
So even with his pre-camp edict, was Arians surprised that practices weren’t dotted with more fisticuffs?
“This is like ‘Camp Cupcake’ these days,” he said, taking a shot at the current NFL collective bargaining agreement. “You practice once a day, you walk through. It’s not like the old days where you were going two-a-days in the sun, in the heat, in pads 18 days in a row and everybody’s ready to kill each other.
“These new CBA rules, I don’t know why you’d want to get in a fight.”
Rules aside, Arians was able to run a physical camp in Glendale and the first-year head coach was pleased with how it went.
“(That’s) my philosophy. I don’t think you get any better in shorts,” Arians said. “I think we had 30 shorts practices and that’s like playing soccer. When you have a chance to put the pads on, you’ve got to put them on and during the season, we’re only allowed to put them on once a week.
“It’s really hard to get your young offensive and defensive linemen prepared each week when you can’t wear pads.”
Overall, Arians was pleased with the team’s first camp in Glendale.
“I thought it went fantastic,” he said. “I thought it was a great opportunity for the fans to be involved and the training camp setup was probably as good as I’ve ever been around as far as the teaching aspect with the facilities that we had.”
