A lot has been said of rookie wide receiver Jalen Hurd's on-field scuffles with his new San Francisco 49ers teammates during practice over the weekend. The physical receiver was involved in two heated exchanges with 49ers defensive backs on Sunday, and head coach Kyle Shanahan discussed the situation at length with reporters after that practice and the next day.
In the end, Shanahan said he wants Hurd to save his fiery nature for games against opponents and spare his teammates. After all, baiting opponents into pushing and shoving could give your offense some valuable free yardage. That strategy is nothing new in the NFL. There is no benefit in doing so to your teammates.
"For the beginning part, I was proud of how Jalen handled himself," Shanahan said on Monday. "That's why we brought him here. We want him to be physical. We want him to irritate the heck out of every player in that secondary. And I hope he pisses people off and I hope a lot of guys throw punches at him, and that's what happened.
"I looked hard to see if he was doing anything cheap in the play. I didn't see it on tape. But someone took a shot at him, and then that's where I got upset with Jalen because he's going to piss a lot of people off. I hope a lot of people take shots at him, and I hope he sits there with his helmet on, and smiles at them, and waves to them as they get ejected, and gets us a free 15 yards."
But maybe, just maybe, it wasn't Hurd's idea in the first place. Maybe he took some advice from the more experienced players in the wide receiver room just a bit too literally. At least, that's the impression that third-year wideout Trent Taylor gave on Tuesday.
Taylor admitted that the receivers tried to hype up Hurd before practice. The rookie, after all, wasn't getting many looks on passing reps and was mostly in on run plays.
"'You've only got a couple of reps so go make the most out of it. Go hit somebody.'" Taylor said he told Hurd. "He took it a little further than that. We had to make sure we didn't hype him up these next couple of days. It's always good to have to tell a player to calm down instead of having to tell a player to pick it up.
"It's a good starting point to go out there and set the tone, but at the end of the day, we're all teammates, we're all on the same team. He'll have to save that for preseason and the rest of the season."
As Taylor noted, Hurd has remained fight-free since, and Shanahan made sure to explain his expectations to his players during Monday's team meeting.
