49ers WR Jalen Hurd on early training camp scuffles: “It won’t happen in a game”

There was a lot of fuss made about some early training camp scuffles involving San Francisco 49ers rookie Jalen Hurd last weekend. Head coach Kyle Shanahan already came out and said he likes the physicality of his fiery wide receiver and didn't notice Hurd stepping over any lines after watching the film.

He just might want to avoid angering his teammates and save that for opponents.

"I looked hard to see if he was doing anything cheap in the play," Shanahan said on Monday. "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."

There hasn't been an issue since. After Saturday's practice, Hurd was asked about the scuffles from a week ago and what Shanahan may have said to him afterward.

"Yeah, definitely can't have that in a game," Hurd said. "It wasn't like any message or anything (from Shanahan). Just blocking hard. You know, it's football, so things get scrappy sometimes. But yeah, it won't happen in a game."

Trent Taylor admitted this past week that Hurd might have taken some advice from the other players in the wide receivers room too literally as they tried to hype up the rookie before practice. Hurd, after all, wasn't getting many looks on passing reps at the time.

"'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."

What did Hurd have to say about Taylor's comments that the other receivers might have pushed him into being too physical on the practice field?

"I don't know about that," Hurd told reporters. "I'm not really into influence by people. You can watch tape. I've done the same stuff at Tennessee and Baylor. It's just kind of who I am. I like to hit and play football."