Jalen Hurd had a rough day on Sunday, getting into not one, but two fights at 49ers training camp. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was not pleased that the rookie wide receiver was getting into scuffles, but wanted to look at the film before he assigned blame. On Monday Shanahan gave his verdict.
“Well we fought, so everyone’s wrong,” Shanahan said during his post-practice press conference Monday. “You never know until you get in and watch the tape. It was a good teaching moment. I’m glad it happened because we were allowed to cover a lot of stuff that we hadn’t covered in this camp yet.”
Shanahan made it clear Sunday that fighting would not be tolerated. Hurd’s two fights were a result of what many were calling physical blocking. The physicality let things escalate to where Hurd was in one fight throwing punches and the other getting pried off his opponent.
“For the beginning part of it, I was proud of how Jalen handled himself,” Shanahan said. “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. I hope he pisses people off and I hope that a lot of guys throw punches at him. And that’s what happened.”
While Hurd didn’t necessarily start the fights, Shanahan made it clear in the future, he doesn’t want Hurd finishing fights either.
“He’s going to piss a lot of people off, and I hope a lot of people take shots at him,” Shanahan said. “I hope he sits there with his helmet on and smiles at them and at least gets them ejected and gets us a free 15 yards.”
It’s pretty clear Hurd is going to be a wide receiver of the physical variety. He’s also could be one that gets under defensive backs’ skin with his physicality. It’s too soon to tell, but if that’s the path he’s on, the Niners Nation community will love it. Just look at the comments of the initial post.
Hopefully, a lot of flags are thrown in Hurd’s area this season, but for his opponents losing their cool and not Hurd retaliating.