As the anthropomorphized visors of the football world love to say, iron sharpens iron. You do not want to enter the NFL season with a dull iron because your guys didn't get into it enough in training camp. But there is probably a limit to the amount of sharpening a piece of iron can take before it breaks, and if anyone is going to find that limit, it will be Saints rookie Trevor Penning.
Penning, one of the team's first-round picks in the 2022 draft, came into the NFL with the explicit goal of beating people up. So I suppose this isn't altogether surprising, but he's spent his first NFL training camp getting kicked out of practice for fighting his teammates.
The hat-on-a-hat superhelmets that everyone is wearing make these scuffles 40 percent funnier than they would be otherwise. Not content with fighting one teammate per day, Penning doubled up the following day.
On Wednesday, he apparently also fought Malcolm Roach during the unfilmed part of practice, which finally prompted head coach Dennis Allen to kick both guys off the field.
The Saints can't claim to be surprised by any of this, as Penning earned a real reputation for himself during his college days and the pre-draft process. A litany of scouting reports use the adjective "nasty" to describe his attitude and playing style. In a highlight package showing Penning's blocking chops during the Senior Bowl, an analyst remarked that his peers "all wanted to fight him." Any one of those guys who also ended up with the Saints is going to get their wish at some point soon.
