A video of Aaron Donald of the LA Rams appearing to be choking his teammate named Elijah Garcia during practice has gone viral on the internet. The video has stirred up controversies amongst fans. But was he actually choking him?
According to Vlad;
On Saturday, during practice, Donald engaged in an odd-looking practice drill, where we could be seen with his right hand around the throat of his teammate, an undrafted rookie named Elijah Garcia. The act itself resembled somewhat of a one-handed choke, where Donald could be seen shoving Garcia’s neck back and forth.
From the looks of things, the process was very brief, and it didn’t appear to harm Garica, but it did occur repeatedly. There’s no word on whether or not this was a necessary practice drill, where Donald was trying to teach Garcia the ropes, or a lighthearted form of rookie hazing. But one thing is for sure, no footage ever surfaced of Donald with his hand around the neck of a fellow All-Pro such as Ndamukong Suh or Andrew Whitworth during a practice drill back when they were teammates, and it doesn’t appear that the rookie, Elijah Garcia, got his chance to grab any of the veteran players by their necks in order work out some kinks on his end.
The footage was captured, inadvertently, during an NFL Network segment with Ram’s color analyst, Maurice Jones-Drew, and it was posted on Twitter, it sparked several debates about the validity of the “drill.”
“This is the ol’ Wayne Brady drill, you young bucks might not recognize it,” said a Twitter user who seemed to sympathize with Donald’s practice regime.
“I’ve been involved with football for 20+ years and have never seen this drill. Also, 100% chance I’d never let someone do this drill to me, idc who they are lol,” argued a separate Twitter user.
As NFL fans debate the legitimacy of the unique exercise displayed in the aforementioned video, it is worth mentioning that choking during the course of NFL gameplay could cause a team to get penalized. Donald was fined $10,815 for choking an offensive lineman named DJ Humpries of the Arizona Cardinals during a playoff game this year. Scroll up to watch the controversial video clip from this past Saturday.
It is clear to me that Donald is teaching the young man how to fight off a double team.
Flip to the next page to watch the viral video…
