Warren Sapp gives advice to defensive line at Commanders practice

ASHBURN — Warren Sapp doesn’t have any interest in coaching. The Hall of Famer enjoys the freedom of retired life too much, he says, to be tied to the countless hours needed to devote to the profession. 

But standing on the grass of the Washington Commanders’ practice fields, wearing a bucket hat, Sapp sure sounded and looked like a coach. He barked instructions to the team’s defensive line, encouraged them to keep going and talked to players off to the side to give personal advice. 

Call him a guest instructor.

“They got a real nice group, a real nice young group,” Sapp said of the Commanders’ defensive line. “It reminds me of me and my boys when were young. We fought together. We lived together. And we were gonna win and lose together. 

“So I just try to get that message to them and I think they took it.”

Over the first two days of the Commanders’ mandatory minicamp, Sapp — a former seven-time Pro Bowler who dominated up front for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders — has been on hand to part wisdom with Washington’s big bodies up front. 

The Commanders brought Sapp in after the former defensive linemen had done something similar for the San Francisco 49ers a few years back. Back then, the 49ers, like the Commanders, had a young defensive line on the rise. 

Martin Mayhew, then an executive with San Francisco and now the Commanders’ general manager, called Sapp this spring upon the suggestion of assistant defensive line coach Jeff Zgonina, who also was with the 49ers at the time. Zgonina remembered Sapp’s impact on the 49ers. 

“You just feel his energy,” defensive end Montez Sweat said. “You feel the way he loves the game. He was giving us tools. … It was great.” 

“It gives them a little something extra,” coach Ron Rivera said. 

The Commanders’ defensive line is coming off a season in which they disappointed relative to expectations. Sweat and Chase Young, for instance, spoke about breaking the all-time tandem sack record — believed to be 39 — and instead finished with only 6 ½ sacks. The defense, as a whole, regressed.

Sapp, though, gushed over the possibilities. He noted that once Young, recovering from a torn ACL, returns, then they’d be “something formidable.” And though Young and Sweat come off the edge, Sapp seemed particularly impressed with defensive tackles Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne.

“Oh I love ‘em, I love those two dudes,” said Sapp, who knows a thing or two about wrecking from the interior. “I mean, boy, Jesus, they’re just thick. They’re a bowling ball of butcher knives. … No quarterback wants that kitchen in his living room. No way. I mean, come on.” 

The Super Bowl XXXVII champion played in the league long enough to know that a unit’s potential doesn’t always translate to the field. That’s why he reminded the unit to play together — using a wolfpack analogy to hammer home his point. “The lone wolf dies,” Sapp said. “No wolf eats all by himself. But the pack? Oh my god. You don’t want them nowhere near you.” 

Asked if it was hard to get players to buy into the message, Sapp had a question of his own: “Where’s the gold jacket?” In other words, the Commanders’ line — even with a playoff appearance during the 2020 season — had yet to accomplish anything significant.  

Still, Sapp acknowledged the time it takes for players to master their craft. Despite entering the league as a first-round pick in 1995, the former 13-year veteran said he quickly found out he “didn’t know how to rush” when he got to the NFL.  Sapp added it took him a year-and-a-half to develop his signature cross-chop that beat offensive lineman after offensive lineman.

“You got to put in work,” Sapp said. “This game is nothing but work. When you work at it, it’ll come out. Your work will show on a Sunday afternoon. And that’s what I was just trying to get across to them: Put the work in out here and once you get to Sunday, that’s the easy part.”

Sapp said he believes his advice was well received. He recalled how players remarked to him how they thought of the message he sent them when returning for Wednesday’s practice. He could tell a difference in how they attacked certain drills, too. 

“You just gotta give ‘em a taste of it,” Sapp said. “You give ‘em a taste of something they’ve never had — that freedom of getting off the ball and going after the quarterback? I mean…”