Nick Piccone
Since he signed with the Eagles, Malcolm Jenkins has probably been one of the most impressive Eagles on and off the field. He’s the team’s best safety since Brian Dawkins unquestionably, and he’s a great interview on television and radio. People listen to him, including his teammates. Hopefully they’ll hear this:
“Hopefully, it lights a fire under some people,” Jenkins said in the quiet visitor’s locker room at Bank of America Stadium early Monday morning.
“Hopefully, guys take the opportunity during the time off to get healthy and to really evaluate themselves,” he said.
“Because we’re at the halfway point in the season and everything is in our control and we’re sitting in a decent spot, but there’s things we have to get better at if we really want to do something this year.
“I think we’re a confident team, and I think we have what we need in this building to get it right, but we’re not going to just show up and start winning games.
“There’s things we need to correct and things we need to get better in order for us to be a good team. We have all the confidence in the world in the guys we have and you see it at times during games, but I think for whatever reason we shoot ourselves in the foot or we give up plays here and there that we need to make.
“So especially on this bye week, we need to start taking a hard look at ourselves from a coaching standpoint and from a players standpoint, and everybody’s got to be critical of themselves and figure out where they need to get better.”
That’s a lot to digest, but Jenkins isn’t wrong about anything. It starts with the offense, and Sam Bradford isn’t even the biggest problem. The glaring mistakes last night in regards to dropped passes on good throws is about as bad as it gets. The defense is the team’s best offense at this point. I feel better when the defense is on the field – that shouldn’t be the case in football.
If the mistakes don’t diminish, it’s looking to be possibly one of the worst seasons in franchise history. If the Eagles tread water, they’re probably going to win the division. What a weird year.