Eagles: Who’s right? Malcolm Jenkins, Doug Pederson or Howard Eskin?
Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins doesn’t completely agree with Howard Eskin or his head coach, and we have to ask the question why he doesn’t.
If you’re a citizen of “The City of Brotherly Love” or a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, you may or may not be familiar with Howard Eskin. It would be hard not to be, but anything’s possible. Eskin, literally, does just about everything. He’s a sports anchor for WTXF-TV in Philadelphia, better known as “Fox 29”. He’s also known for his work with 94 WIP-FM. On game day for the Eagles he handles sideline duty for the radio call. Eskin is one of the guys who’s never been afraid to ask the tough questions or ruffle a few feathers.
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He’s also one of the reasons for one of the more interesting dialogues that has gone on about the Eagles all week. On Wednesday, safety Malcolm Jenkins responded to a comment his head coach made to one of Eskin’s questions at Doug Pederson‘s Monday afternoon press conference.
During Pederson’s press conference and also earlier on The Morning Show with Angelo Cataldi, the rookie head coach stated he saw no issues with the effort of his team. Eskin wasn’t going to let that slide, and called him out on it.
In the presser’s final question, Eskin directly asked Coach Pederson if he could definitively say that everyone on the team gave 100% effort in the loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. Pederson paused, gathered himself and said what the majority of us knew all along. “No. Not everybody”.
That answer has now been talked about all week. Wednesday, the media got a chance to speak with some of the leaders. Jenkins didn’t share his coach’s opinion or Eskin’s.
Take a look:
Jenkins deserves all the respect in the world. It’s hard to doubt that anyone would look at this team and agree with him though. There was the second half of the game in Seattle. Then, there was the Monday night game against the Green Bay Packers, and this past Sunday’s game in Cincinnati. Looking at either game makes it hard to use words like “energy”.
Eagles tight end Zach Ertz had an opportunity to throw a block on Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict to protect his quarterback, Carson Wentz, and decided he didn’t want to. Safety Rodney McLeod was also criticized for not making any effort to take on a ball carrier in another instance. The Eagles have been pushed around for the better part of the past ten quarters and haven’t put up much of a fight in the process.
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At the conclusion of Sunday’s game, Eskin stated, as only he can, that the good news was no one was hurt in Cincinnati but that it would be hard to get hurt in a game where no one was trying. Jenkins and some of his teammates disagree and say they’re still playing as hard now as they have been all season. Most of anyone who’s watching this team would disagree. Who knows? Maybe we all define effort differently.
Irregardless, we all can agree this team needs more of it. Only four games remain in the season.