Malcolm Jenkins deserves his spot in the Eagles Hall of Fame

If you’ve ever strapped on the Kelly green, midnight green, or all-black Philadelphia Eagles jersey, you’re charged with a responsibility. You are immediately required to give it all that you have on every snap. If you’re able to look yourself in the mirror and know that you’ve done that, the City of Brotherly Love and Birds fans all over the planet will love you forever. Look no further than Malcolm Jenkins if you want to know how it’s done.

You can have half of his ability or produce half of what he did from a statistical standpoint, but if you can just give half of his effort, you’ll forever be remembered as a legend. Malcolm Jenkins deserves his spot in the Eagles Hall of Fame. He’s the best safety Philadelphia has had since Brian Dawkins and had this team had 22 starters with his heart and ability during his time here, they may have won two more Super Bowls.

Looking back on Malcolm Jenkins’ time in the midnight green of the Eagles

The Eagles originally signed Malcolm Jenkins to a three-year, $16.25 million contract that included $8.50 million guaranteed on March 11th of 2014. Everyone knew that he was talented. It’s hard to imagine that Philadelphia could have known that they were getting everything that they did by having him on their roster.

He wasn’t in town long, six years to be exact, but he left a mark that most can only dream of. He appeared in 96 games as a member of the Eagles and started every single one of them (those numbers include six playoff games). That resulted in 555 tackles, 6.5 sacks, 11 interceptions, four defensive touchdowns, 59 pass breakups, and 12 forced fumbles.

They say availability is a skill, and no one was more skilled in that aspect of the game than Jenkins (except for Jason Kelce of course). Those guys never came off of the field.

Jenkins played 100 percent of the team’s defensive snaps from 2014 to 2016 and from 2018 to 2019, and he would have done so in 2017 had it not been for a strategical decision by the Eagles coaching staff to rest the starters on the final game of the regular season to prepare for a playoff run. We all know how that ended up.

Again, Malcolm Jenkins deserves his spot in the Eagles Hall of Fame, and that’s true not only because of what he did on the field but also because of the impact that he made in the community. His Malcolm Jenkins Foundation changed the lives of so many young men and women in New Orleans and Philadelphia and continues to do so now.

He was the Eagles’ nomination for the 2019 Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. He’s a co-founder of the Players Coalition, and he won the 2017 NFLPA Byron “Whizzer” White Award for extraordinary philanthropic and on-field performance.

Some people have heart. Some people have talent. Malcolm Jenkins had both, and he was a good person. If he doesn’t deserve a place in the Eagles Hall of Fame, no one does. He gave us so much to cheer for during his time with the Birds. Now, it’s our turn to cheer for him in whatever he does in the next chapter of his life.