Malcolm Jenkins: 'This Ain't Your Daddy's Eagles'
Malcolm Jenkins is a Super Bowl champion and veteran NFL safety. He sits down with CBS Philly's Joe Santoliquito every week. All of Jenkins' Post Snap interviews are archived at http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/post-snap
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — This has looked easy, Malcolm Jenkins stresses, because everyone on this Eagles team is just playing and having fun doing it. They all own the NFL's best 8-1 record.
Yet, however, it is Philadelphia, where if something will go wrong, it will go wrong to a Philadelphia professional sports team—regardless of how well they're playing.
Jenkins stomps on that notion.
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"This ain't your daddy's Eagles, that's what I would say to that," Jenkins said. "I think it makes it easy because everyone is doing their role. It's all of ours. People keep asking where the success comes from, is it Doug Pederson, is it Carson Wentz? It's everybody really. When I first got here, I was coming from New Orleans, which that was a close-knit unit, not just the defensive backs, but everybody on that team.
"I attribute the success we had there winning the Super Bowl to that. When I first got here to Philadelphia, we had a lot of talent, and that talent got us wins and allowed us to perform. There were a lot of individual efforts that were great. I didn't think that we were a tight team. Usually when those times of adversity came, or we got into one of those tough stretches, the season began to crumble.
"My first three years here you saw that. This year we've been able to establish that team atmosphere where guys genuinely love playing with and for each other. We hold each other accountable. We believe in each other and it's been fun. Doug is a huge part of it. He keeps stressing to us to own it and be accountable.
"Doug meets with the leaders of the team every week and has allowed the players to have input. He's said a thousand times this year—'Ownership.' Everybody owns their piece of this. Quite frankly, no one thinks that they have go above and beyond themselves to make this team go. I think that's what makes it look easy.
"If you ask me how confident we are in ourselves, we feel we're the best team in the league and we feel we can beat anybody. That's different from how far we think we can go. Anyone that puts on a helmet with an NFL team in July plays to win the Super Bowl. We're thinking it. Every team in the league had that goal. Usually the minute we bring up what we're trying to do in the long run, we also get right back to the short-term goals.
"It's each step that will get us to the platform. We're keeping our eyes on the Super Bowl believe that. This ain't your daddy's Eagles."
