Post Snap With Malcolm Jenkins: 'We Are Better Than 1-3'
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 CBSPhilly.com/Jenkins.
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Malcolm Jenkins is having an all-pro caliber season and he played well again in the 23-20 loss to Washington at FedEx Field on Sunday, with a team-high 7 tackles. Up until the final 5 minutes, the Eagles' defense held up well against Washington, before Kirk Cousins morphed into Tom Brady and stung the Eagles with a 90-yard, 15-play drive.
"Between some third-down conversions and a couple of penalties, we just couldn't get the last stop," Jenkins said. "They had a good game plan. They weren't going to make any mistakes and Cousins did good job of getting the ball out quick. We didn't get much pressure on him, because the ball was getting out fast. They were using short throws, just get enough to get first downs. They ran the ball just enough to put them in good situations on third down. They limited their mistakes. They never gave us the opportunity to jump on a mistake."
Jenkins doesn't want to hear how well he is playing, either. The numbers that resonate with him are 1-3.
"We are better than 1-3 and it's one of those situations that in order to move forward, we have to block out everything around us," Jenkins said. "We need to put our heads down and grind through every day that we have, one by one. We can't look up for a long ways down the road, because if you start to look at the big picture too much, you start to get desperate and you start to feel the desperation and you get into a panic mode. You see the bad start. But when you look at the small intricacies and where we want to get to, we're not out of it by any means. We see the Cowboys struggling to close out games, and the division is still out there for us. We have to work every single day that we have, because the games are becoming critical to our season. We can't afford to listen to the hype, or the detractors. We have to just win and ignore everything else."
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Jenkins, as one of the leaders of the team, asks himself what the end goal is and if that end goal is still in reach.
"I think the answer that the end goal is within reach," Jenkins said. "I'm human, too, and you start to feel the pressure of working to succeed. You start to feel the pressure of what you thought things would like at this point in the season, and where we are now. It's obviously different. I still think the end goal is within reach, but the question is what it takes to get there. I don't think about our schedule anymore. I think about this week and what I have to do to win my matchup, and get my teammates an opportunity to win this week. That's the message I have to the younger players, and block out the outside noise and how to make yourself the best you be this week. We erase it and go over and over it again.
"It hasn't reached the point yet where we've had a players-only type of meeting. The dynamics of this team are quite different from other teams I've been on. This isn't one of those player-only type of teams. The dialogue is pretty open in the locker room. I haven't see it since I've been here as a player-only type of thing."
Join Malcom Jenkins and Jason Kelce each week in the "Locker Room" the day after Eagles games at 5 p.m. on 94.1 WIP. Follow Malcolm Jenkins on Twitter @MalcolmJenkins and like him on Facebook.
