Malcolm Jenkins and the Philadelphia Eagles will take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in London this coming Sunday. It’s a game that pits two struggling Super Bowl contenders against one another. Both sit at 3-4 on the season and are on the brink of becoming irrelevant.
The Jaguars’ situation is interesting in that they benched starting quarterback Blake Bortles in favor of Cody Kessler during last week’s blowout loss to the Texans, their third consecutive defeat. While Bortles will start this week, he’s been among the worst quarterbacks in the NFL.
In talking about his team’s Week 8 opponent and continued support of free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, Eagles Pro Bowl safety Malcolm Jenkins threw some major shade in Bortles’ direction.
#Eagles Malcolm Jenkins was speaking about the Players Coalition and noting his constant support for Colin Kaepernick when he added: “I can turn on the tape this week of our opponent (the #Jaguars) and see that Colin Kaepernick deserves a job.”
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) October 24, 2018
From an on-field perspective, Jenkins is not necessarily wrong here. Bortles has put up nine touchdowns compared to eight interceptions en route to leading Jacksonville to less than 17 points per game in seven starts this season. He also leads NFL quarterbacks in giveaways since entering the league back in 2014.
Unemployed since the end of the 2016 season, Kaepernick’s last stint as a starter in San Francisco included him putting up 18 total touchdowns and four interceptions. Obviously, the backdrop here is the Kaepernick-led national anthem protests and the quarterback’s current grievance against the NFL.
As it relates to Jenkins, these comments come mere days after he got into a pre-game argument with former Kaepernick teammate and best friend Eric Reid. It’s an interesting story to follow ahead of Sunday’s game across the pond.