Jenkins Unsure Of How Eagles Handle Accountability

After allowing 90 points in five days, Malcolm Jenkins told 94.1 WIP yesterday that the Eagles aren’t held accountable for their mistakes. He elaborated on those comments today after practice.

“From a coaching style, I was brought up a little bit different where most mistakes that teammates or players make were brought up more in a team setting,” Jenkins said. “But the approach here is more in the individual rooms and that’s just by design and that’s on purpose. A lot of the times when things happen on the defensive side of the ball if the secondary isn’t play well, the mistakes aren’t necessarily pointed out in front of the entire defense; it’s dealt with in the DB room and so a d-lineman might not know necessarily what the mistakes are or what it is that we need to get better at.

“For me, I’m a bit of a control freak so I like to know what the mistakes are and what we need to get better at. Obviously, Billy [Davis] and the coaching staff feel — that’s not necessarily my place and they’re right and they handle it a lot different than what I’ve been used to.”

Jenkins added that he has brought up his concerns to the coaching staff.

“Me and Billy talk pretty often and I’ve definitely been open about how I feel, but I’m not a coach and that’s fine,” he said. “I don’t think it will be a problem. Obviously, it’s been brought up and we know what the plan is. For people like me — I want to know what the plan is when we’re moving forward; what was the mistake and what are we trying to correct.

“But that approach isn’t always right; there’s a thousand ways to skin a cat. That’s just my personal opinion. They’ve expressed to me why we do it the way we do it and I’m completely fine with that.”

However, Jenkins didn’t want to disclose the coaches’ reasoning. He continued to explain how the Eagles’ schedule isn’t conducive to how he learns best.

“I think the way that the schedule is set up allows for a lot to get done, but it also doesn’t give you the opportunity to have the long extended meeting in a team setting,” Jenkins said. “We spend a lot of time broken up into our individual groups or broken up in offensive and defensive units. So there’s not a lot of meeting time with the entire team, but I don’t think that that’s a bad thing.

“I think we get more accomplished — when we walk about time on task, we probably get more than anybody. But any time you move fast throughout the day, sometimes you don’t get that opportunity to double back. The way we do it is all our stuff gets done earlier in the week and then we have a lot of time later in the week, but that’s after practice has been done. And sometimes those mistakes or corrections or just communications are saved toward the end of the week as we tighten through our game plan and it’s a lot more mental.

“Some people learn different; I’m more of a time on task type of guy so I spend a lot time here at the facility because I have to see it and know what I’m doing. Some people don’t necessarily work like that; I think it’s all individual based. Me personally, I came in the league and it was a team where we didn’t leave the facility until 7:00 [p.m.], but that doesn’t — I don’t think — translate to success. That’s just how I learn.”

Connor Barwin, however, said he isn’t worried about how the Eagles operate.

“I’m not sitting around having discussions about how things are done,” Barwin said. “I’m sitting around discussing how I can execute my job better, how [Brandon Graham] can execute his job better and [how] Marcus [Smith] can contribute. That’s what I’m worried about; that’s what everyone should be worried about. But yes, when you’re losing three in a row, maybe it’s human nature, everything is examined probably a little bit more than it needs to be.”

Barwin added that he isn’t worried about how players are held accountable.

“Everybody is held accountable here,” Barwin said. “I was in Houston where [Gary] Kubiak — I can remember in my four years there was a couple of instances where yes, he pulled up the tape and ripped guys in front of the locker room and that hasn’t happened here.

“Now that I’m thinking about this, our problem hasn’t been two guys. If our problem is two guys, I’m sure Chip [Kelly] might’ve pulled up the film and said, ‘This is it, you’re not gonna play.’ But if you look at even our whole season defensively, it’s always ‘this guy’ maybe ‘this week,’ it’s ‘these two guys’ ‘this week.’ So I don’t think standing up and ripping a guy in front of the team every other week — that might not be the answer.”