DeSean Expands On QB Comments

DeSean Jackson made some headlines earlier this week when he appeared on NFL Network and said “the team” wants to know who the Eagles’ starting quarterback is going to be.

Yesterday, at an advanced screening of his brother Byron’s documentary, DeSean Jackson: The Making of a Father’s Dream, he expanded on those comments.

“As far as myself, I don’t really know what the team is OK with and not OK with,” Jackson said. “At the end of the day, I don’t know where it stands, who’s going to be the starting quarterback. I wish I could know, but at the end of the day, that’s the coach’s decision, so I guess you have to play that how it goes.”

Jackson said several times that he thought all of the quarterbacks performed well during the spring, and he’ll be comfortable with whichever one gets the nod.

Asked if it would be better for team unity and team chemistry to go into training camp knowing who the starting quarterback is, Jackson said, “I definitely think it is, just to have the sense of knowing, so we could kind of prepare to go out there and do the things we need to do with who’s going to be the starter. But once again, it’s uncertain so we don’t know. We have to go in there and do our jobs. That’s what we get paid to do is go in there and do our job.

“Chip Kelly gets paid to be a head coach and make those decisions, so I’m sure him and Pat Shurmur will do a good job of putting the best guy out there to give us the best chance to win. Day one, we’ll see who that’ll be. But once again, I’m excited and I think well of all the quarterbacks, and I know they’ll be ready to go.”

Before too much is made of Jackson’s comments, the sense I got was that he prefers to have a quarterback named sooner rather than later, but this was not a situation where he was pounding the table and demanding answers. In other words, Jackson was offering his opinion, but don’t expect him to make noise about Kelly’s decision to let things play out once training camp starts.

“He’s never been a coach of our’s, so of course with a new system, he just wants to see who’s going to better fit the system,” he said.

We’ll have some thoughts on the documentary later this weekend on Birds 24/7.

Follow Sheil Kapadia on Twitter and e-mail him at skapadia@phillymag.com.
Become a fan of Birds 24/7 on Facebook.