NEWSLETTER
The Teven Jenkins journey has been a wild one, but we are finally seeing some new life.
First, from Jenkins, who offered his first commentary on what is going on with his situation by responding to a tweet. Of course! Because that’s what social media platforms can do for us when players aren’t made available by the team:
That is a somewhat cryptic response from Jenkins, but the “I’m good” carrying some weight here would make us feel better about it. Even still … the “don’t believe everything you read” comment following a report of trade rumors that came after another report suggesting a disconnect between he and the team isn’t a nothing burger. But at least it is something of substance from a player who hasn’t been practicing (let alone seen at practice). Remember, Jenkins was still on the sideline last year when an injury kept him out of training camp. So him not being with his teammates or position coaches looks weird from an optics perspective.
In any case, Bears Head Coach was fielding questions regarding Jenkins’ status after Wednesday’s practice. His answers gave little clarity, but little clarity is better than none:
Eberflus continues to power through and say Jenkins has been working with trainers at the facility. That isn’t new. What is new is the confirmation that Jenkins’ absence is 100 percent injury related. The simple “yeah” in response to the question does a lot of work here. Especially when given the context of Eberflus noting that Roquan Smith’s absence from camp while in the physically unable to perform list has to do with the contract situation that is sorting itself out with Smith and GM Ryan Poles.
For the sake of this post, let’s take everything at face value. An injured Jenkins is bad news. But that he is working with trainers to get healthy is good news. That his absence is totally about the undisclosed injury that has him day-to-day and not about a possible holdout for a trade out of town is somewhat encouraging. Because even though Jenkins has slid down the offensive line spectrum and has been bumped down the depth chart, it doesn’t mean he can’t have future value with this team. Maybe there *IS* a trade market for Jenkins. Teams have reportedly been calling. Perhaps there is a team that sees the upside in giving a 2021 second-round pick who had plenty of first-round grades a fresh start.
But there is a non-zero chance that Jenkins and the Bears could work through this and the result be him being a piece to this offensive line puzzle. We saw a similar scenario play out with Kyle Fuller and Vic Fangio when Fuller was called out by his own coach for not returning to football after an injury Fangio thought the player should’ve returned from. In other words, there is precedent for a mending of fences. But we’re probably a while from reaching that point.
