The Ringer NFL Show - ‘Quick Hits’ With Malcolm Jenkins (Ep. 95)

Episode Date: April 12, 2017

The Ringer's Kevin Clark and Philadelphia Eagle Malcolm Jenkins discuss Jenkins's efforts for social justice (00:25), activism in the NFL (03:00), Donald Trump (12:00), the timing of Colin Kaepernick's protest (16:00), and Chip Kelly's future in football (29:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to during our NFL show. I'm Kevin Clark. Joining me today is Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins. Jenkins is a Pro Bowl selection. He's one of the best safeties in the NFL. But in the last year, he's become more notable for being one of the top athlete activists in sports. Malcolm, thank you for joining us. I appreciate you having me. Yeah. So let's start from the top. You know, you basically spent the last few months getting way more involved in social issues and kind of becoming the face of a growing, group of NFL players who've decided to get involved in things like, you know, the relationship between police departments and the African American community. You recently visited with Congress. You've toured prisons. Why did you decide to do that, first of all? Well, you know, it all started last July after the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castel. And it was just kind of that tipping point for me where it's like, all right, I have to do something. This is kind of getting out of control.

And I started trying to figure out a way to use my platform to better the relationship between our law enforcement and our communities. Through some of those conversations that I had with Philadelphia PD and doing a ride along with a few officers and kind of getting into the community and having candid conversations, that pushed me to see, to look kind of beyond the actual police departments and kind of look behind them from a system. systematic standpoint, and you start evaluating the criminal justice system and how it's disproportionately punished poor communities and communities of color, especially the African-American communities over last years, whether it would be the war on drugs, war on crime, and how that has disproportionately affected the black community. It's hard to work on that relationship between the police and the community because our law enforcement is the front line of that criminal justice

system that and there is a lot of harbored frustration that oftentimes get pushed onto that front line and it makes our officers harder or their jobs harder. And, you know, I just kind of followed that trail. I wanted to learn more because, you know, I haven't been in activism long. So I wanted to see what the issues were, hear from different people, make sure that when I speak, I was representing the voices of others properly. and was able to go to get meetings on Capitol Hill with bipartisan representation in Congress. And it was some good things.

A lot of it I was able to speak my mind. But for me, a lot of it, I got to learn what was going on, what kind of legislation is out there, what the process is, how can I actually. And then get some direction of how I can use my unique status and stage right now to really make some change. What do you see the future of athlete activism being? Because obviously there's, as I said, a growing group of NFL players who are at the front line of this. But, you know, they're fighting against an NFL culture that is so, you know, quote unquote, no distractions. Coaches don't want guys who speak out in a lot of locker rooms. Where do you see that going?

Do you think players are getting more of a voice or do you think there will always sort of be amongst the rank and file of NFL players a no distractions culture? Well, I think with anything, right, there's always power in numbers, right? So it's only a distraction when one or two guys are speaking out of it, when we're speaking out, when all of a sudden you have a whole team of guys or a majority of a team that's speaking on one issue is no longer a distraction. It's a priority for that team. And so that's kind of the phase we're in now is how can we now organize as a group to have a unified voice so that nobody's getting pointed out as, you know,

an individual, nobody's being, it's harder to, to quiet, you know, you can, any one person, you can cut them, you can get rid of them, do whatever. When it's, when it's a collective thing, it's very hard to single people out. And then our voices, one, become amplified because you have more voices and it's spread across the country in our different cities. But too, it gets a little bit more protection for guys to feel who want to get involved, but don't know how and are a little bit afraid of their job security, gives them a safer place to be able to speak out on issues that affect the communities that they come from.

What is the answer to that? You know, you're talking about a unified voice with players. Is that just speaking to guys in the locker room? Is that being connected to all these guys throughout the league? Well, how do you go about starting that? Yeah, well, I mean, just like any organization, you have to find members that are, you know, dedicated and wanted to take on leadership roles in that. And I think we found, you know, leaders on a good amount of teams that want to take that.

on. So we're going to ask them to, you know, recruit guys or see who's interested. And once we get a pool of players, then obviously communicating your ideas and messaging so that everybody's on the same page, educating everybody so that they know what's going on and speaking on it the right way. Those are things that we've, over the last, since this offseason started, have been working on. And we've got, you know, that list of guys is growing as we start to kind of roll out, you this plan. Is it almost like the way the NFL PA has it set up, but you'll have sort of one guy on each team who

speaks as far as the activism, or is that you? What is the ultimate goal for building sort of a coalition of activist athletes in the NFL? Yeah, you always have your few guys who you want to kind of direct the messages. That'll be the face of it. And myself and

Anquan Bolden, a few other guys who have been doing this trip back and forth to D.C. We'll continue to kind of lead that message and in a direction. But there are other guys around the league that are doing phenomenal work that we want to highlight and see if we can amplify, you know, and that's the craziest thing is as players, we have so much leverage and so many resources and people that want to help our agenda.

But a lot of times we work separately. Everybody's, you know, working for the same thing individually. And if we pull those resources, pull that leverage, pull that platform. All of a sudden, we have a pretty substantial organization that can really make some moves. Do you get the sense to you talk to guys who come to you and say, hey, I would speak out if I could, but I think in this locker room it's not really accepted or around the league? I mean, there are definitely some locker rooms that where it's not accepted. And I think, you know, everybody has to understand that to get involved, there is going to be some risk, right? There's no easy way to activism.

and it never has been, there never will be. So there's always going to be guys who are going to have to at least be willing to sacrifice something. And I think, like I said, the more people you do it, then it's harder to make an example out of one. So that's kind of what we're trying to do is tug on guys who, and we're not asking for people to protest or, you know, coming up with this great coalition of players that are going to, you know, demonstrate. straight and doing it. No, we want guys that are willing to learn to what's going to happen, to talk to their elected officials, to talk to community leaders, to speak out and educate the public about what's going on in our criminal justice system and really use their platforms

to bring people together. It's not something that we want to do to, you know, make more noise than it's already out there in this political climate. You talk about the risk incurred. You know, Obviously, everyone talks about Colin Kaepernick and how he doesn't have a team right now. When you started this and you decided to speak out, was it in the back of your mind that this, you know, just because of the way people talk about it, this could threaten my career?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, it's you look at it and you understand, like we saw the backlash that Colin Kaepernick received, especially right when he did it. It was like at an all-time high. And so you understood that anybody following that was going to kind of receive, maybe not as much, but something similar. And that's just a risk you take.

But that's in anything, whether it doesn't have to be even activism. You can speak out on how you don't like some of the league rules or the way your coach does something. And it's the same result. Anytime you speak up and make your opinions known, you're going to have to deal with those who might not agree. And those who might not agree might be in power over you. You famously raised a fist last year during the National Anthem. You did not, Neil, for the full season like Colin Kaepernick did. Where does the on-field protest stuff go?

Do you think that there, will you continue to do on-field protests this year? Do you think more guys are going to do it? Do you think it's going to take a different form? Where does that go in 2017? That I'm not sure. I really hadn't thought about the on-field protests. I thought they were very important in 2016 because it sparked national, a really worldwide conversation and forced people to talk about it.

You know, so it was one of those things where it didn't change anything, but it sure made people kind of declare where they are on this issue, whether you liked it or not, which is what you need. We need that dialogue and conversation because that's where we learned. But as we transition to the off-season, I think guys are more focused on solutions now. We understand what the problems are. We don't want to just stand on the soapbox and complain. about what's going on. It's like, how do we change it? And in changing it, you do need numbers.

We understand that, you know, you have, and that's what we learned on Capitol Hill. It's like, okay, you have all of these politicians and members of Congress that can make decisions, push agendas through, but they represent their constituents. And so when you have, you know, it might be easy for me to stand in the inner cities of Philly and talk about criminal justice reform and how we need to have some kind of, you know, accountability on our police departments and all that. Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir. But all of a sudden, you start to go to these rural areas where, you know, you got the evangelical

Christians that are conservative. They're not dealing with this issue. So, you know, so it's one of those things where those are the ones we have to educate so that they put pressure onto their constituents so that on Capitol Hill and all, on the state and local level, those votes start to, and those agendas start to reflect what we want to get done. So there is a need for education and there's nothing, football and sports in general, there's nothing that brings people together from all walks of life more than sports. So we're trying to use that platform to do that.

It seemed like team support for athlete activism sort of ran the gamut from full support to to no support. Did you get any pushback from the Eagles when you decided to start speaking out? No, I personally. didn't. And I think it's because of kind of who I am on the team, there's a little bit

I think there's a little bit more trust in my thoughtfulness. But I know it wasn't the same for every player. But I know there are teams like the Dolphins where the owner has the organization rise. There's teams like San Francisco who backed Colin Kaepernick

fully and then matched his donation of a million dollars. Then there's other ones who I won't put any names to it are not, but are really good friends with multiple owners that are really good, or friends with our president and are on the opposite end of that and know that, hey, we don't, we don't do that and have made it known. So it's hard for me, too, to tell guys on different teams in different positions how to quite, how to navigate this environment, because it changes, you know, depending on which team you're on. You mentioned the current presidential, the current president with the election.

Obviously, that sort of happened at the tail end of the season. It happened in November. You know, so much of the activism started in the summer and now we're in a very different world. I'm curious if you think that the election is going to change things and add a sense of urgency for you and the players. Oh, 100%. I think it – that's why I'm glad Kaepernick did what he did and when he did it because – it was proactive as opposed to reactive in a sense when it comes to this presidency. And so now you have a president who on his agenda so far has not mentioned, or they whispered at one time,

but hasn't mentioned anything about criminal justice reform. It's talked about stopping for us and talked about sending more police to Chicago, is signed, more executive orders to back. and support police without doing anything to back and support communities. It's talked about cutting the budget, which or the budgets that include community and police relationship building. So it's, you know, those things, because that's the direction that this administration is going, there's a huge push to wake people up right now.

Before he redos everything that's been put in place and we take steps back and then things get worse. do you think that there's a chance for tension between if an owner because it is you know 30 31 billionaires many of them as you mentioned are our friends with Donald Trump do you think there's a there's a chance for tension if an owner is close to Donald Trump and a player who wants to be an activist is going to speak out to that I mean is there would would you sign with the team if if you knew that you know in a couple of years would you sign with a team if you knew that you know the the the owner was aligned with Donald Trump?

I would. I mean, business is business. And I think that's a bad message. It's kind of a trend right now that if you don't agree with me with the same philosophy, then I cannot support or I can't even sit in the same room with you.

I think that's a bad person that's to set. But I will not go to a team that will not allow me to use my voice and use my right to free speech. that I will not do. And so, yeah, if you have somebody who's put it forcing, you know, their will and their status upon you to suppress you, then that's totally different. But, and so far we haven't heard of any of that or haven't had any, like, hard evidence.

But, like, just like I know I might not support this president, I can't knock other people for who do. What I can do is sit down and talk and listen to why they're. do and what concerns they have and vice versa. You know, you talked about sort of a critical mass of players. Do you think that, you know, coming together and having the voice, do you think that coaches are just going to have to start to change the football culture a little bit just because of, you know, players starting to speak out that it's not always going to be the

no distractions. The coaches are going to have to get a little more flexible with how much they allow players to sort of break the mold. Yeah, well, I think it's, it's, you're doing. dealing with a different type of player nowadays. Like you have like conscience players that understand that life is bigger than football and there are things that are happening outside of the walls of our practice facility. And if you knew the kind of stuff that happens in the NFL locker room throughout the course

of a season, like that they, we somehow don't consider to be distractions but are, like you guys get arrested, things happen, you know, fights, all that stuff. You would think that those would be distractions. No, we just see that as adversity that we got to, you know, it's just part of the season. Yet somebody standing up and using their voice for social injustice somehow gets tagged as a distraction. And I think, honestly, that word distraction has come from the media more than anybody who's actually been involved. You listen to everybody in the San Francisco locker room from the head coach to the former head coach to the owner to teammates.

Nobody's used the word distraction when it comes to Colin Kaepernick. So, and it's been the same in my locker room. Nobody's used the word distraction. So it's, I think the narrative is probably being pushed more from people who are outside of, or outside looking in. Is it even possible? You know, I've heard, I once heard a player tell me that the only people who were distracted the NFL are the bad teams who are distracted by being bad.

You know what I mean? It's not like a good team is going to get off the rails because one guy says something or whatever. I mean, can you sort of speak to that as far as just this, this myth of the distraction, as you said, I mean, it seems impossible. There's so much tunnel vision that goes on during the season. Well, you got to realize, one, we have to talk to the media every single day. So there's reports and things coming out.

Like, there is no such things in the NFL season without distractions. And, you know, but distractions that hurt your team are usually, yeah, usually the symptoms of a bad team. You got, like, arguments upstairs between the front office and the coaching staff. or you got a player and a head coach who are like fighting in the media, not behind closed doors. You know, you got shots going back and forth. You got players not getting along and are doing it in front of the media. Those are distractions. But somebody saying that, yeah, you know, I come from this neighborhood or in a league where the majority of players are black and come from a genre,

different genres of communities to say that, hey, I want to. say that what's going on in my community isn't right. And to tag that as a distraction, I think, is kind of foolish. What was the biggest thing you learned in your sort of fact-finding mission as far as touring the prisons, doing the police ride-alongs? What was the biggest eye-opener? I mean, it was a lot. You know, sometimes when you listen to the same circle of news and people, you forget that there

are other sides. So, you know, getting caught up in all of the things that are happening with people being shot unarmed and all that. Sometimes we tend to forget how dangerous it is to just continue to push that narrative. And so one thing I was able to do was come in contact with an officer, cram, and Detective Cram or Captain Cram in Philadelphia. And just to see him interact with his community and get around him and talk to him, he's an officer, an excellent police officer who's doing a great job who needs to be highlighted more. But then there are also other officers that I talk to that I can tell just don't get it. And then to learn some of the things that are actually going on just in my own state and city

where Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, Laca, or give more juveniles life without parole than any other state or city in this country. And so I sat when I went to the prison, I sat with, um, six inmates, four of which were juvenile lifers, which means one of them went in at 14 and still locked up. All of them have been locked up for longer than I've been alive. And so to sit there and process, as I watch these men, you know, I'm leaving with full freedom. I'm actually the first person they probably seem to walk into jail voluntarily, but they've been there since a teenager. And I'm thinking how many times I've changed as a person

since the age of 14 and you've got people that are going to die in prison because of something they did as a teenager. So there are so many different laws that when you start to look at neighborhoods and poverty and how systematically communities become disenfranchised, you start to see how those effects trickle down to the neighborhoods, the families, and all of that. How did you decide to go that route and just get so involved because some of the guys are still So, you know, most of the guys who are athlete activists in the NFL who are known to be doing and have gotten involved in the last year, the last 18 months. You seem to be the most active as far as going out and reaching out for the community.

Why did you decide to get so involved? Well, I think part of it is my personality. I genuinely want to see change. And I know when you take on something as big as our criminal justice system, that's not something that was built overnight. It's not something that's going to get changed overnight. So I understand the requirements and what that takes to go. kind of dedication that,

but I've also, one thing I've been, great, I've been trying to learn this, right? Like, I know I am not some new, uh,

revolutionary, uh, you know, speaker who has all these ideas and I'm saying, follow me. What I'm doing is I'm going to the people who are in these communities who are doing the work who, whether it be police officers,

politicians, community leaders, uh, people who are incarcerated communities. And I'm asking them what, they want to get out there and I'm listening so I'm trying to learn which this perspective, what's this,

how is this set up, how can we change that? And in that, the more I learn, the deeper and more invested I get because the more optimistic I get because I start to see ways to bridge gaps. I start to see ways to kind of move the needle. And so it's one of those things that that's that's really why I've been so active

and I've gotten a lot of great advice, you know, the advice that I got to go to the prison came from, you know, a leader I was telling them, yeah, I want to talk about this. And he said, we can't talk about criminal justice reform if we've never been to a correction facility. Yeah, that's right. And so I set up a visit and was able to, the ACLU set that up. And so it's things like that that I think are important for us as athletes that we don't

try to reinvent the will, but bring the voices of those that are doing the work to the table. Is there anything on your to-do list that you really want to do in the next couple of months or a year? Uh, no, it's just, it's a, the biggest thing is there is a, there is an urgency for education in the public. So just to continue to keep this conversation going and to really tag into people who don't look like me or talk like me. And, and so I want, that's, that's the biggest thing is being able to educate people who are not in my circle of influence. And so, and that way, I get to hear, too, what they're concerned about. Because the funny thing about criminal justice reform that we learned was that it's a bipartisan, like, thing. Everybody on Capitol Hill, whether it was Republicans, Democrats, all said, yeah, we need to change this.

Like, there's no need for us to have mandatory minimums and have 50% of people in our federal prison system are locked up for nonviolent drug offenses. And, like, yeah, we punished crack cocaine way more than, then. we did power of cocaine and the only difference is baking soda that we messed that up but the only way it gets changed is if it gets pushed up the agenda basically uh last question on this before we get you out and a few football questions do you believe knowing what you know about the league and knowing what you know about him that NFL owners really are blackball and Colin Kaepernick uh I'm not I don't know if I try not to say we we try to look for black and white answers and say it's either one or the other.

I think it's a combination of a few things. I think obviously he opted out of a contract, which means that he wants to get paid a certain amount of money. So that shrinks your pool a little bit. You're talking about teams that are looking for a mobile quarterback that shrinks your pool. But what I will push back on at any point in time is when you try to hear GMs or the rhetoric

that it has nothing to do with his political. political stage, he's just not good enough. That is, quite frankly, just a lie. Because there's no way, even in Tim Tebow, Tim Tebow is a nicest athlete to ever play sports. He was looked at as somebody who had baggage and was a distraction. Why? Because he just brought media attention,

which means that there's no way you can tell me that you don't consider what Kaepernick has done in the last year when you evaluate if you want to bring them on your team or not. Now, if you're, if that, so in that's, a valid argument. You might not want to bring that as your backup quarterback or your starting quarterback. That's cool. Just admit it. Stand on that. Because he's obviously, he's proved that he's good enough to at least to play in this league, to be a starter in his league. So it's a little bit of both. It's too early to see. Get you out of here on some football stuff. Obviously,

an exciting start to the season last year for the Eagles, tailed off a little bit at the end of the year. What is the feeling going into this year? What needs to be shored up to win the NFCs to sort of compete for a playoff spot. Yeah, I think everybody was very excited about Carson Wentz and what he was able to do as a rookie, especially when we handed him the starting job a week before the season. He played really well for us, and so I think we have a lot of optimism.

I mean, he did a lot with very little, to be honest. You know, we struggled at receiver. We didn't have Lane Johnson for 10 weeks out of the season. Our running backs were a little banged up. So offensively, he was our offense. And a lot of times he made things happen. Now, he'll grow with a little bit of his decision-making. He's definitely a gunslinger and his quarterback that's not afraid to stand in the pocket

and deliver shots down the field. He'll grow in that aspect. But we're excited. So when we shored up our receiving corps, we brought in Alshan Jeffries, Toy Smith, I think those are two veterans that immediately make that rule. them a lot better and they give us a chance to get guys like Jordan Matthews and Zach Ertz super involved and get them in matchups that we think they can win where last year all the focus was on those two and it was just rough so it's exciting we're seeing what we're doing the draft

to to look at our defense we'll need some some helping the secondary we lost two veteran corners and leotis mckevin and nolan carroll so we'll be looking to see what we can find in the drive there was a report this week that chip kelly's going to sit in on some navy football practices. Where do you see Chip's career going from here? Chip, I mean, Chip is a good coach. I think he, there's a lot he needs to learn from a managerial

standpoint, but I mean, he's an innovative thinker who can find a place in this league. And I think whether it be college or be the NFL, I think he has what it takes. He's going to have to make some adjustments,

but I think he's kind of learning that as he goes. but whether it's a coordinator or a head coaching job, I think he has a place. You said he has a lot to learn managerially. What do you mean by that? Well, there are small things when it comes to coaching a team, especially in the NFL as opposed to college,

where college athletes are probably a little bit more just do what I say, and guys will follow the suit. And in the NFL, it's not like that. And especially if you've got players like myself, I'm always asking why. You know, like, okay, this is what you want to say. do why. And you have to be able to explain it to, to have a grassroom in the locker room. And one of the ways to do that is to meet with your leaders all the time, like to be on the

same page. That was one thing that wasn't there. And just, you know, accountability and all those things. At this point, it's a profession. You know, we're not the kids that have weak psyches. We're strong. We know what we want to do. We want to plan. We want to want to execute it. And I think, you know, he's learning kind of how that, he's learning that transition as he goes. Do you think he ever comes back to the NFL again? Or is it college for him? I mean, I think so. It might not be it as a head coach, but I think he's got, I would, you know, as a defender, his system that he has, if he tweaks it a little bit and adds a couple of wrinkles can be something dangerous. But, you know, he's got to be willing to, to, to, to, to, to,

bend and mold his offense and scheme to keep up with the ever-changing NFL. Malcolm Jenkins, thank you for joining us. Appreciate you having me.