Eagles coach Doug Pederson says he’d join a teamwide protest

The protest was started during the preseason by Colin Kaepernick, quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. Jenkins said they chose not to make any statement during the anthem last week because they did not want their statement to be misinterpreted on 9/11. “We didn’t want to mess with that day”. “That’s always been my policy on things, the open door, and when guys have things like this that come up, I appreciate them coming to me”.

“For me, it has nothing to do with this country or the flag or the anthem in itself”, Jenkins said. “It’s just a lot of things systematically that have been set up in this country, since its inception, that really put minorities, especially African Americans, at a disadvantage, when you talk about quality of life, and actually growing in this country”. The more players that join in, the further this conversation goes.

Eagles coach Doug Pederson said today that he’ll join in if it’s something his players tell him they want to do as a unified team.

Pederson, who said in the past he frowned on players kneeling or sitting during the anthem as a political protest, said he would be a part of anything the entire team participates in to draw attention to social injustice and inequality in the United States.

“I think now that everybody has sort of embraced it and knows that it’s going to happen, I think everybody is braced for it so it won’t be a distraction”, Pederson said.

“The biggest thing is I just don’t want it to become a distraction to the rest of the team, that’s the biggest thing from my standpoint”.

Pederson is confident that Jenkins, the most vocal of Eagles players on the injustice issue, will find a way to express himself without turning the matter into a distraction.

Pederson was already aware of Jenkins’ plans before the safety made his comments Friday night on 94 WIP. “I know that over time, things have gotten better and things are going to keep getting better”.

The protest has not played a part in an Eagles game to this point, but according to a key leader on the team, that could change soon.

“Malcolm, he’s a class act all the way”. A couple hours later, Tavarres’s agent Corey Williams said that his client would not go through with his plan, adding that Myke didn’t want to be a distraction to the organization.

“If they wanted to do something teamwide, I would definitely be for that”, Pederson explained. “You can kind of forget who you’re playing sometimes because you’re anxious about a lot of other things”.

“But, I doubt that we’ll have anybody kneeling”, Jenkins said.