The past week or so has been quite eventful regarding second-year player Teven Jenkins. But it all started way back in OTA’s when reports came out early that Jenkins wasn’t practicing with the first team. From the outside looking in, it looked like the Bears had given him a demotion. However, the coaching staff told us that they were simply trying out every option to see who the best five linemen were. At the time, this was somewhat believable. Fast forward to today and Jenkins is yet to suit up and we are going on practice number seven of training camp. Again, when he missed the first practice of camp, rumors were it was just a sickness that he had developed early that morning. But now we find ourselves in a similar situation with Jenkins.
No injury has been reported or disclosed. He has been listed as day-to-day. But perhaps this shifts to week to week here soon? News also broke earlier in the week that the team has held active trade talks involving Jenkins. What the hell is going on?
No sign of Teven Jenkins at the start of Bears practice.
— Kevin Fishbain (@kfishbain) August 3, 2022
Why Would The Bears Leak This Information?
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If you were attempting to trade a player who already has durability concerns, wouldn’t you do everything your in power to maximize his trade value? The Bears seem to be doing the exact opposite.
- Demoted in OTA’s (like I mentioned earlier)
- Openly stating he’s working with a trainer?
- Not being open about his status: is it even a real injury?
While all of this is going on, we are yet to hear a peep from Teven Jenkins. He hasn’t addressed the media. He’s went dark on all his social media. No twitch streams. Nothing.
That is until yesterday afternoon when he broke his silence with one single tweet.
I’m good don’t believe everything you read
— Tev (@TevenJenkins) August 2, 2022
First off, a big thank you to Paul for sending this tweet that garnered Teven’s response. Secondly, this leads me to ask the same question again. What the hell is going on?
Tev starts the tweet off stating he is “good”. Does this mean he’s healthy? If so then why isn’t he practicing? Then he goes on to tell us “not to believe everything we read”.
Are the trade rumors false or is it more in reference to the recent reports questioning his work ethic, drive, and overall attitude? No matter what is it is, the Bears and Teven have to find a way to make this work. If he’s bothered by another injury, let’s get him healthy. If he’s clashing with the coaching staff, sit him down and hash it out. He’s too talented to trade as the team won’t receive anything remotely close to what they used to draft him. But then again, Poles and company haven’t hesitated to ship out players from the old regime. They did not move up to draft Teven. That was Ryan Pace. They don’t owe him anything. It’s a good thing to remember as we watch this play out over the next few weeks.
Hopefully, like Teven mentioned, he is good and he gets back on the field soon. I think that would be the best case scenario for the Bears moving forward.
