Malcolm Jenkins and Lane Johnson already responded on Twitter about the PhillyVoice story that characterized Carson Wentz as “selfish” and “egotistical” but now we have some more of their thoughts from the Pro Bowl in Florida.
While Johnson said he saw it as nothing but “drama,” Jenkins got a little further into it and said some interesting stuff.
He was asked if there was some truth to what was reported in the story. Here was his answer:
Well, I didn’t read the whole article. I only started responding when people tried to say I was the one making the quotes, which is crazy. I think any great player is going to be confident. Any great player is going to know what he likes, is going to be demanding. I’m the same way with the D coordinator, where I can go say ‘no, I don’t want to run this.’ So I think him being assertive or anything like that is what you want out of your starting quarterback. He’s a leader.
That’s kind of what I wrote when the story first came out as I tried to put some of the claims and anonymous quotes into context (see story). While a lot of the qualities that story described were framed as negative character attributes, there are plenty of people inside and outside of the NovaCare Complex who think they’re positives.
“I think at any point in time when you don’t understand something, you start to speculate,” Jenkins said. “And I think it’s been hard for people to grasp how we’ve had two starting quarterbacks both contribute to success the last two years and not have any issues. But Carson’s a good teammate. I have nothing bad to say about him. … He’s a great player on the field, a great teammate off.”
Jenkins and Johnson were just a few of the many teammates who took to Twitter on Monday to defend Wentz (see story).
Here’s what Lane said Wednesday:
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