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It’s far too early for anyone to call Teven Jenkins a bust.
The rookie offensive lineman for the Chicago Bears hasn’t seen the field yet, as he begins his first season on the injured reserve list after having back surgery, but there’s ample reason to be concerned about his recovery — and about the way the Bears, particularly in relation to other NFL teams — handled the draft in the first place.
On 670 The Score’s Bernstein & Rahimi, co-hosts Dan Bernstein and Leila Rahimi spoke to top draft expert Matt Miller of ESPN and The Draft Scout about what went on behind the scenes of the 2021 NFL Draft this year — and he had some eye-opening things to say about how Bears general manager Ryan Pace and company handled the selection of Jenkins in particular.
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Miller: Bears Weren’t Honest About Jenkins’ Surgery
When speaking with the media in August about why the rookie tackle was having surgery, Bears head coach Matt Nagy said that despite Jenkins having a lumbar issue that everyone knew about, it was a new issue that forced Jenkins to go under the knife.
“We were aware of the back issues in college,” Nagy said on August 18. “But these are symptoms that are new. So this is something we’re dealing with. He’s at a point right now where we were trying different things to see if we could stay away from this. It’s something that ended up getting to this point right now.”
When asked what his intel was surrounding Jenkins in the draft, Miller had more than a few revealing things to say.
Miller immediately challenged Nagy’s comments about Jenkins’ pre-existing back injury having nothing to do with his recent surgery. “That’s like saying your DUI wasn’t because of your drinking problem. It makes no sense. I mean, come on. These guys get to stand behind a podium and lie to us?” Miller said, sounding slightly aghast. “It (his surgery) was because of that.”
Miller then said some things about the way the Bears handled Jenkins’ injury versus the way a few other top NFL teams viewed the situation — and it was telling.
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Miller: Chiefs & Titans Both Passed on Jenkins Due to Injury
“When I did my pre-draft report on Teven Jenkins, I went and visited him … he didn’t mention it,” Miller said about Jenkins’ back issue.
Miller then confirmed that Jenkins, initially projected to be a first-round pick, fell in the draft as a direct result of his back problems:
“On the night of the draft as I was sitting in Cleveland and he started falling down the draft board and teams that needed offensive tackles weren’t drafting him. I can remember texting someone from the Tennessee Titans and was like: ‘Why aren’t you taking Teven Jenkins?’ And he replied back to me, and I can send a screenshot of this if I can blur some names out, and he said: ‘Back injury.’ So teams knew about it, and it was the reason he fell at least for a couple of the teams I spoke to.”
Miller also confirmed Nagy’s former mentor, Andy Reid’s team passed on Jenkins for that same reason.
“A lot of people thought the Chiefs would make a play for him, whether at left tackle or right tackle … even people in the Kansas City front office that I talked to have said: ‘The back injury is a problem.”
Herein lies the primary issue: Jenkins’ back issue was an issue for multiple other teams — teams that have recently made winning a common occurrence. But it wasn’t an issue for the Bears, who, instead of letting him fall to them in the second round at No. 52, (which very well could have happened if so many other teams were unsure about him). The Bears could have waited and taken the best available player –which could have possibly been Jenkins if he was still there — but instead, the Bears traded up to get him.
Chicago sent a third-round pick, the second-round pick, and a sixth-round pick (No. 204) in order to move up to take Jenkins. They got Jenkins with the 39th overall pick along with a fifth-rounder (151st overall), but they sacrificed valuable draft capital to take a risk on a player many teams seemed to already know wasn’t going to be hitting the field and contributing anytime soon. It’s the latest in a series of questionable draft decisions by Pace, and if it eventually works out, fine. But if it doesn’t, the Jenkins pick could haunt the Bears for a while.
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