DeSean Jackson has been finding himself in the headlines a lot this week.
One interview with The Sporting News has turned into a giant fiasco, pitting Jackson against his former quarterback and his offensive coordinator.
When Jackson took the interview, I don’t think he had any intentions of bad mouthing, throwing under the bus, or anything else. However, Jackson’s words have been put in the national spotlight with a negative connotation. He’s even been compared to T.O. in terms of his attitude off the field.
So now we’re forced to ask the question: is DeSean Jackson’s mouth a problem?
First of all, the comments that involved Donovan McNabb were blown way out of proportion.
When asked how the team would be without McNabb, did you really expect Jackson to say “we’re screwed”? Regardless of whether or not he thought that (which I really don’t believe he does), he’s not going to say it. If Ty Detmer was announced as the starter in 2010, Jackson would still say positive things even though we’d all very well know the Birds would be screwed.
Jackson’s comments were to simply state that he is confident in Kevin Kolb and believes Kolb will pick up right where McNabb left off.
However, the media took Jackson’s comments and made it sound like he was simply bad-mouthing McNabb. They then fed McNabb these quotes out of context and McNabb made his typical defensive comments. Since then, Jackson has come out wished McNabb the best of luck, basically an apology.
I don’t think this was necessary but I suppose it was the “right” thing to do.
After everyone had a couple days to dwell on the Jackson-McNabb battle and the dust seemed to settle, the stories started breaking about Jackson’s comments on Marty Mornhinweg. This was a surprise, as you wouldn’t think a coach would rush a player back from a head injury. The Eagles coaches certainly shouldn’t be the ones rushing players back after seeing what happened with Brian Westbrook firsthand.
Obviously, the Eagles offense is better when DeSean Jackson plays, but there should be no pressure on a player to come back from an injury like that or judge their toughness.
I heard a radio interview with The Sporting News writer who interviewed Jackson, and he said that there was no remorse in Jackson’s voice when speaking of the incident. From what I heard, it sounded more like Mornhinweg really wanted Jackson to play due to the importance of the game. Of course, the media loves to blow the words out of proportion to make good headlines.
Overall, I think this interview was probably a good experience for Jackson.
He’s a superstar on the rise and is going to see a lot of attention in the future. After this interview, he’s seen first hand how anything you say can be misconstrued and turned against you. From this experience, you would think Jackson will start to be more careful about what he says.
I hope he does.
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