Press Pass: Malcolm Jenkins

you're close to the ball, you're fitting in a run. UM. So it just kind of keeps me engaged, keeps me around the football. UM. And the more you're rounding football and more players you get to make. They have a lot of guys coming back at the right time. Now, I think it doesn't bats coming back. So just how full of offensive this team is? The hurdle to see before already. I mean, well, it starts with the run. You never run the ball better than anybody in the

leave right now. Got the leading rusher and Ezekie Elliott and everything else is UM built off of that. You can't stop the run. Then they're in third and shorts all day and they're converting. I think they're in. I know they're in the top five and one third down, I believe. Um. And then they keep running it until eventually that that that turns into one of those games where defense is on the field for a long time, you get tired, and eventually those holes get bigger and bigger.

So first things first, we got to stop the run. Um. But you know they have weapons to that that compliment the run with Jason Waite and Cole Beasley, Dads Bryant coming back, um, you know, and and and Dak Press has been playing really well, especially if the play action pass. He's very very accurate, um when he's able to to to you know, fake the run, and he's got wide open lanes behind to throw win. Um. But all of that starts starts up front. Custom is a small ship guy.

I mean, if you watched him on tape, he's a hard matchup for everybody. I mean, he's somebody that that you know, a lot of his routes are option routes, so he doesn't have a specific route that he has to run. He's really just playing off your leverage. He's finding an open space on the field, UM, and he has time to work it. You know, he doesn't have

to be there, you know early. He can take his time, set you up to do everything, and he's crafty and that, and then once he catches the ball, he's up the field. So um, you know, it's definitely one of the matchups that that we have to win in order to be successful because he's somebody who moves to change for him. Similar to um, Jason Witten, he does the same stuff with option routes. He's working away from your leverage. He'll

put you off turnaround the balls right on him. But where Jason uses his size as his an advantage, Cole Beasley just uses his quickness and feet to get open. So special. I mean, I don't know, I don't know what you can name that he doesn't do well. And as a back as great vision, the patience, he's got the speed to be a home run hitter. He's got the physicality to run through arm tackles and um finish runs.

Um yeah, it's not much you can do college school the time you started at could you tell the transtell Yeah, I mean, you know, I remember telling us something our personnel here when he was getting getting ready to be in the draft that he's probably probably the best running back in that draft. Um, and you know, so I'm not I'm not surprised to see what he's doing. Commits, Uh, cope easily. Is he the kind of player you want to be more physical with at the line of scrimmage

because of that quickness. I mean it depends what type of player you are. For somebody like myself, UM, yeah, I mean you don't want to try to you know, you don't want to try to go step for step or mirror somebody that's quicker than you. So a lot of times you try to knock him off his rod or pin him to to make sure that he can only one. You know, if he has an option about you take away one know, he's going to run the

other one. Um. There's some things you can do, but they do a good job of keeping them in motion. They keep him off the ball so you can't get your hands on them early. Um. And he's savage enough. He's seen enough people try to press him. You know, that's not a new thing for him, so he knows how to get open. But Um, depending on that matchup, you got to play him differently and you got to

keep that that technique changing throughout the game. I mean, Jen, he did what he what he's been doing since he's gotten here, is is in the right spots. He's made a few tackles, played physical. Um, he's very comfortable on tight ends, um making calls. So I mean we're excited to see him stepping into a bigger role. I mean, CJ has gotten better every day. Um, he probably had

the best or the most. He probably stood out the most out of anybody the encamp as an undrafted guy, worked his way all way up to making the team in practice squad, and now he's active and you know, he's just basically waiting on an opportunity. But I think everybody would be comfortable if, at any point in time, you know, an emergency situation, he had to get out on the field. I think I think everybody's comfortable with him.

He's made nothing but played since he's gotten here, and even though he's not necessarily on the field, he's still preparing with that mentality that at any point in time he could be called. He had one of those games in Washington, he didn't stop the wild but the any Westerns to take from that, Yeah, I mean, especially because this running game is similar, you know, we talked about the different concepts. It'll be pretty much the same running attack.

So we talked about fitting our runs and getting population to the football tackling. There's not many teams that that's gonna be. Uh yeah, that's probably the number one key coming into this game, UM, is being in the right place on every play. And then when you are in the right place, get the ball carried down. UM. And then everybody's got to be running to the ball. And you know, those are things that we didn't do well that week, and we'll get a chance to kind of, um,

get another shot at that scheme. What are the some of the other thiings that impress you about Dak Prescott he just mentioned him earlier. What qualities because you have that kind of stand up, He doesn't make mistakes. I think we have one interception something like that. I mean, that's that's impressive at this point in the season for a rookie quarterback. That's usually where you see UM. You see their youth is in those mistakes or those turn turnovers. UM.

And he's played well. I mean, especially like I said, I think it helps that they got the number one Russian back and right behind him. UM. So those those keep some of those lanes open. But he makes good decisions with the football. He's mobile enough to extend and play. Um, he's changed calls that the line of scrimmage, so he has some freedom there. Um, he's doing a good job.

He's playing solid. Apaulie, You've probably been asked this air already, but going down into the slot that was something that you missed not doing. Can you talk about how you're you're looking forward to it. Yeah, I mean I'm obviously looking forward to I feel like that's probably, um, the best position for me. But similar to last year, it all comes down to what the matchups are and who we how we want to match up that personnel. Um,

so that it's a fluid package. Really at any point in time, you can see Jaylen Watkins, Jaylen Mills, myself, um, really anybody else. We have that for that fact down at the Nickel, just based on how we want to match things up. So right now we're kind of working that out to see what that five down or that's five dB package will look like. Um, but we're pretty much confident in in in any guy that we put in there. Basically as for a slot receivers in this

league right now. UM, I think he's I think he's getting better and better every year. So I think he's up there. If you watch him this year, he's having a really good year. UM. He's getting open, he's getting in the end zone. UM. So I mean he's he has a lot of respect for me. UM. I would probably I don't know what a number I put him right now, but he's definitely one of those um that if you're if you're a slot corner, you circle on your own your schedule said that Washington Dallas has similar

running games here. What do you see? What kind of concepts are they that are similar? Well, you get stretched run, You'll get you know, the power to run. Um some crunches. So a lot of the things that that we kept seeing was the U the open side power, whatever it is. I'm not a linebacker, but but it's one of those things where they if they get you cut out of a gap, that ball is downhill immediately and you know, so you don't have time to kind of make up

for that mistake. UM. And and that was one of the things that gave us trouble in in uh Washington, is you know, somebody gets cut out of a gap and then we're gashed. Um, whether it's to the overside, backside, or we overrun a crack toss. They run a lot of crack toss as well, and they don't just line up in you know, the formation that tells you crack toss. They'll motion to it, they'll um, you know, do anything to kind of disguise it, and all of a sudden,

the balls on the edge. So we're gonna have to be very dismalint especially we talk about our run fits gure facing. I think that's given perspective, given the fashion or provision Battle Division League, so I think like the Cowboys League and trying to balance all that album because you have the Division Battle the Road next at all. Um. I mean we talk about perspective. Our only perspective is that this is the only game we can play right now.

So everything we got, this is the biggest game ever. Um. Yeah, that's the only perspective that we have. So uh, we we embrace all of the hype that it's the Cowboys, it's on the road, it's the Division, um, you know, all of that. We embrace it because that's what it is and that's all we have right now. He's uh,

this number of games under his belt. Is that element of surprise or not knowing him because he's a rookie gone or is there still things that you can't you don't see about him yet because there's not that much film. My dad always told me, you don't know what you don't know, So I mean, all I can see from or all I know about Dak is what you see on tape and what he's done, and what he's done

is pretty impressive. He doesn't make mistakes, He's mobile enough to extend the ball or extend the play and make plays. He's very very accurate on the play action pass. And they got the number one running back in the league behind him, so, um, you know, if he if he has another trick up his sleeve, then that's probably gonna be unfortunate for us. But you know, we've we've got enough respect for him.