When Saints quarterback Drew Brees responded to a question about players kneeling during the playing of the national anthem by saying he was against disrespecting the American flag, his teammate Malcolm Jenkins was critical of Brees for misrepresenting what players were protesting with that action.
Brees heard from plenty of other teammates about the issue and apologized in a team meeting as well as in a message posted to social media. He went on to say that he knows that the protests were not an issue about the flag after being criticized by President Trump for apologizing.
Jenkins said that the conversations that took place around that time were what was needed around the United States of America and he reiterated that point on a video conference with reporters on Thursday. Jenkins also thinks that they helped bond the Saints together as a team.
“Yeah, I think if anything, the team was probably closer for it because we’ve had to have tough conversations and oftentimes, those adversities or those intimate kind of engagements, bring people closer, and I think this is no exception,” Jenkins said.
It remains to be seen how a closer Saints team will fare during the regular season, but it does sound like something productive came out of their conversations during the offseason program.
