Are Mike Jenkins and Dallas owner Jerry Jones at odds over his injury?

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has sent out mixed messages about whether Mike Jenkins would play in the team’s season opener against the Giants.

Mike Jenkins says he will play when healhy

Jenkins has made it clear he won’t play unless he is one-hundred percent healthy; And by his calendar that doesn’t figure to have him ready for the Giants game.

The controversial owner told KRLD-FM in Dallas that he didn’t expect Jenkins to play and then contradicted himself by saying it would be an interesting scenario if the cornerback out of USF/Southeast High is cleared by his surgeon.

Jenkins played a good part of last season with the damaged shoulder and still performed admirably though he was in and out of games because of the injury. He was lauded by Dallas head coach Jason Garrett for his courage.

“He’s going to have his shoulder evaluated by his surgeon and it may be a little late in the pre-season for him,” Jones said. “I don’t think so (he will play). But that would be real interesting if we had an evaluation on him by this weekend. I’d like to have that problem to mull over.”

Jenkins doesn’t expect that to happen. He cannot practice until he is cleared by orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews. He is scheduled to meet him on September 2^nd two days before the Cowboys-Giants game.

Jenkins told DallasCowboys.com Wednesday that he is not going to rush things and will not play unless he is 100 percent healthy.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Jenkins said. “When I saw the doctor, he said four weeks (from the August 5^th surgery). So I’ve got to go back to the doctor and see what he says. But I’ll be 100 percent when I get back.”

There were reports that Jenkins is unhappy anyway because he figured to lose this starting job after the Cowboys acquired cornerback Brandon Carr and drafted LSU cornerback Morris Claiborne with their first pick in this year’s NFL draft. He denies that.

“Like I’ve said, no quotes ever came out of my mouth about being unhappy. There’s no frustration. That’s just people talking and assumptions,” Jenkins said. “I’m hurt and trying to get healthy. My time will come. I know I’m good enough to be on anyone’s team. The only thing I’m frustrated with is getting my shoulder right and going through this rehab.”

Garrett seemed to side with Jenkins on this one, particularly about him being ready.

“He needs to be able to practice football before he plays in Game One,” Garrett said Thursday. “We don’t have these hard and fast rules, if he doesn’t practice by this minute of this day, he can’t play in the game. That is not the way we do it. (But) we value practice. We value getting our guys ready to play. So, we understand the challenge he has coming back, having missed all the offseason and all of training camp, and we will treat his circumstance very individual and very specifically. But we believe in practice.”

 

 

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