Jets defensive tackle Kris Jenkins worked hard to rehab from a knee injury that limited him to six games in 2009, only to get hurt in the first game of 2010. Now he’s hard at work to rehab again, even as he’s unsure of his status for 2011.
Jenkins is due $3.75 million in 2011, and he seems to have come to terms with the fact that the Jets aren’t going to pay that kind of money to a guy who turns 32 before the season starts and is coming off back-to-back serious knee injuries.
“I’m not even going to lie and act like that’s something I don’t think about,” Jenkins told Jenny Vrentas of the Star-Ledger. “When you’re looking at (the team’s) big strategy, I’m just one person. I’m not going to walk into a situation and be so arrogant to be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be fine because I’m Kris Jenkins.’ I wish. I like what I’m doing; I know when I’m healthy, I can play with the best of them. But I did get hurt two years in a row. It’s a decision they have to make.”
But the Star-Ledger story details just how grueling Jenkins’ rehab is, and Jenkins sounds like a man who’s putting in the work because he wants to leave football on his own terms. He should be healthy enough that he can play whenever the 2011 season starts, even if he can’t play at the Pro Bowl level he once reached. And even if he has to find a team other than the Jets.