Teven Jenkins Does End Up with the Bears, A Day Later than Hoped
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State offensive tackle Teven Jenkins is going to be a Chicago Bear it just took a day longer than he had hoped to wind up with one of the NFL’s oldest franchises. The Bears traded up on Thursday’s first night of the draft to the 11th pick and took Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields. Now, on Friday, the Bears used the 39th pick and the seventh pick in the second round to take some protection for Fields in Jenkins. The Bears traded up with the Carolina Panthers to get the selection. It also made Jenkins the first pick out of the Big 12 Conference.
“When they called me I started tearing up a little because that showed me all my hard work had come to fruition,” Jenkins said to the Chicago media in a quick zoom call after he was picked. “The first thing I did was hug my dad and we had a sentimental moment and then I just went around the room hugging everybody.”
“That shows you they really wanted him,” Oklahoma State offensive line coach Charlie Dickey said right after the selection.
Jenkins watched himself being selected from his hometown in Topeka with his family and his girlfriend as well as his agent Joel Segal. There were some 35 friends and family members at his sister-in-laws brother’s house watching the draft on four televisions and having a party.
The scouting report on Jenkins is a massive wide framed and wide shouldered tackle with brute strength (36 on bench press rep test). He has excellent feet, ballerina-feet on top of a near 6-6, 320-pound body. He ran a 4.99 in the forty with a 1.77-second 10-yard split and a 4.68 in the 5-10-5 agility drill. He was an All-Academic Big 12 honoree and that transfers to the field where he plays intelligent.
“The Bears were the first team to contact me on Teven,” added Dickey. “They were really asking a lot of questions and were hard after it and then I didn’t hear from them again. They must have had all they needed and they got the guy they wanted. I’m really excited because I know he is going to do great things. I’m really excited.”
Dickey agreed that his favortie NFL team should be the Chicago Bears because they have Jenkins and one of his best players he coached while the offensive line coach at Kansas State. Cody Whitehair is the Bears highest-paid offensive lineman and was a second round (56th) pick in the 2016 NFL Draft. Whitehair, like Jenkins, is a Kansas native haling from Abilene.
“Two great ones,” Dickey said. “They have two great ones in Cody and Teven.”
“I know I’m going to go up there and just keep putting out the effort,” Jenkins said. “I’m going to be around the facility and the weight room and keep my presence up so I can keep proving people wrong and prove the Chicago Bears did the right thing by drafting me.”
The dings and the NFL always has dings on players likely cost Jenkins a spot in the first round, that and the Bears ability to trade up to get Fields. His arms are shorter than most NFL offensive tackles. He sometimes plays hunched and relies too much on upper body strength. Some scouts believe his technique breaks down more against explosive arc speed. Most offensive tackles do see technique issues against explosive edge rushers.
Bottom-line Jenkins is big, strong, and very agile. His proof of performance in college is impressive. While he may be trying to convince the NFL that he is tough enough for their version of football, he understands the language that might get their attention.
“A dude who does not shy away from hits,” Jenkins answered on Pro Day when asked what the team that drafts him will be getting. “A dude who actually wants to get physical and a dude who’s going to bust his a$$.”
He went on to call himself a “nasty mother ******.”
Jenkins is arguably one of the most dependable linemen in college football over the past two seasons. They say the NFL Draft and the decisions made in it are not about college production, but able professional potential. In his final two seasons at Oklahoma State, Jenkins was part of highly productive offenses, but the analytics display just how trustworthy and dependable he was.
Pro Football Focus gave him an overall grade of 92 for the 2020 season, which was cut short when he opted out of the last three games including the bowl following a back injury in the loss to Oklahoma. In his last two seasons PFF had him not giving up a single sack in 623 pass block opportunities. He allowed two hits and two hurries in 2020 and no hits with seven hurries in 2019.
His run blocking is solid as he often drove his target five-yards or further off the ball on power runs and out of the hole in more deceptive run plays such as draws and play-action.
Jenkins came to Oklahoma State as part of the recruiting class of 2016 and although a two-time All-State selection in Kansas nobody knew how the Topeka High School product would develop. His first summer in Stillwater, he once told a strength coach that he did not respond well to yelling. Maybe not, but he would respond well to college coaching. In particular, Jenkins seemed to respond when Charlie Dickey came in before the 2019 season. Ironically, Dickey had tried hard to recruit Jenkins to his previous school at Kansas State.
“He’s always been very gifted, so the game came easy to him,” Gundy said of a time that did correspond with Dickey becoming Jenkins’ coach. “A year ago, nine months ago, it looked like he made a decision that he was going to have to play at a higher level to dominate at this level, which gives him a chance to play at the next level. So, I think that’s the transformation that he made.”
Jenkins red-shirted in 2016, but started three games in 2017 as a red-shirt freshman. His first start came against TCU at right tackle, but he started against Baylor and Texas at right guard.
Versatility was an attribute for Jenkins as he started all 13 games for the Cowboys in 2018, the first five at right tackle, but then after an injury to starter Arlington Hambright he moved to left tackle for three games before going back to right tackle. He was solid, but his best was yet to come. Now the hope his best is really yet to come in the NFL. They are about to make quite an investment in their certainty that it will be.