Trash Or Nawl: Somebody Talk To They Mans Malcolm Jenkins

Welcome to Trash Or Nawl, a weekly column to help you weed through the Internet Muck. To do that, I’ll be breaking it down to a helpful binary: Is something trash? Or nawl? Topics here will involve sports and whatever else the hell I say is sports or sports adjacent. I’ll do my best to make sense of what’s going on each week, but the thing to remember is no matter what I say, most of these things are still trash.

You might say this is simplistic, and hell yeah it is. This is how I make sense of the chaos. Professional grade hating restores power to my powerless stupid fan hands. I give a middle finger because I’ve given up clapping.

Trash or Nawl criteria: We will pick a topic. We will breakdown why or why it isn’t trash. You can agree, you can comment or tweet your disagreements. Or we can fight. Really, it’s up to you.

Let’s get this outta the way real quick. The idea that Malcolm Jenkins, a safety for the Eagles who was the non-elected leader of a group of players who allegedly want the NFL to do something about issues facing folk of color in America, is ready to stop raising his fist is baffling.

And this is not one of those Yakubian “Stick To Sports” chest beatings y’all like to do on the internets. Jenkins was the preferred negotiating partner of the NFL, along with Anquan Boldin. He was a leadership choice for the Players Coalition, who newspaper columnists welcomed more than the radical image of Colin Kaepernick. Taking on such a role as a relative moderate is to immediately be at odds with those who support more radical reform. It makes sense that Eric Reid, Kaepernick and others have been disagreeing with Jenkins and his following.

While we decry the whitewashing and co-opting of player protests centered on calls to end systemic racism and police brutality, it must be understood that Jenkins’ rhetoric and actions have slowly aided this erosion of meaning. In mere months, he went from sideline protestor to league-approved power broker. It was sickening to watch. It is sickening to reckon with.

It is not enough that the league is handing out, basically, quarters to place a large “NFL Cares” sign over the state-sanctioned murders of black folk and more by police. To see that a man is willing to end his protest after the dispensation of such funds and even become a figure at odds with the beautiful acts of dissent that disrupted America’s holy football Sundays is disheartening.

If you do not wish to believe that Jenkins is selling out, I commend you. You have more patience than I. Or you are as naive as others. It was wonderful to have Jenkins here. His gorgeous displays on sidelines during Sundays will not be forgotten. But I insist you remember this moment. They do not appear out of thin air. They do not go away with prodding.

Verdict: Super Garbage

**puts shit-talkin cap byke on**

Look, breh, Crab gotta stop wearing these goofy ass chains. If you wear a goofy ass chain, yo goofy ass gonna get that shit swiped. It’s also kiiiiiinda dumb to then be mad that yo goofy ass got that goofy ass chain snatched because yo goofy ass shouldn’t of worn it in the first place.

I’m all about work-place thuggery when appropriate. And the NFL is basically one big-ass display of intended Work Place Thuggery. Everyone also should’ve known these two were gonna fight when they met up for several reasons:

Thankfully, we had Marshawn Lynch, apparently the nation’s best diplomat, to escort Uncle Aqib to the back of the club after he knocked all the drinks over. The only one here who won was Marshawn, as are the rules and customs of our current world.

Verdict: Not Trash

Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

That’s right, New York. Get ya chopped cheese and timbos and Wake Up Mad At Breakfast attitudes ready because IT’S GENO SMITH TIME IN THE BIG APPLE.

**gun sounds**

The only thing that actually makes me want to turn this on is the fact that:

If all you unseasoneds out there are actually angry some 36-year old dope who is the brother of the next senator from Tennessee isn’t playing a football game after being ungodly shitty for the whole year, I can’t actually help you. The Giants haven’t tried to start a black quarterback in the history of the world, and y’all actually mad a dude who look like a human piece of rubber isn’t throwing soggy footballs to practice squad players.

Y’all funny as shit. Fuck Eli. #TeamGeno

Verdict on Geno: Not Trash for #Reasons

Verdict on everything else: Trash

If you disagree with these verdicts, comment below. As stated earlier, you can agree, comment, tweet through your frustration or fight. Really, it’s up to you.