Eagles not exactly unified about chance to go to White House

PHILADELPHIA » A few details need to be taken care of but the Eagles have a plan in place to visit the White House June 5.

The entire team will make the trip to the Capitol, but the players who don’t want to go to the White House to be honored for their Super Bowl LII title by President Donald Trump will do something else. Hmm. Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are at Royal Farms Arena that day. There’s always the Sugar Shack in nearby Alexandria with the signature bacon-maple donuts.

“As a team, we’ll go down to D.C.,” Malcolm Jenkins said Tuesday. “You’ll have the ability to not go to the White House at all or go to the White House and do some other things that are yet to be determined. But we’ve always been flexible for guys to kind of do what they want as far as their passions or convictions. And we don’t see that changing.”

What a creative, all-American way to deal with this political football. Make the ultimate team statement, then break into groups. Five fist bumps, fellows.

Jenkins won’t visit the White House. He’s taken personally the President’s harsh criticism of players who demonstrated during the national anthem before games to draw attention to their social injustice agendas. All the Don’s tweetoric about how wrong it was for players to demonstrate made Jenkins more determined to grind until finally, the message was received.

It’s easy to forget the NFL was worried enough about its bottom line to address the demonstrations of Jenkins, and others. The league agreed to channel significant resources to social causes supported by the players. It brought an end to the anthem demonstrations, not the uneasiness.

If you want to make Eagles players uncomfortable, ask them about the White House trip. Most of the guys didn’t take part in the anthem demonstrations. They supported their teammates anyway, which is what you do when you trust someone.

Now it’s time to give the non-political Eagles a break. It’s wrong to accuse players who want to go to the White House of being insensitive to the pain felt by enemies of the President. That’s not their war.

Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz bravely stepped up and called the White House trip “a cool way to just receive the honor nationally and be recognized.

“I don’t personally view it like some people do,” Wentz said. “Everyone has their own opinion on it. I don’t view it as a political thing whatsoever. I don’t really mess with politics very often. But I think I will be involved in going to that.”

Wentz also is sympathetic to teammates like Jenkins and Chris Long, who stated they won’t attend a White House ceremony because they feel it’s an endorsement of the President. To each, his own.

“I know for me personally, if the team decides as a whole, most guys want to go or be a part of it, I will be attending with them,” Wentz said.

Jenkins defended the right of Wentz and the rest of his teammates to make their own decisions. Ditto Lane Johnson and Nigel Bradham. You could take a secret ballot in that locker room and the result would be unanimous.

It’s the will of the team. And now it’s the will of the non-politicos.

“Honestly, I’ve never been in the White House so I think the opportunity to go would be great,” Bradham said. “And we have the opportunity to go. A lot of us have never really been in there. It would be cool to see and learn a lot about all our presidents and just see everything that’s our history, America.”

Eagles head coach Doug Pederson has a sixth sense of what issues can divide a team. He was all over the anthem demonstrations from the outset, stating his opinion and urging his players to respect each other and stay together as a team. He called the White House trip “a great honor.

“I’m excited to be going and to be honored as world champions,” Pederson said. “We’re still working through some logistics right now so we don’t have all the details of the day. But I’m excited to be going.”

Pederson said player participation in the White House visit is “an individual decision.”

Jenkins, again, won’t be posing for pics with the President on the steps of the White House. He’s making the trip to D.C. to be with his team. It’s important. He’s just going to opt out of the White House portion.

At the same time, Jenkins defends the rights of his teammates to be part of a presidential photo.

“I think we understand there’s some guys that really want to go to the White House,” Jenkins said. “That have dreamt of winning the championship and being able to take their picture with the president. We don’t want to deny anybody that. There’s some guys that feel strong about not going. There’s some guys that are indifferent. So, I think what we’ll end up doing is just having a few options as a team.”

Contact Bob Grotz at bobgrotz@21st-centurymedia. com; follow him on Twitter @bobgrotz.