The Dream Team. Just the sound of those words makes Cullen Jenkins bristle.
I dont necessarily agree with that term, Jenkins said Wednesday. I dont think its something that we want or need going in because we just need to be focused on getting better.
Jenkins signed with the Eagles on July 30, the same day backup quarterback Vince Young showed up at Lehigh and called the Eagles a Dream Team before he had taken a single practice snap.
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Young is a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback, but Jenkins has a little more on his resume. Hes a Super Bowl winner.
And he knows that labels like Dream Team dont belong anywhere near a franchise that hasnt won anything in half a century, that hasnt won a playoff game since 2008, that hasnt reached a Super Bowl in seven years.
Calling ourselves the Dream Team, that would indicate that weve done something or that were to a level that other people want to be at, Jenkins said. But in actuality, we just have talent on our team, but we havent done anything with the talent yet. So we need to go out there and prove something first before we can start talking about what we are.
Jenkins said the whole Dream Team concept gives off the vibe of, Weve already accomplished something, when in reality the Eagles havent accomplished anything.
You definitely have to go in there with that attitude of, Im going to come out here and Im going to prove to people and Im going to show people, Jenkins said. Not go out there with the attitude that, Were better, were going to do this or that. You cant have that attitude.
Jenkins spent seven years playing defensive tackle for the Packers before signing a five-year contract with the Eagles, so he was part of the Packer team that beat the Steelers to win last years Super Bowl. But along the way, the 2010 Packers learned a valuable lesson.
After a 2-0 startincluding an opening-day win over the Eaglesthe Packers went just 6-6 in their next 12 games and reached Week 15 at 8-6 with no assurance that even with two wins to end the season they would reach the playoffs.
Nobody used the exact phrase Dream Team to describe the Packers, but they certainly struggled with enormous expectations and with being mentioned in preseason as a Super Bowl pick.
Jenkins has seen first-hand what can happen when a team believes its arrived before it really has. And he wants to make sure it doesnt happen with his new team as well.
The 2010 Packers found their way into the playoffs by beating the Giants and Bears to finish the season, but they also needed the Lions to beat the Buccaneers in overtime in Tampa late in the season just to have a chance.
Once they got in? They still havent lost since. The Packers opened last years playoffs by beating the Eagles, Bears and Falconsall on the roadbefore topping the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV in Arlington, Texas.
We got on a roll there, we caught a wave of momentum, we had a confidence, Jenkins said. Especially the way we went through the season, where every game we lost was like by three points or came down to the last possession. So we knew there wasnt a team out there that we couldnt play with or that we couldnt beat, it was just a matter of would we finish the game, because we knew thered always be the opportunity there.
Once we got toward the end of the season, I think everybody made their mind up that its now or never, and we have no choice but to finish off these games.
The story of the 2010 Packers should provide a lesson, a terrific, valuable lesson, for a 2011 Eagles team dealing with the weight of expectations, dealing with that Dream Team label.
Going into (last year), everybody was pumping up how good we were and everybody believed the hype maybe a little bit and we didnt play as well as we should have, Jenkins said. And then once we got halfway through the season, we realized how hard it actually was. And people started doubting you and everybodys written you off and weve got our backs against the wall, and we (became) a different team.
We were playing as the underdog then, and once you have the mindset of an underdog, fighting its way up, its a whole different mind set, and I think thats soemthing weve got to have here. Weve still got to have that mind set that were an underdog, because we are.
Nothing was won here last year, so we still are underdogs. We have to fight up to that top spot, and thats the way we everybody needs to think.
E-mail Reuben Frank at rfrank@comcastsportsnet.com.