“For me wanting to be a football player, there’s always pressure that comes with that,” Kris Jenkins Jr. says two decades later “There’s always going to be pressure. That’s never going to change. But I’m blessed to have that mindset around me at a young age.”
Cullen Jenkins recalls a much more recent image. He saw it from one of the videos he glimpsed of Kris in the Bengals’ spring voluntary workouts.
“We’re a very silly family. Smiling. I think that’s where he gets his personality,” Cullen says. “A lot of people are always surprised after they meet you in person. That was you on the field? I work with kids and I’m a bigger kid than they are, but people don’t know there’s that switch inside. When that switch goes off, it’s all business.
“You can see it in his face. I was just watching him doing drills and you can just see the intensity you’ve never seen in any other part of life.”
The way it worked out, the 6-3, 300-pound Kris inherited much of his game from his 6-2, 305-pound uncle. He’s still seeking to add his dad’s ferocious frame of mind that topped off a mountainous 6-4, 360 pounds.
“His mindset is a gladiator’s and that’s an area I’m trying to work at, too. That gladiator mindset,” his son says. “It didn’t matter if you tried to double-team him, triple-team him. Whatever. He’s getting the job done. He doesn’t care who you are.”
When you mention Kris Jenkins Sr., the tones are reverential. Including from the younger brother.
“His dad was fierce,” Cullen Jenkins says.
Bengals special teams coordinator and assistant head coach Darrin Simmons was with the Panthers for the first two seasons of Jenkins’ career. He also worked in the weight room as well as assisting Carolina’s special teams.
“Super, super, super strong. He was a big, big, big man. Big,” Simmons says. “Super physical. Really held the point of attack.”
The son doesn’t have those 60 pounds, but Bengals defensive line coach Marion Hobby, seeking to replace nose tackle DJ Reader, has been impressed enough with his strength to talk to him about being one of the answers at nose tackle.